The 6th China International Import Expo opened in Shanghai on November 5th, with not only the largest delegation of 17 manufacturers led by the US Department of Agriculture, but also Australian Prime Minister Albanese attending and delivering a speech. Analysts believe that China intends to use this CIIE to repair its relations with Western countries, but due to weak domestic consumption and increasingly tightening national security regulations, the benefits it can bring to the West are limited, and it may not be able to do so.
On the morning of the 5th, Chinese Premier Li Qiang attended the 2023 China International Import Expo (CIIE) and delivered a keynote speech. In his speech, he recounted the achievements of the first five CIIE exhibitions, including 131 countries and international organizations participating in national exhibitions since 2018. The actual number of participating companies reached 15800, and this year, more than 3400 companies participated.
Li Qiang stressed that this year is the 45 years of China's reform and opening up. From joining the WTO to putting forward the the Belt and Road Initiative, China has never stopped its pace of opening up to the outside world. He also stressed that China has a population of more than 1.4 billion, of which more than 400 million are middle-income groups. The market demand potential is huge. In the next five years, China's imports of goods and services are expected to total 17 trillion dollars.
The Opening of the China International Import Expo: US China Relations Became a Focus
For the first time in history, the United States has formed the "strongest delegation" under the official name of this year's CIIE, including state governments, associations, and food processing, with up to 17 exhibitors. The report on the official media's Weibo video account "Yuyuan Tantian" also deliberately highlights this main axis. Therefore, the US China relationship has naturally become a topic of concern at the CIIE.
Li Qiang shared a story about the CIIE in his speech. In 2018, an American essential oil manufacturer made its first exploratory exhibition and received 380 million yuan (RMB) in orders for a 9 square meter booth. This year, the company expanded its booth to 200 square meters and the procurement amount also climbed to 1 billion yuan.
On the first day of the launch, Hong Kong's Wen Wei Po reported that the Shanghai trading group's "first order" results were announced, and a purchase order of $300 million was reached with Dow Group in the United States.
US Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, stated in an interview on Monday (November 6th) at the opening event of the US Food and Agriculture Museum that he is delighted to be in Shanghai to participate in the World Expo, which also demonstrates the US's commitment not to seek economic decoupling between the US and China.
Hu Yishan, Chief Advisor of the Pacific Research Center in Malaysia, stated in an interview with Voice of America that the interaction between the United States and China presented at this expo is like the old Chinese saying "one is willing to fight, one is willing to fight", so it hit it off immediately. He said that many agricultural states in the United States are looking forward to the Chinese market, and China is actively creating a good atmosphere for the possible visit to the seminar.

In violation of the 7-year visit of the Australian Prime Minister to China to attend the CIIE
Compared to the US agricultural delegation, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese arrived in Shanghai on November 4th for a 4-day visit to China, becoming the first Australian Prime Minister to visit China after seven years of neglect.
At the opening ceremony of the CIIE, Albanese became the first foreign leader to deliver a speech, following Li Qiang. In his speech, he pointed out that Australia China relations have become increasingly important in recent years, and bilateral economic and trade relations have developed very well in 2022 and 2023. He emphasized that there are still many things that can be done in the future, "we need to find common interests
Australia China relations fell into freezing point during the tenure of former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Since 2018, Albanese's visit has attracted special attention because Australia has banned Huawei from participating in 5G infrastructure bidding, criticized Beijing for suppressing social transport in Hong Kong, and asked for COVID-19 virus traceability, which has led to China's trade counterattack and stopped importing coal, alcohol and other commodities.
Professor Shi Heling from the School of Business at Monash University in Australia believes that Australia's largest exports to China in the past were iron ore and education, with education being replaced in India. However, China's demand for Australian iron ore cannot be replaced by other countries.
Albanese's mission during this trip is not only to reorganize the economic and trade relations between Australia and China, but also to address the situation where Australian goods such as red wine, beef, and lobster have been unfairly treated by China due to diplomatic frictions. He should also continue to try to rescue Yang Hengjun, a Chinese Australian citizen detained on espionage charges.
In contrast, Shi Heling believes that the current weak economy is undoubtedly the main reason why China is willing to repair its economic interaction with Australia. However, he also emphasizes that the resumption of negotiations in the economic and trade field does not mean that Australia's participation in the Australian Anglo American Trilateral Security Partnership (AUKUS) or the US Japan India Australia Quadripartite Security Dialogue (Quad) in geopolitics may shake.
My personal judgment is that Albanese does not want to make any changes in regional (geopolitical) politics. The only purpose of going to China is to improve economic and trade relations, but in terms of regional politics, there should be no progress
The European Chamber of Commerce in China has investigated and approved the entry into the Expo as a "political showcase"

However, after five years, the feelings of participating countries seem to differ.
On the eve of the opening of this year's Expo, the Shanghai Chapter of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China released its survey results on November 3rd, criticizing the CIIE as a "political showcase" for the Chinese government, and stating that foreign companies are disappointed with the limited benefits of participating in the CIIE.
The report points out that the European business community had originally hoped that the CIIE would help reduce the trade deficit between Europe and China, but the opposite has happened in the past five years. China's exports to Europe have almost doubled, with a trade deficit between Europe and China of nearly 400 billion euros in 2022, an annual increase of 58%, and a record high in global history.
The survey report urges China to redefine the CIIE as a tool for balancing trade between China and Europe, rather than just symbolically talking about market reforms.
During an interview with VOA, Zeng Weifeng, an assistant researcher at the Center for Political Relations in Taipei, stated that the CIIE was founded during the raging trade war between the United States and China. It was originally a politically meaningful move aimed at declaring that China would adopt a more open policy, in contrast to what it accused the United States of being called "unilateralism".
Zeng Weifeng believes that the complaints of European companies are not surprising, as since China's accession to the World Trade Organization, the main force of Chinese people's consumption of European goods has focused on areas such as automobiles and luxury goods that are difficult to replace with domestic products. For general people's consumption, expensive imported goods still lack competitiveness.
Malaysian scholar Hu Yishan also holds a similar view. Hu Yishan believes that in the absence of trade barriers imposed by China on European consumer goods, European companies may also need to examine "selling things so expensive, who has the ability to buy them?" He also pointed out that in recent years, China's economic growth has slowed down, further limiting the Chinese people's purchasing power for high priced goods.
Zeng Weifeng analyzed that the biggest problem in China now is that the downward trend of the economy is difficult to reverse, coupled with issues such as real estate thunderstorms and high youth unemployment that need to be addressed. Therefore, timely opening up the market to meet the needs of Europe and America to reduce diplomatic conflicts is in China's interest. However, the key is still that the sluggish economy leads to low consumer willingness among the people, and even if opened up, there is no money to buy.

On the eve of the CIIE, there were successive reports of US companies withdrawing from China
Even more awkwardly, just before the CIIE, Bloomberg News Agency reported on November 4th that Vanguard Group, one of the largest fund management companies in the United States, is taking the final step to exit China, citing the weak Chinese economy and the implementation of the Anti Spy Act, which puts foreign companies at risk.
At almost the same time, the Financial Times also reported that Gallup, a consulting firm, would withdraw from China and close all local offices.

Fan Shiping told VOA, "What's more troublesome now is that many of China's politics and economy are contradictory. Perhaps in terms of economy, it needs to communicate with the United States. However, politically, it is also very concerned about foreign forces, so when we see the previous anti espionage laws or something, it's like you hit the right hand with your left hand
Fan Shiping pointed out that Taiwanese enterprises have a better understanding of the Chinese market than other foreign businesses. According to data from the National Taiwan Enterprise Federation, only 20 Taiwanese enterprises participated in this exhibition, a decrease of 81% compared to the more than 110 Taiwanese enterprises in the first China International Import and Export Fair. This indicates that the situation may not be optimistic.