By He Yin, With its door opened wider to the rest of the world, China demonstrates strong appeal to foreign investors and continues to serve as an important engine for global development and prosperity.
Against the backdrop of rising anti-globalization sentiments and mounting unilateralism and protectionism, China perseveres in expanding high-level opening up, turning China’s enormous market into enormous opportunities for the world.
In the first seven months of this year, the total value of China’s foreign trade in goods reached 24.83 trillion yuan ($3.48 trillion), up 6.2 percent year on year.
During the same period, the number of newly established foreign-invested enterprises nationwide reached 31,654, which represents a year-on-year growth of 11.4 percent.
The upcoming fifth Qingdao Multinationals Summit to be held in Qingdao, east China’s Shandong province, has confirmed the participation of nearly 500 representatives from multinational companies, indicating a larger “circle of friends” for China.
China’s development path is based on the country’s realities. It is a path that puts people’s interests first and pursues reform and innovation, and also a path of pursuing common development through opening-up.
China is committed to its fundamental national policy of opening to the outside world and pursues a mutually beneficial strategy of opening up. It continuously enhances the interaction between its domestic market and overseas markets, striving to deliver more benefits to other countries and peoples while promoting its own development.
In recent years, China has established 22 pilot free trade zones, built the Hainan free trade port, and promoted the signing and implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement, building a globally-oriented network of high-standard free trade areas.
China has also frequently shortened its negative lists for foreign investment; relaxed market access restrictions for fields in the service sector, such as telecommunications and healthcare; actively promoted high-quality cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI); and established international economic and trade cooperation platforms such as the China International Import Expo, China International Fair for Trade in Services, and China International Consumer Products Expo.
These major measures aimed at expanding high-level opening up have enabled the international community to benefit from China’s development, and made China’s positive development outlook a global consensus.
China’s successful practice of promoting reform and development through opening up has been instrumental in its pursuit of progress and growth.
The country’s experience in domestic development has proven that China’s modernization cannot be achieved without opening up.
The goal to achieve the largest-scale and most challenging modernization in human history requires China to actively expand domestic demand, leverage the advantages of its super-large market, and amplify the interplay between domestic and international markets.
By promoting high-level opening up to drive high-quality development, China can lay a solid material foundation for its path to modernization.
Despite the backlash against economic globalization and the downward trend of the World Openness Index, the history of international cooperation has proven that only openness, inclusiveness, and win-win cooperation is the right way forward for humanity, and that open development and mutually beneficial development is the common aspiration of people around the world.
Standing on the right side of history, China perseveres in expanding high-level opening up and endeavors to make economic globalization more open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial to all.
These efforts can not only open up broad prospects for China’s path to modernization, but also contribute to the common development of all countries and the advancement of global modernization.
China has formulated plans for refining the institutions and mechanisms for high-standard opening up, which involve steadily expanding institutional opening up, deepening the foreign trade structural reform, further reforming the management systems for inward and outward investment, optimizing the layout for regional opening up, and improving the mechanisms for high-quality cooperation under the BRI.
China’s steadfast commitment to high-level opening up reflects its dedication to aligning with high international standards, adopting a proactive approach to opening up, and unilaterally opening its doors wider to the least developed countries. This approach is aimed at boosting the development of new quality productive forces and facilitating win-win cooperation.
Taking the endeavor to advance its accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA) as an opportunity, China strives to develop new institutions for a higher-standard open economy, establish compliance mechanisms that are aligned with prevailing international rules, create new advantages in its increasingly advanced open economy, and unleash new dividends of opening up.
China plans to further relax market access and open its market to the rest of the world more actively. It is making efforts to foster new consumption scenarios, cultivate new drivers for foreign trade, and enhance its appeal to foreign investors, in a bid to make the vast Chinese market a strong magnet for global innovation activities.
The country has also pledged to make the “cake” of opening up bigger, extend the list of cooperation, fully participate in the reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO), expand its “circle of friends” for free trade, and support the building of an open world economy.
As an international observer pointed out, China’s high-level opening up benefits the entire world with win-win cooperation and allows people from all countries to share China’s development achievements.
Remaining firmly committed to advancing high-level opening up and adhering to the path of seeking common development through opening up, China is poised to share new opportunities for global development through its achievements in modernization.
