Will China mend ties with India? Xi Jinping to counter Donald Trump with support of THESE countries...

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday pledged to strengthen the strategic relationships with neighbouring countries by “appropriately” managing differences and enhancing supply chain ties as the Trump administration escalated the tariff war with Beijing. In his first public speech after US President Donald Trump's steep global hike of tariffs, especially targeting China with 104 per cent on Chinese exports to America, Xi called for building a community with a shared future with neighbouring countries and striving to open new ground for China's neighbourhood work, state media reported.

Xi made the remarks at the high-level central conference on work related to neighbouring countries.The two-day conference on Tuesday and Wednesday was attended by top officials from the ruling Communist Party. In his speech, Xi systematically summarised the achievements and experience of China's neighbourhood work in the new era, scientifically analysed the current situation, and outlined the goals, tasks, ideas and measures for the next phase, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who presided over the meeting, stressed the need to thoroughly implement the spirit of Xi's important speech and earnestly carry out tasks in work related to neighbouring countries. The conference highlighted that China's vast territory and long borders made its neighbourhood a vital foundation for national development and prosperity, a key front for safeguarding national security, a priority area in the country's overall diplomacy, and a crucial link in building a community with a shared future for humanity, Xinhua report said.

The conference called for viewing neighbouring regions through a global perspective and strengthening the sense of responsibility and mission in advancing China's neighbourhood work. Trump's additional 50 per cent tariff, taking the overall levies against the Chinese exports to the US to 104 per cent, kicked in on Wednesday.

China vowed to fight to the end if Trump pursued the tariff measures. However, the country is yet to react to the additional 50 per cent tariffs by the US. China has been steadily recasting its neighbourhood policies as its relations with the US become increasingly strained.

According to reports, Xi is expected to visit Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia, all important neighbours of China. China recently wound down border tensions with India and sought to improve its relations with other neighbours like Japan and South Korea, bracing for tough times under Trump's presidency on trade and strategic fronts.
The India-China relations, which were frozen for over four years over the eastern Ladakh military standoff, showed signs of improvement after Xi met Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Kazan in Russia last October.

Since then, the two countries have held a series of high-level meetings to normalise relations. Recently, China held trade talks with South Korea and Japan, the first economic dialogue between the three countries in five years, to discuss regional trade facilitation as the countries braced for Trump's tariff announcement.

The trade ministers of the three countries discussed free trade agreements to promote regional and global trade. China is also ramping up trade relations with several other countries in the neighbourhood under its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Many Chinese observers warned the competitive trade nature between China and its Asian neighbours s since they are all export-driven economies with the US being one of their key markets -- could hinder Beijing's efforts to rally them, a dilemma further compounded by territorial disputes on both land and sea.

Experts have called on China to focus on expanding its domestic demand and increasing the commercial appeal of foreign products, thereby easing the existing geo-economics tensions with its neighbours and better countering the challenges posed by Trump, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University in Beijing, said Xi's remarks indicated Beijing's desire to deepen ties with neighbours in its backyard, which was part of a broader trend of “regionalisation”. Xi's comments showed China was “preparing for a US-China decoupling”, Wang told the Post. Dylan Loh, assistant foreign policy professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said while neighbourhood diplomacy has been an area that China has paid attention to, Xi has redoubled the efforts.

“This attention is not a result only because of US-China relations, and in fact predates most of the tensions we see between the two countries. The competition has now injected an extra dynamic for sure,” he said. “I believe that China will add extra urgency to its cultivation of neighbourhood because these are some of the countries that are hardest hit by Trump's tariffs,” Dylan said.

“One of the key messages Beijing seeks to send is that it will defend the rules of the international order. Beijing also wants to tout its economic strength and resilience and show how it can serve as a bulwark against protectionism," he said.  “I expect to see China push the narrative that the Chinese markets will continue [their] reform and openness, which will serve as a very stark contrast to the current Trump administration's approach,” he said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from PTI.)