World Economic Forum 2025: Role of China in upholding global multilateralism

CGTN Europe's Juliet Mann spoke to Xue Lan, Dean of Schwarzman College in Tsinghua University.

Transcript

00:00Great to see you, Xu Lang, from the, well, you're the Chun Kong Chair at Xinhua University.

00:06So let's start with Vice Premier Ding's speech, which talked about China as a key engine for growth

00:12and the need to build a just world for common economic development.

00:16What stood out to you from what he had to say?

00:19I think the first thing is that his confidence is still in the economic globalization.

00:26So he talked about how that actually can bring the benefits to the world and the people.

00:31But at the same time, he acknowledged that, indeed, there might be some people and countries left behind.

00:39So he talked about how can we actually not only make the pie larger, but how to share the pie better.

00:46I think that's where he talked about how actually we can work together to build capacity in developing countries

00:55and to get them also up to the speed in the economic development.

01:00And maybe to give the global south a louder voice?

01:03A louder voice as well, exactly. So that's probably the first thing.

01:06The second thing, I think, he talked about China as the engine of the global economic growth.

01:10And he also acknowledged that China is facing some difficulties in making the transition,

01:16particularly to a high-quality economic growth.

01:19And he's very confident that the innovation capacity in China will help China and with the world

01:26to move to the high-quality growth.

01:30And the third thing I think is interesting.

01:32He talked about the AI, how AI can bring benefits, but also, at the same time,

01:39you have to watch about the potential risks.

01:41So he talked about China's approach to AI development.

01:45It's basically development and safety and security, two wheels to drive that development.

01:53At the same time, he also mentioned that China will not blindly compete for big models.

02:03China will try to use AI for the benefit of people rather than competing for big models.

02:09Let's talk about China's relationship with the U.S. quickly.

02:12The second-largest economy faces the possibility of tariffs now

02:18with the freshly inaugurated Trump in the White House.

02:21Having heard what Ding had to say, how do you see the relationship between China and the U.S. moving forward?

02:27I think Ding didn't really mention the U.S. directly.

02:31Indeed, he mentioned that China has been very much trying to keep the economy open.

02:39I think China's tariff on average is about 7.3, which is actually much lower than what people expect.

02:47So I think China wanted to continue in that.

02:50I think that's a tacit response to the trade threat, to the tariff threat.

02:58So I think that also, given the current interactions between the U.S. and China,

03:04we have the Vice President Han Zheng in the inaugural meeting.

03:09So I think, hopefully, that this might bring a new chapter of the U.S.-China relationship.