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At an Asia-Pacific summit, the Chinese leader urged countries to “resist unilateral bullying,” an appeal that seemed at odds with his country’s recent actions.
Oct. 31, 2025, 6:18 a.m. ET
China’s leader Xi Jinping, the de facto geopolitical heavyweight at an Asia-Pacific economic summit, on Friday courted countries for trade and investment, but also implicitly warned them not to join the United States in reducing the world’s reliance on Chinese supply chains.
President Trump’s departure from South Korea a day earlier meant that Mr. Xi was the sole superpower leader at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the city of Gyeongju. At the opening of the meeting, Mr. Xi could be seen smiling and shaking hands with world leaders and economic and finance ministers who came up to greet him.
He seized his time in the spotlight to pitch China, the world’s second-largest economy and a manufacturing powerhouse, to a room that included the leaders of Japan, Canada, Australia and the host, South Korea. He invited Prime Minister Mark Carney, recently spurned by President Trump, to visit China and even met with Japan’s new leader, Sanae Takaichi, who had been a prominent critic of Beijing’s efforts to expand its influence in the region.
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In a speech, Mr. Xi called for the strengthening of industrial supply chains, in a veiled criticism of attempts by the West to shift factories away from a dependence on China. He said that China would “adhere to the principle of ‘joining hands’ rather than ‘letting go,’ and ‘extending chains’ rather than ‘breaking chains.’”
In a separate speech to business leaders that was read out by a Chinese representative, Mr. Xi also took an indirect swipe at the United States, saying that APEC economies should “oppose protectionism, resist unilateral bullying, and prevent the world from returning to the law of the jungle.”
