No explanation as Xi Jinping unexpectedly skips his speech at Brics business forum
- Chinese commerce minister delivers the address instead; Xi had arrived in South Africa on Monday evening and met with the country’s president earlier on Tuesday
- China watchers express surprise and wonder if ‘something is amiss’
Chinese President Xi Jinping failed to show up at the Brics Business Forum on Tuesday in South Africa, where he was expected to deliver a speech alongside his counterparts. In his place, Commerce Minister Wang Wentao read the speech that criticised the US over its tendency toward “hegemony”.
Xi, in the speech read by Wang at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, said the US tended to fight countries that threaten its dominance in global affairs and financial markets.
The speech said that every country has a right to development and that people should have the freedom to pursue a happy life. But one country, he said in a thinly veiled swipe at the US, is “obsessed with maintaining hegemony, has gone out of its way to cripple the emerging markets and developing countries”.
“Whoever develops first becomes their target of containment. Whoever is catching up becomes its target of obstruction,” Xi added.
Although he had arrived in South Africa on Monday evening, Xi skipped the business forum and no explanation was given, prompting a reaction from China watchers.
Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific Programme at the German Marshall Fund, wondered if his absence meant something was “amiss”.