Reuters
BOAO, China (Reuters) - 'China is open for business' was the message its newly-appointed Premier Li Qiang delivered this week to the Boao Forum, an international summit sometimes touted as Asia's answer to the World Economic Forum's meetings in Davos. But unlike the gaggle of global leaders, celebrities and CEOs that descended on the Swiss Alps in January, the foreign contingent in Li's audience were outnumbered by a local crowd of Chinese business leaders, academics and China-based diplomats. The scene partly illustrates the disconnect between Beijing's repeated entreaties for foreign investment now that three years of COVID curbs have ended and the intensifying suspicions, especially in Western countries, of China's business environment.