Scholars dismiss Washington's protective trade policies towards Beijing

Scholars dismissed Washington's restrictive and protective trade policies against Beijing as "short-sighted", urging the United States to adopt more open stances.

They made the remarks at an event on Thursday, while casting a vote of confidence in the Chinese economy, believing it will overcome the pressure and contribute to world's economic growth through its high-quality development.

"The US building of 'small yards and high fences' will eventually 'backfire on itself'", said Shi Dan, director of the Institute of Industrial Economics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Her remarks were made against the backdrop of Washington's intensifying export curbs on advanced chip technology to restrict Beijing's access to it.

"Ostensibly, Washington to a degree achieves its aim to cut off high-tech exchanges with Beijing," she said while warning the US will also lose a dynamic market and application scenarios for its high-tech.

Speaking of the development of the global economy, Shi said: "Be they developed countries or developing ones, all countries should take more open policies."

"The experience over past decades proves that China still performs well regardless of various blockades," she said, adding Chinese industrial sector, featuring innovation-driven, high technology-led, digital transformation and green development, has achieved remarkable progress.

According to the Global Innovation Index 2023 released by the World Intellectual Property Organization, China outranks the US in the top 100 science and technology clusters.

"The high-quality development of China's industries not only injects strong forces to achieving Chinese modernization but also provides higher-quality products and services to the global market," she said, adding it also plays an important role in stabilizing the world economy.

Li Xuesong, director of the Institute of Quantitative and Technological Economics of CASS, underscored the trend of economic rebound and sound long-term trajectory has not changed, though China faces some unfavorable factors.

"I believe China will hit the ambitious growth target of around 5% for 2024 and contribute its part to the world economy," he said.

Noting China enjoys "an ultra-large market and the strong capacity in manufacturing", Li said that the Chinese government has taken multiple measures to promote the upgrading of demand and supply structure.

He highlighted the concept of "new quality productive forces", saying with innovation playing the leading role, China will step up the development of strategic emerging industries and future industries, as well as transform and upgrade traditional industries.

China will promote in-depth reform and high-level opening up to improve efficiency, Li said.

Li called for global enterprises to invest and do business in China and share the fruits and opportunities of its growth. "Otherwise, they will miss the development dividends."