Country will open door wider

The Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese Modernization approved by the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee upon its conclusion in Beijing on Thursday sends a clear message that China will not give up eating for fear of choking.

Some in the West are trying to substantiate their countries’ China-containment strategy by hyping up the lie that China is shutting its door on the world. But the rise of external uncertainties and risks has not affected China’s confidence and determination to advance high-standard opening-up. As the Resolution makes clear, adhering to opening-up remains China’s basic national policy. Reform and opening-up complement each other and are the two sides to China’s development coin.

As set out in the Resolution, the opening-up efforts will now focus on expanding institutional opening-up, foreign trade system reform, foreign investment and outbound investment management, optimizing the regional opening-up layout, and improving and promoting high-quality joint construction of the Belt and Road mechanism, with relevant policies, action plans and measures to be made and implemented.

To attract foreign investment, China will actively connect with international high-standard economic and trade rules, realize the interoperability of rules, regulations, management and standards in the fields of property rights protection, industrial subsidies, environmental standards, labor protection, government procurement, e-commerce and finance, establish an efficient, convenient and safe cross-border data flow mechanism, and create a transparent, stable and predictable institutional environment.

Recently, the country has implemented a unilateral visa-free policy for some countries, which has been widely welcomed and achieved good results. It will further improve the convenient systems for residence, medical care and payment for business and tourism personnel coming to China.

China will implement the “zero” requirement for measures on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector as soon as possible, expand the catalog of industries encouraging foreign investment, and reasonably reduce the negative list for foreign investment access. It will further expand the opening-up of the service industry, fully implement the negative list of cross-border service trade, and promote orderly opening-up in the fields of telecommunications, the internet, education, culture, and medical care. It will also accelerate the development of offshore trade.

At the same time, China will effectively protect the national treatment and legitimate rights and interests of foreign-funded enterprises. It will take concrete measures to support the development of domestic and foreign-funded enterprises equally and protect the national treatment of foreign-funded enterprises in terms of factor acquisition, qualification licensing, standard setting and government procurement, etc.

At present, economic globalization is facing huge challenges. To maintain the security and stability of the global economic order and industry supply chains, governments and enterprises should oppose unilateralism and protectionism. China is still a fertile ground for investment from all countries, and will continue to improve its market-oriented, rule-of-law, and internationalized first-class business environment.

Neither the country’s pursuit of high-quality development nor its cultivation of the new quality productive forces can be divorced from the country’s high-standard opening-up to the world. Not to mention the building of the community with a shared future for mankind.

The country is willing to share with foreign-funded enterprises the huge opportunities for it to develop new quality productive forces and promote Chinese-style modernization. In the process of further integrating into the world system, China is also committed to promoting global economic governance reform, and sharing its development opportunities with countries around the world to create a better future.

Opening-up has been a defining feature of China’s rapid development and it remains a hallmark of Chinese modernization, despite any allegations to the contrary.

Editorial, China Daily