China’s Xi says there are ‘no winners’ in tariff war as he visits Southeast Asia
China’s leader, Xi Jinping, started a week of diplomacy in Southeast Asia with a visit to Vietnam.
Monday’s move signalled China’s commitment to global trade just after US President Donald Trump upended the global economy with his latest tariff moves.
Although Mr Trump has paused some tariffs, China was the outlier, as the US leader has kept in place 145% tariffs on the world’s second-largest economy.
Mr Xi’s visit this week lets China show Southeast Asia it is a “responsible superpower in the way that contrasts with the way the US under president Donald Trump presents to the whole world,” said Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Iseas)–Yusof Ishak Institute.
China can also work to shore up its alliances and find solutions for the high trade barrier that the US has on Chinese exports.
“There are no winners in a trade war, or a tariff war,” Mr Xi wrote in an editorial jointly published in Vietnamese and Chinese official media.
“Our two countries should resolutely safeguard the multilateral trading system, stable global industrial and supply chains, and open and co-operative international environment.”
While Mr Xi’s trip likely was planned earlier, it has become significant because of the tariff fight between China and the US, the world’s two largest economies.
In Vietnam, Mr Xi will meet with Vietnam’s Communist Party general secretary To Lam, as well as the prime minister Pham Minh Chinh.
This is his third visit and comes just a year after he last visited in December 2023.
The timing of the visit sends a “strong political message that Southeast Asia is important to China,” said International Crisis Group Asia Deputy Director Huong Le-Thu.
She said that given the severity of Mr Trump’s tariffs and despite the 90-day pause, Southeast Asian nations were anxious that the tariffs, if implemented, could complicate their development.
“Xi’s trip is to showcase how China is the opposite to the coercive and self-interested US. There will be a lot of expectations about what type of leadership and initiatives China is going to come up with at this time of crisis,” she said.
Vietnam is experienced at balancing its relations with the US and China.
It is run under a communist, one-party system like China, but has had a strong relationship with the US.
In 2023, it was the only country that received both former president Joe Biden and China’s leader.
That year, it also upgraded the US to its highest diplomatic level, the same as China and Russia.
Vietnam was one of the biggest beneficiaries of countries trying to decouple their supply chains from China, as businesses moved here.
China is its biggest trading partner, and China-Vietnam trade surged 14.6% year-on-year in 2024, according to Chinese state media.
But the intensification of the trade war has put Vietnam in a “very precarious situation”, given the impression in the US that Vietnam is serving as a backdoor for Chinese goods, said Mr Giang, analyst at Singapore’s Iseas–Yusof Ishak Institute.
Vietnam had been hit with 46% tariffs under Mr Trump’s order before the 90-day pause.
China and Vietnam have real, long-term differences.
They have disputes over territory in the South China Sea, and Vietnam has faced off with China’s coast guard but does not often publicise the confrontations.
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