Kent Calder: China’s Role as Global Stabilizer
April 17, 2018: Exhibition of home appliances at the 123rd China Import and Export Fair (Canton Fair). The fair featured more than 60,000 exhibition booths and attracted over 25,000 companies from home and abroad to showcase their products and services. VCG“An open trading system is key to global prosperity,” remarked Kent Calder, director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins University, at the annual conference of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) on April 8, 2018.
Current tensions in China-U.S. trade have created greater risk to the world economy than Japan-U.S. trade conflicts in the 1990s because of the wider trade imbalance and stronger interdependency between the two economies, Calder noted.
He expressed anticipation that the two countries would conduct intensive negotiations in the coming months, adding that both China and the U.S. could change and modify their policies.
“No citizen in any country would want a trade war, nor would the multinational corporations,” said Calder. “An open trading system is important for both China and the U.S., the world’s two largest traders.”
Amid tensions and risks facing the world economy, global trade and financial systems need a stabilizer. “Every system needs a stabilizer,” Calder stressed. “China’s role as a potential stabilizer in the global system is very important.”
Calder noted that China, a firm supporter of free trade and investment, has been facilitating international trade and investmentwith its opening-up policies, standing against protectionism in any form. “China is stepping into the role of a stabilizer,” Calder said. “It is significant in terms of protecting the fabric of an open trading system.”
This year’s BFA annual conference was themed “An Open and Innovative Asia for a World of Greater Prosperity.” During the four-day conference that ended on April 11, innovation, like openness, was at the center of discussions by over 2,000 guests from 63 countries and regions including political leaders, business titans and academics.
Calder remarked that technological innovation is critical for all economies as it is for Asian economies, and multilateral cooperation should be promoted to advance technological innovation. He added that those who seize the opportunity to innovate will increase their global competitiveness.
On April 10, Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the BFA annual conference, which Calder attended. Xi called for people around the world to work together to build a community with a shared future for mankind and make Asia and the world peaceful, tranquil, prosperous, open and beautiful.
President Xi is a global leader who cares not just for the future of China but for the whole world, said Calder. According to him, the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind demonstrates Chinese wisdom in addressing global challenges. 
April 8, 2018: Kent Calder, director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins University, meets the press at the annual conference of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) in Boao, southern China’s Hainan Province. by Chen Ye