Chinese Premier Li Qiang delivers a speech during the opening plenary session of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference on March 30, 2023, held in Boao, Hainan. Credit: Kyodo via AP Images
Back on the ground in China after zero-Covid, foreign business leaders face a challenge in their China strategy: Figuring out how much things have really changed — and what China’s leaders really want.
Chinese leaders have been clear in their words. In December Xi Jinping spoke of "the need to make sure that the first-rate foreign investment already in the country stays in the country, as well as to attract more high-quality foreign investment." At Davos in January, Liu He reiterated "foreign investments are welcome in China, and the door to China will only open up further." At the Boao Forum in March, new premier Li Qiang promised that “no matter how the international situation changes, China will unswervingly keep expanding our opening up”.
But the leadership’s actions threaten to speak louder than these words. Recent moves, all focused on professed Chinese security concerns rather than economic opportunity, send at best mixed messages. At worst they presage a much ha
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