The "beggar-thy-neighbor" narrative, motivated by short-term political agendas in Washington, will inevitably collapse under the weight of real-world evidence.

by Zhong Guan

Recently, some U.S. media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal in a December 2025 article, revived claims that China pursues a so-called "beggar-thy-neighbor" growth model at the expense of the rest of the world. Such a narrative distorts reality and misrepresents observable facts.

Just consider, if China were truly advancing its interests at the expense of neighbors and partners, would it extend zero-tariff treatment to all 53 African countries with which it has diplomatic ties? Would it build solar mini-grids across Africa? Would it serve as the world's largest importer of integrated circuits? Or would it launch the Group of Friends of Global Governance at the United Nations just days ago?

The answer is self-evident: a true "beggar-thy-neighbor" actor would do none of these things.

DOMESTIC DEMAND AND INSTITUTIONAL OPENING UP

At the Central Economic Work Conference on Dec. 10 and 11, 2025, China reaffirmed its commitment to high-quality development through expanded domestic demand, institutional opening up, and stronger protection of foreign investors' legitimate rights. The conference issued a clear and direct call for accelerating the development of a unified national market, deepening services sector liberalization, and building a market-oriented, law-based and world-class business environment. These policies are a robust refutation of allegations of import suppression or market closure.

Facts speak for themselves. According to China's General Administration of Customs, China's trade in goods reached 41.21 trillion yuan (about 5.9 trillion U.S. dollars) in the first 11 months of 2025, up 3.6 percent year on year. With a 4.1-percent increase in November, trade in goods has registered 10 consecutive months of growth since February, even as global trade falters under geopolitical strain.

China remains the world's top buyer of semiconductors, while foreign companies such as Tesla, BASF and Samsung all announced new investments in China in 2025.

WIN-WIN COOPERATION RATHER THAN ZERO-SUM RIVALRY

China's regional diplomatic engagement consistently rejects the zero-sum logic. Through the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation mechanism, which is to enter its 10th anniversary in 2026, China and five Southeast Asian countries have jointly implemented over 700 projects in drought-resilient agriculture, digital trade and green infrastructure.

With ASEAN, China's largest trading partner for four consecutive years, cooperation spans from electric vehicle battery plants in Indonesia, solar micro grids in the Philippines, to AI talent hubs in Singapore. Mutual gains, not extraction, define the relationship.

In Central Asia, summit-level coordination has spurred joint ventures in green hydrogen, smart logistics and vocational training, with all five Central Asian countries now maintaining trade surpluses or near balance with China.

Globally, China has completed debt treatments for 23 heavily indebted poor countries, 17 of them in Africa. In November, China announced the cancellation of all 2025-due interest-free loans for these countries. On Dec. 4, 2025, President Xi Jinping announced a 100-million-U.S.-dollar humanitarian assistance package for Palestine to help alleviate the crisis in Gaza and support post-conflict recovery. This underscores China's consistent support for a two-state solution and its role as a responsible player in global crisis response.

On Dec. 9, 2025, China launched the Group of Friends of Global Governance at the United Nations, a voluntary group aimed at making global institutions more inclusive and effective. Dozens of countries from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe have expressed their support. Would a country bent on "selfish gains" create such a platform?

TRADE AND INVESTMENT AS DRIVER

China's trade and investment are generating upstream opportunities worldwide. In the first 10 months of 2025, China exported some 2.01 million new energy vehicles. These vehicles rely on lithium from Chile, cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo, chips from South Korea and software from Europe. Chinese automakers are also building localized assembly plants in Thailand, Hungary and Brazil, creating jobs and transferring know-how.

At the same time, in the first 10 months of 2025 alone, China imported 172.7 billion dollars' worth of agricultural products from Uruguay to Ethiopia, making it the world's largest agri-food importer for the eighth consecutive year. During the same period, China imported 32.1 billion dollars' worth of medical devices, supporting high-tech manufacturing and R&D ecosystems in Germany, Ireland and the United States, which together account for over 40 percent of China's medical device imports.

China is not a passive recipient of imports but an active builder of the world's largest import platform. For the eighth consecutive year, it hosted the China International Import Expo in Shanghai in November 2025, welcoming 4,108 enterprises from 138 countries and regions and signing intended deals worth 83.49 billion dollars, a 4.4 percent increase from the 2024 session.

A STABILIZING FORCE IN FRACTURED WORLD

While some major powers use "de-risking" to justify bloc politics, China continues to uphold multilateralism by supporting WTO reform, opposing unilateral sanctions, and deploying over 50,000 peacekeepers across 25 UN missions. It has played a pivotal role in facilitating China-Saudi-Iranian institutionalized dialogue, actively supported South Africa in hosting the first-ever G20 Summit on the African continent in November 2025, and is co-building climate-resilient infrastructure with Pacific Island countries facing existential sea-level threats.

The "beggar-thy-neighbor" narrative, motivated by short-term political agendas in Washington, will inevitably collapse under the weight of real-world evidence.

And the world is fully clear-eyed about this.

Editor's note: Zhong Guan is a PhD in international relations and a columnist of world affairs.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Xinhua News Agency.