Over the past 40 years since the start of reform and opening up, China’s economy has grown rapidly and has become the world’s second largest economy. It has steadily contributed about 30% of global growth each year and has become the main engine of world economic growth. Today, China is closely connected and deeply integrated with the world, and China’s policy orientation and development direction have a profound impact on the world. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, which was just held not long ago, has attracted great attention from the world. The international community generally believes that the plenary session has important and far-reaching significance, which will inject valuable certainty into the world of chaos and create broader development opportunities.
The most important outcome of this meeting was the review and approval of the “Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reform and Promoting Chinese-style Modernization”, which closely focused on the theme of promoting Chinese-style modernization and planned and deployed deepening reforms. More than 300 important measures were proposed, and thousands of specific reform plans will be formed, which will be clearly realized by 2029. In the full text of the “Decision”, “reform” appeared 145 times and “opening up” appeared 35 times, demonstrating China’s strong determination and firm confidence to comprehensively deepen reform and expand opening up, and sending a strong signal that China will expand high-level opening up and share the fruits of high-quality development. I would like to focus on the following aspects:
First, further steadily expand institutional opening up. In recent years, China has continuously stepped up its efforts to open up to the outside world, stepped up institutional and mechanism innovation, established free trade pilot zones and Hainan free trade port, held exhibitions such as the China International Import Expo, the Consumer Goods Expo, and the Global Digital Trade Expo, and launched many iconic and leading institutional innovation achievements in trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, financial openness and innovation, and business environment optimization, actively creating a market-oriented, rule-of-law, and internationalized first-class business environment. According to the new measures proposed in the Decision, China will focus on institutional opening up in the next step, focus on investment, trade, finance, innovation and other key areas of foreign exchanges and cooperation to deepen institutional and mechanism reforms, improve supporting policies and measures, more actively connect with international high-standard economic and trade rules, create a transparent, stable and predictable institutional environment, and actively and proactively raise opening up to a new level.
The Decision also specifically emphasizes that it will expand unilateral opening up to the least developed countries. This is a concrete action for China to promote the joint construction of an open world economy and build a community with a shared future for mankind, and will enable the fruits of China’s modernization development to benefit more underdeveloped countries and people.
Second, maintain the multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization at its core. China firmly implements an active and proactive opening-up strategy and opposes trade protectionism and trade barriers. Since the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012, China’s opening-up has continuously opened up new prospects. The number of free trade agreements signed with other countries has more than doubled, and the overall tariff level has dropped to 7.3%, close to the level of developed WTO members. China has become the world’s largest country in terms of goods trade and the second largest country in terms of services trade, and is the main trading partner of nearly 200 economies. The Decision emphasizes that China will continue to actively participate in the reform of the global economic governance system, expand the global network of high-standard free trade zones, provide more global public goods, establish a compliance mechanism that connects with international common rules, and optimize the environment for open cooperation. China has a population of more than 1.4 billion, and more than 400 million middle-income groups are continuing to grow. For every 1 percentage point increase in the proportion of the population, annual consumer spending will increase by more than US$150 billion. As the world’s most promising super-large-scale market, the Chinese market will bring unlimited business opportunities to trading partners of various countries.
Third, promote the “two-way rush” of foreign investment and outbound investment. At present, China has become the world’s second largest user of foreign capital and the largest outbound investor. As of the end of 2022, China’s outward direct investment flow has ranked among the top three in the world for 11 consecutive years. Chinese investors have established 47,000 enterprises in 190 countries and regions, with an annual tax amount of US$75 billion and 2.5 million foreign employees. China’s outward investment continues to promote the development of various countries. The “Decision” proposes to continue to deepen the reform of the foreign investment and outward investment management system and protect the rights and interests of foreign investment in accordance with the law. Expand the catalog of industries that encourage foreign investment, reasonably reduce the negative list of foreign investment access, implement the comprehensive abolition of restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing field, and promote orderly opening up in the fields of telecommunications, Internet, education, culture, and medical care. Guarantee the national treatment of foreign-funded enterprises in many aspects, and improve the living convenience system for foreign personnel to enter, reside, medical care, and payment. At the same time, it is also necessary to improve the system and mechanism to promote and safeguard outward investment, and improve the outward investment management service system.
Fourth, continue to vigorously promote the construction of the “Belt and Road”. In the 11 years since the “Belt and Road” initiative was proposed, China has signed more than 230 cooperation documents on the joint construction of the “Belt and Road” with more than 150 countries and more than 30 international organizations. From 2013 to October 2023, the total import and export volume between China and the countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative exceeded US$21 trillion, and the cumulative direct investment in the countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative exceeded US$270 billion. The Belt and Road Initiative has become a popular international public product and the largest international cooperation platform in the world today. The new measures proposed in the Decision will improve the mechanism for promoting high-quality joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative, continue to implement the Belt and Road Initiative Science and Technology Innovation Action Plan, and strengthen the construction of multilateral cooperation platforms in the fields of green development, digital economy, artificial intelligence, energy, taxation, finance, and disaster reduction. Build a three-dimensional interconnected network of the Belt and Road Initiative to help developing countries build more major landmark projects and “small but beautiful” livelihood projects.