Development finance veteran urges multilateral response to Trump challenges

Former World Bank vice-president Zhu Xian says China needs to engage with all possible international stakeholders

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President Xi Jinping attends the third working session of the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on November 19. Photo: Alex Ferro/G20/DPA

Published: 12:30pm, 22 Nov 2024

Beijing’s relations with Washington have arrived at a new crossroads as Donald Trump’s “America first” approach dominates preparations for his second presidential term, a former senior Chinese official said, while adding that the challenges could also present opportunities.

Zhu Xian, a former World Bank vice-president and a former deputy head of the Shanghai-headquartered New Development Bank (NDB), said China’s response will demand not only a strong domestic market but also engagement with all possible international stakeholders.

Many countries, including China, are grappling with the looming threats posed by Trump’s tariff and climate policies, but Zhu said they could also open a window of opportunity for Beijing to elevate its global profile and move the needle on issues such as increasing the international role of China’s currency, the yuan.

“It depends on whether Beijing can bring forward an agenda … that can be supported by other developing countries, new emerging economies or even some developed nations,” the development finance veteran said in an interview with the Post on Tuesday.

Zhu, who started his career at China’s Ministry of Finance in the 1980s, spent more than two decades in multilateral development finance. He is now executive vice-president of the International Finance Forum, a platform for strategic dialogue, exchanges and cooperation.

He said China “should play smart”, warning that an eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth strategy risked creating a lose-lose situation in bilateral exchanges with the United States.