Continue to Promote High-Standard Opening Up

Opening up is the calling card of contemporary China. In China’s modernization drive, we have made new and constant achievements in reform and development through opening up.

Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC in 2012, the CPC Central Committee with Xi Jinping at its core has remained committed to opening up wider to the outside world by pursuing a more proactive strategy.

China has worked to build a globally-oriented network of high-standard free trade areas and accelerated the development of pilot free trade zones and the Hainan Free Trade Port. As a collaborative endeavor, the Belt and Road Initiative has been welcomed by the international community as a public good and a cooperation platform. 

China has become a major trading partner with more than 140 countries and regions, leading the world in total volume of trade in goods, and has been a major destination for global investment and a leading country in outbound investment. Through these efforts, we have advanced a broader agenda of opening up across more areas and in greater depth.

At present, momentous changes unseen in a century are accelerating across the world. A new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is going under way, and a significant shift is taking place in the international balance of power, providing China with new strategic opportunities in pursuing development.

The report to the 20th CPC National Congress stressed that China is committed to its fundamental national policy of opening to the outside world and pursues a mutually beneficial strategy of opening up. It strives to create new opportunities for the world with its own development and to contribute its share to building an open global economy that delivers greater benefits to all peoples. 

China adheres to the right course of economic globalization. It strives to promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, advance bilateral, regional, and multilateral cooperation, and boost international macroeconomic policy coordination. It is committed to working with other countries to foster an international environment conducive to development and create new drivers for global growth. China opposes protectionism, the erection of “fences and barriers,” decoupling, disruption of industrial and supply chains, unilateral sanctions, and maximum-pressure tactics. 

China is prepared to invest more resources in global development cooperation. It is committed to narrowing the North-South gap and supporting and assisting other developing countries in accelerating development.

The report to the 20th CPC National Congress set out clear plans on advancing high-standard opening up as follows.

We will leverage the strengths of China’s enormous market, attract global resources and production factors with our strong domestic economy, and amplify the interplay between domestic and international markets and resources. This will position us to improve the level and quality of trade and investment cooperation. 

We will steadily expand institutional opening up with regard to rules, regulations, management, and standards. We will upgrade trade in goods, develop new mechanisms for trade in services, and promote digital trade, in order to accelerate China’s transformation into a trader of quality.

We will make appropriate reductions to the negative list for foreign investment, protect the rights and interests of foreign investors in accordance with the law, and foster a world-class business environment that is market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized.

We will promote the high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative. We will better plan regional opening up, consolidate the leading position of eastern coastal areas in opening up, and more widely open the central, western, and northeastern regions. We will accelerate the construction of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor in the western region. We will work faster to develop the Hainan Free Trade Port, upgrade pilot free trade zones, and expand the globally-oriented network of high-standard free trade areas.

We will promote the internationalization of the RMB in an orderly way, deeply involve ourselves in the global industrial division of labor and cooperation, and endeavor to preserve the diversity and stability of the international economic landscape and economic and trade relations.

“China’s door will only open still wider.”Looking toward the future, China will unswervingly promote high-standard opening up, continue to enhance the impetus and vitality of socialist modernization, and create new opportunities for the world with its own development.