China’s Xi to visit Southeast Asia as trade conflict with US widens

BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping will embark on a three-nation Southeast Asia tour next week in his first overseas trip this year to consolidate ties with some of China’s closest neighbours as trade tensions with the United States escalate.

Xi will visit Vietnam from April 14-15, and Malaysia and Cambodia from April 15-18, state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

China, slapped with 145% US tariffs since President Donald Trump took office this year, is quickly moving to reinforce relations with other countries similarly lying in the shadow of Washington’s damaging trade levies.

Some of the countries hit by Trump’s reciprocal tariffs – Cambodia by 49%, Vietnam by 46% and Malaysia by 24% – have already begun reaching out to the United States for a reprieve, leaving China an outlier among the bilateral negotiations as tensions between Beijing and Washington continue to flare.

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The rare bilateral visits to Southeast Asian nations mark a high-profile personal diplomatic outreach for Xi.

Earlier this week, the Chinese president pledged to deepen “all-round cooperation” with China’s neighbouring countries.

Xinhua news agency said it was set to run feature articles on Xi’s visit to Southeast Asia, including pieces on how “flowing water cannot be severed” between China and Malaysia, and Xi and his “ironclad friends” from Cambodia.

In the days before and after Trump’s reciprocal tariffs took effect on April 9 – most of which have since been paused except for China – Beijing had already started to persuade regional blocs around the world to hold a common line against the punitive US levies.

Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao held video calls with his counterparts from the European Union and Malaysia, as well as Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

Earlier this week, Premier Li Qiang spoke with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on the phone, during which they emphasised Europe and China’s responsibility to support a “strong reformed trading system, free, fair and founded on a level playing field”.