The message was not very different from what Xi had already conveyed to the Canadian Mark Carney, the Frenchman Emmanuel Macron or the British Keir Starmer. And not what they all went looking for in Beijing. “When one of the world’s superpowers becomes a completely unpredictable pariah state, it makes sense to reduce dependence on it. One way to do this is to engage more closely with the other superpower: China”, summarized a few days ago Vince Cable, former leader of the Liberal Democrats and former UK Minister for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, in an article published on the Comment Central website and titled “Pilgrimage to Beijing”.
With Europe – and the rest of the world – still trying to calculate the impact of Donald Trump’s US-imposed tariffs, even after the Supreme Court declared them illegal, it is not surprising that the leaders of the world’s major economies are turning to China. It’s true that the US remains by far the world’s largest economy, but with 2.4% growth forecast for 2026, it continues to see China – which the International Monetary Fund predicts will grow 4.5% (far from the double digits it maintained for three decades following Deng Xiaoping’s reforms) – catching up.
If we want to continue looking at the numbers, just think that for the United Kingdom, Germany and France the IMF predicts growth of 1.3%, 1.1% and 1% respectively. Critics, of course, will say it’s not all numbers. But the truth is that this parade of Western leaders promises to reach its peak in late March, early April, when Trump himself will travel to Beijing to join Xi in shaking hands in front of the Chinese and American flags placed at the Diaoyutai Guest House. It’s just that even the one that the world is still getting used to not seeing as the leader of the free world has already realized that it can continue to present China as a great rival, but it cannot afford to ignore it.
Executive editor of Diário de Notícias
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