China has sought to reassure chief executives from some of the world’s biggest companies that its economy is resilient and welcoming to foreign investment. Vice Premier He Lifeng told top executives from companies – including Apple, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and AstraZeneca – attending the China Development Forum in Beijing that the country was willing to open its market further to foreign investment.
“China remains committed to expanding high-level opening-up of market, improving the business environment and welcoming more multinational companies to deepen their investment in China,” he said.
More than 80 foreign executives came to the two-day event and although Americans were the biggest group, they were fewer than last year. By contrast, there were more representatives from the European Union and Japan than in 2024.
The forum comes amid growing uncertainty about the global economy ahead of the next wave of tariffs Donald Trump plans to impose on America’s trading partners at the beginning of April. Since his return to the White House two months ago, Mr Trump has imposed a 20 per cent tariff hike on China, accusing Beijing of not doing enough to stop the export of chemicals used to make the drug fentanyl.
Scott Kennedy, the top analyst of Chinese business and economics at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said Trump’s tariffs and China’s retaliation could be part of a negotiating process between the world’s two biggest economies.
“The negotiation doesn’t necessarily mean that you just talk. It may also mean that you impose penalties to try and increase your leverage. And so both sides might be doing that. So the negotiation process may look a little bit messier and nastier than many of the typical kinds of negotiations that we observe,” he told The Irish Times.
“I think the level of trust is quite low on both sides, and that is a real obstacle to achieving a negotiated outcome. Because if you don’t trust the other side, then you may not be willing to offer as many concessions, and then your willingness to implement your own concessions may be conditional as well. And both sides may be looking past the other, particularly China looking past Trump and saying, well, maybe what we might want to do is just endure pain for several years and perhaps in 2028, someone else will be elected and the demands will change.”
China reported another success in its rivalry with the US over artificial intelligence after Ant Group, backed by Alibaba founder Jack Ma, said it used Chinese-made semiconductors to train AI models. The company said it got similar results to advanced microchips from Nvidia at a lower cost, saving about 20 per cent.
Washington has sought to limit China’s access to the most advanced semiconductors, pressuring firms in Europe and Taiwan to do the same. But the success of DeepSeek’s R1, which is reported to perform as well as much more expensive AI models, and now of Ant’s technology, suggest that China remains a challenger to the US for primacy in AI.
