“The invisible barriers put up by some people in recent years are becoming widespread and pushing the world into division and even confrontation,” Li said.
This is the first time since before the pandemic that the event has taken place in person, and Li’s first time on center stage. A former Chinese Communist Party boss in Shanghai who became premier in March, Li is close to Xi Jinping, the most powerful Chinese leader in decades.
Attendees include the prime ministers of New Zealand, Vietnam and Barbados, as well as Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director general of the World Trade Organization.
“Recent years of rhetoric by some people have stoked ideological prejudice and hatred and, as a result, we are seeing acts of encirclement and oppression,” Li told the forum.
His remarks come after the United States and other Group of Seven countries pledged to reduce their exposure to China, the world’s second-largest economy, adopting the term “de-risking.”
Li took direct aim at the strategy of de-risking — a term U.S. officials say is meant to show a desire not to completely decouple from China but to reduce potentially dangerous dependencies.
“If there is risk in a certain industry, it is businesses that are in the best position to assess such risk. Governments … should not overreach and they should not stretch the concept of risk to turn it into an ideological tool,” he said.
But it also comes as China struggles to restart its economy after three years of paralyzing “zero covid” policies.
China faces a serious property market downturn, unsustainable levels of government debt and rising unemployment.
Youth unemployment is particularly bad, with the rate for people aged between 16 and 24 hitting a record high of 20 percent last month, a figure that analysts say most likely does not capture the full picture of joblessness.
Residents have cut back on spending, moved out of major cities, and held off on investments such as new properties.
Li, who is in charge of China’s economic policies, sought to restore confidence in the Chinese economy as it struggles to recover. He said he was “fully confident” in his country’s economic prospects and that China was on track of meeting its economic goal of “around 5 percent.”
“China, as a responsible major country, has stood on the right side of history and the right side of progress,” he said.
Estimates for China’s growth this year range from 4.4 percent to more than 6 percent. On Monday, S&P Global cut its forecast for China’s growth for the year to 5.2 percent from its previous estimate of 5.5 percent.
While officials such as Li try to emphasize that China is again open for business, at home authorities have raided foreign consulting firms, cracked down on Chinese entrepreneurs and updated a foreign espionage law that left overseas firms wary of doing business here.
Authorities continue to keep a tight rein on information. On Monday, Wu Xiaobo, a popular blogger who writes about finance, was blocked from the platform Sina Weibo for posting “negative and harmful information” about Chinese economic policies.
