Opening-up is a two-way benefit process

A view of Shanghai's Yangshan Port in East China, Jan 1, 2022. [Photo/Xinhua]

This is an editorial from China Daily.

The report delivered at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in Beijing on Sunday points out that the nation must fully and faithfully apply the new development philosophy on all fronts, continue reforms to develop the socialist market economy, promote high-standard opening-up, and accelerate efforts to foster a new pattern of development that is focused on the domestic economy and features positive interplay between domestic and international economic flows.

It is noteworthy that the report proposed that the country endeavor to preserve the diversity and stability of its economic and trade relations. China is already deeply integrated with the world economy and the international system, and it does not want to live behind closed doors.

The emphasis on domestic circulation as the mainstay is to effectively manage the risks of decoupling and minimize the disruptions in the supply chains. The country is not turning its back on the world.

China has made great progress in economic development over the past more than 40 years thanks to its adherence to reform and opening-up. It has pursued an even more proactive strategy of opening-up over the past 10 years, striving to build a globally-oriented network of high-standard free trade areas and accelerating the development of pilot free trade zones.

As a result of it advancing a broader agenda of opening-up across more areas and in greater depth, China has become a major trading partner for more than 140 countries and regions, it leads the world in total volume of trade in goods, and it is a major destination for global investment and a leading country in outbound investment.

In a clear signal that China's door will be opened wider at a higher level in the coming years, the report stressed the need to remain steadfast in expanding opening-up.

Thanks to its successful practice of reform and opening-up, China now has solid material foundations and stronger institutional underpinnings for upgrading its international economic and trade cooperation from goods to services, and from manufacturing to research.

Preserving the diversity and stability of the international economic landscape and economic and trade relations through high-standard opening-up is not only of great significance to China's own development, it also means China will continue to share the fruits of its development with the world.

To make that happen, China must maintain steady economic growth at a certain level, clear the bottlenecks for its reforms, further coordinate its macro policies and dock its institutions with the world market so that it can constantly upscale the global value chain and further integrate into the global labor distribution system and world market. That will also help to counter the effects of protectionism and unilateralism and enable it to advance the Belt and Road Initiative, which has become an important public good for the world.

Through its own high-level opening-up, China can also play an active role in promoting the reform and development of the global governance system, which is essential to address the global governance deficit and the world's development challenges.