International community must prevent a trade war

The world will pay special attention to President Xi Jinping when he addresses his speech to almost 2,000 politicians, and business, media leaders and scholars from across the world at the annual Boao Forum for Asia in South China's Hainan province on Tuesday amid the escalating Beijing-Washington trade dispute.

Since US President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, the world has been concerned about his governance strategies and tactics. In contrast, China has been acting as a responsible world power. Last year, China exhibited its goodwill when Xi met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago resort in the US state of Florida. That meeting was followed by Trump's state visit to China last November and the Xi-Trump meeting at the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, in July.

But those high-level dialogues did not soften Trump's determination to ignite a trade war with China. Even the visits of Yang Jiechi and Liu He, both members of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, to the US to show China's sincerity in addressing the key issues of mutual concern through negotiation didn't have any effect on Trump.