For China, quiver full of anti-protectionist arrows

Despite headwinds from Washington's "reciprocal tariff" strategy, China's economy is expected to remain on a steady track given its advantages such as competitive manufacturing, large market scale and sufficient space from using more policy tools — which should be given key roles at present — to hedge against the impact brought about by external challenges, recent research shows.

The US tariff policy has caused widespread harm not only to itself — with higher stagnation risks and fallout on US dollar assets — but also to the global trading system. In this case, China needs to, and is able to, maintain its economy on a steady track by enhancing policy support to cushion against external disruptions, according to a recent research report by CICC Global Institute (CGI), a research body under China International Capital Corp Ltd.

CGI said in the report that it sees room for stronger policy support to stabilize expectations, protect market players, expand domestic demand and improve people's livelihoods, including expanding central government leverage and lowering interest rates.