Ahead of UK visit: Xi Jinping acknowledges misgivings about Beijing-London relations but says solution is in increasing overseas trade and also... football
While trade and investment are top on the agenda for the Chinese President's four-day Britain trip, China is also looking at other less obvious areas of cooperation
Xi Jinping acknowledged that China’s leaders are concerned about the economy but described the problems as “growing pains”, as he prepared to leave for his first state visit to the UK, bringing with him billions of pounds of planned investment.
In the wake of stock market jitters that rocked China and the wider region recently, and with imminent growth figures likely to confirm the slowest growth rate since 2009, the Chinese president said China was looking to external deal-making with countries like Britain as a way of diversifying its economic base.
“We do have concerns about the Chinese economy, and we are working hard to address them,” Xi said in written answers to questions put by Reuters on Saturday. “We also worry about the sluggish world economy, which affects all countries, especially developing ones.”
The solution, he said, was opening up the Chinese economy to more foreign investment and encouraging the country’s firms to invest overseas. The four-day visit to Britain, which officially starts on Tuesday, is aimed at facilitating both. About 150 deals are expected to be sealed this week in areas such as healthcare, aircraft manufacturing and energy.
China has been basking in its role as the motor of global growth and a generator of wealth and jobs envied by the other big powers. But beneath the headlines lurk persistent questions about the sustainability of Chinese economic power: the stock market volatility that rattled the authorities this summer, a mounting regional debt bubble fuelled by years of cheap money, faltering exports, and weak consumer confidence.
“We have warned for years that China was at risk of a hard landing,” said experts at Fathom , a London economics consultancy. “Since June, when China’s stock market first started to falter, sentiment surrounding China and its prospects for growth have deteriorated markedly. Many now widely dismiss China’s official GDP statistics as little more than propaganda.”
