"Protectionism is not the answer. The constructive solution is to welcome investment from #China# and boost our own exports to China," said Sebastian Wood, chair of the China-Britain Business Council, as he shared his views on China-UK economic and #trade# cooperation at the "Big Market for All: Export to China" event in London on Wednesday.

Protectionism is surging globally, with nearly 10x more tariffs than in 2008. The U.S. is part of the trend, but G20 peers have increased trade barriers even more. The real risk: less free trade, higher costs, and a poorer global economy.

At a time of rising unilateralism and protectionism, China remains as committed as ever to further opening up. China does not seek to move faster by going alone. Rather, we want win-win cooperation with all countries so that we can go far together.

Former WTO head Pascal Lamy still prefers negotiated rebalancing to protectionism, but he now acknowledges that if China will not rebalance, European governments may be forced to implement protectionist tariffs.

China’s Commerce Minister Wang Wentao called on the EU to keep its markets open to Chinese automakers and avoid protectionism to ensure a “fair, open and non-discriminatory” environment

If Anthropic is right and distillation is impossible to prevent, it follows that the strategic value of anyone opening a lead on frontier model capabilities is short-lived, and national security arguments for protectionism fall apart. If china pulls ahead we can distill them!

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis: When you look at China, important decisions need to be taken when it comes to the survival of our manufacturing base in Europe. I'm not in favor of protectionism per se. Many of the problems of European competitiveness are not related to China. But one cannot ignore the fact that China currently accounts for 30% of the world's manufacturing capability and 14% of the world's economy. We cannot afford, especially in critical sectors where we retain a competitive advantage, to be flooded by Chinese goods that would eventually result in hundreds of thousands—or even millions—of jobs being lost in Europe.

In the second half of this dialogue, I debated with Koo on the spot the solution proposed in Koo's (Richard Koo / 辜朝明) book regarding how to address trade protectionism and global trade imbalances. Simply put, China's export advantage does not stem solely from an undervalued exchange rate. Therefore, even a substantial appreciation of the renminbi would not eliminate this advantage. And look, this year the renminbi has clearly appreciated, yet the trade surplus continues to hit record historical highs.

Chinese FM Wang Yi held a phone conversation with French FM Jean-Noël Barrot. Wang said that the one-China principle is the political foundation of the China-France comprehensive strategic partnership. China hopes that the French side will uphold the one-China principle through concrete actions, refrain from any form of official engagement with China’s Taiwan, and send no wrong signal to “Taiwan independence” forces. Protectionism will not enhance Europe’s competitiveness but will instead deprive consumers of high-quality and affordable products, drive up inflation and hamper the process of green transition. China is one of the world’s largest markets and China’s development presents an opportunity rather than a challenge for the #EU#. 🔗