Lintao Zhang | Pool | REUTERS Lintao Zhang | Pool | Reuters

SHANGHAI, China — For the third time since U.S. President Donald Trump was elected, Chinese President Xi Jinping took to the global stage on Monday to repeat his rhetoric against protectionism and promote his country as an advocate for international openness and cooperation. While China has made some progress on opening up its economy to foreign companies, critics say the pace is still too slow and many of Xi's announcements have been in the works for some time. In fact, China's attempts to position itself as a champion of globalization fly in the face of its status as one of the most protectionist major nations. Despite that, Xi discussed at length during his highly anticipated address about the benefits of an open international economy,

"The economic and social well-being of countries in the world is increasingly interconnected. The reform of the global governance system and the international order is picking up speed," Xi said during his speech from the China International Import Expo. "On the other hand, the world economy is going through profound adjustment and protectionism and unilateralism are resurging. Economic globalization faces headwinds, and multilateralism and the system of free trade are under threat." To face those headwinds, Xi presented his country as one pursuing "a new round of high-standard opening up" and intent on widening "its market access to the rest of the world." In fact, he said, this week's expo "demonstrates China's consistent position of supporting the multilateral trading system and promoting free trade. It is a concrete action taken by China to advance an open world economy and support economic globalization." The Chinese leader said his country will seek to stimulate the potential for increased imports and will further lower import tariffs. He also pledged that China will speed up the opening of its education, telecommunications and cultural sectors. As it now stands, Asia's largest economy maintains extensive barriers for foreign firms looking to conduct business in those areas. The speech also briefly addressed the issue of intellectual property theft, which has been a chief complaint foreign firms have had about China. Xi pledged to "enhance" the punishments for such actions to "significantly raise the cost for offenders." Xi also acknowledged that parts of China's economy are facing challenges and uncertainty right now, but said the government is working quickly to address those issues and has improved in its overall ability to manage macroeconomic growth.