Li Keqiang at a meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, Nov. 21, 2019.
Amid tensions between China and the United States, Li Keqiang recently visited the China-Europe Center in Chengdu, Sichuan province, to shout at foreign companies and emphasize cooperation and openness. Earlier, Li also shouted to U.S. entrepreneurs that he hoped the United States would not disassociate itself from the Chinese Communist Party.
On April 20, Li Keqiang visited the China-Europe Center in Chengdu and met with 14 business representatives from different national industries, including Germany, France, the Netherlands, Hungary, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and India, according to the Chinese Communist government website.
Li re-iterated that “China (in total) will adhere to its policy of opening up to the outside world as always, and the door of opening will be opened wider and wider.”
Li Keqiang’s shout-out to European entrepreneurs, emphasizing the need for cooperation with the world, drew public attention at a time when concerns between China and the EU are growing tense.
Recently, due to the human rights issue in Xinjiang, the EU sanctioned the CCP for the first time after the June 4 Tiananmen massacre in 1989, targeting China’s human rights issues.
The Chinese Communist Party misjudged the situation and retaliated against many European parliamentarians by “lifting a stone and smashing their own feet”, and the European Parliament cancelled a discussion on the China-EU investment agreement.
The sanctioned lawmakers shot back in unison, saying, “We don’t eat the Chinese Communist Party’s way. And he said he would continue to focus on human rights issues in China, and on Xinjiang and Hong Kong.
Chinese American scholar Minxin Pei wrote in The Strategist, an Australian publication, on April 8 that the Chinese Communist Party’s blacklisting of European parliamentarians and members of academic and research institutions is undermining the hard-earned deepening of the China-Europe trade partnership.
Pei Minxin said that the CCP’s simultaneous decoupling from major Western economies, including the United States, is tantamount to making enemies of the world, and “China [the CCP] cannot afford it.
Not only has the CCP screwed up relations with Europe, it has also led to a further deterioration of U.S.-China relations. At the Alaska talks, the Chinese diplomats’ war-wolf style performance made the U.S. political circles and the international community refresh their perception of the CCP’s rogue regime once again.
Since then, the U.S. has continued to show a tough stance toward the CCP and has joined forces with allies such as Japan, the UK, the EU, and Canada, and is forming a concerted effort to deal with the CCP’s threats and challenges in the areas of human rights, economics, technology, and the military.
The Chinese Communist Party is also apparently feeling the plight and pressure of being caught in a quadripartite struggle. When Li Keqiang attended the U.S. Business Leaders’ Video Dialogue on April 13, he urged the U.S. not to decouple from the Chinese Communist Party’s economy.
At the meeting, which was attended by the U.S.-China Business Council and the chairmen and CEOs of more than 20 leading U.S. multinational companies, Li shouted to U.S. companies that “decoupling” would not benefit anyone.
He also claimed, “Problems that arise in cooperation have to be solved in cooperation.”
Commentator Yang Wei wrote that during Li Keqiang’s eight years as premier, he was unable to intervene directly in U.S. relations and basically did not speak against the United States. The reason for Li’s sudden appearance in the U.S. is that the stalemate in Sino-U.S. relations has resurfaced, and the top echelon of the Chinese Communist Party has no choice but to push Li to the forefront as well.
On the same day, Chinese ambassador Cong Peiwu told the Council on Foreign Relations in Montreal that he was “worried” about the growing calls in the West to disassociate with the Chinese Communist Party and suggested that the Communist Party should “strengthen cooperation” with Canada.
On April 20, Xi Jinping also made a rare reference at the Boao Forum to two major concerns: “building a wall” and “decoupling,” and implied that the United States should not “lead the pace” for the entire world. Some analysts believe that the same comments from the highest level of the Chinese Communist Party reveal that “decoupling” from the world is one of their biggest concerns at the moment.
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