June 14, 2020

China took a concrete step over the weekend to further open up its $45 trillion financial market to foreign investors, as the country's central bank issued a license to US credit card company American Express to clear transactions in the Chinese mainland, the first of such licenses for any foreign institution in line with the country's long-term opening-up policies.

The latest move from the Chinese side, which followed a series of recent opening-up measures, came at a time when the US is actively cracking down on Chinese companies and seeking to shut the door to the US financial market for Chinese investors in what Chinese officials and experts call a bid to contain China's rise, with the bilateral relationship being at its lowest ebb in decades.

The starkly different approaches taken by the world's two largest economies also encapsulated the shifting trend of the global economic power structure propelled by rising tensions and a public health crisis. While the US is increasingly losing its grip in face of a flurry of domestic social, political and economic woes, China maintains remarkable strategic focus on its long-term development path, despite its own considerable challenges, Chinese analysts noted.

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