‘Prepare for the worst': China minds, on guard against US punches, stress need for talks
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With exporters rushing to secure US-bound shipments during the 90-day truce period, many ex-official and policy advisers have urged the government to guard against any future barrage of American punches, and to also rally the support of major trading partners and forge stronger relations with Global South nations.
Zhang Jun, former Chinese ambassador to the United Nations, called the
China-US talks in Geneva a positive development, but he explicitly warned that the tariff war – with Washington's tariff levies having risen as high as 145 per cent and effectively bringing bilateral trade flow to a halt before the truce – has already inflicted deep and lasting harm.
'The situation could evolve further, so we need to remain highly vigilant to prevent global order from slipping into chaos and to avoid greater instability on a global scale,' he said at a forum held by Centre for China and Globalisation, a Beijing-based think tank.
He underscored the necessity of reforming international institutions – a complex and time-consuming endeavour – and called for stronger regional cooperation.
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'If the current international institutions continue to fail to function, there will definitely be a vacuum, and some troublemakers would make use of that vacuum and to create more problems,' he said. 'I am not pessimistic, but we have to prepare for the worst and try our best to prevent the worst from happening.'
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