On June 16, the seventh Qingdao Summit for Leaders of Multinational Companies opened in Qingdao, Shandong Province. Vice President of China Han Zheng attended the opening ceremony and delivered a speech, bringing together 357 multinational companies from 44 countries and regions along the coast of the Yellow Sea, including 105 Fortune Global 500 enterprises and 252 industry leaders. The summit, themed “Multinational Companies and China – Moving Forward Together into the New Era during the 15th Five-Year Plan Period,” featured over 50 coordinated events throughout the event. In his address, Vice President Han Zheng stated that China has continuously pursued high-quality development and expanded high-level opening-up, becoming a stabilizer and driving force for global economic growth while providing a broad platform for the development of multinational companies. He proposed four recommendations: sharing China’s vast consumer market, seizing new opportunities for industrial upgrading, fostering a new ecosystem for innovation cooperation, and creating a new landscape of open collaboration. Since the inaugural summit in 2019, the first six sessions have seen a total of 632 investment projects signed, with a cumulative investment of $75.73 billion; this year’s summit focused on signing 40 projects across four major sectors: foreign investment, foreign trade, foreign economic relations, and modern services. This summit is not only a significant economic and trade event but also a clear demonstration of China’s commitment to addressing global concerns through institutional openness and countering uncertainties with certainty.
China is willing to deepen cooperation with multinational corporations abroad and provide them with a broad platform and abundant opportunities through concrete actions. In the opening year of the 15th Five-Year Plan, China is advancing high-level opening-up with even greater intensity. In terms of industrial cooperation, the Ministry of Commerce of China has issued the 2025 edition of the “Catalogue of Industries Encouraging Foreign Investment,” adding a net total of 205 encouraged categories, focusing primarily on advanced manufacturing, modern services, high-tech industries, energy conservation, and environmental protection, thereby providing policy support for foreign investment to expand into high-end and emerging sectors. Regarding service sector opening, with the complete removal of foreign investment restrictions in the manufacturing sector, China is progressively expanding self-directed opening in fields such as telecommunications, internet, education, culture, and healthcare, while steadily implementing pilot programs for value-added telecommunications, biotechnology, and wholly foreign-owned hospitals. In innovation collaboration, China boasts the world’s most comprehensive industrial system and the richest array of application scenarios; in the first four months of 2026, actual foreign investment in high-tech industries grew by 20.3% year-on-year, accounting for 40.4% of the nation’s total actual foreign investment. China is not only a “stabilizer” for the global economy but also an “essential destination” for multinational companies’ future strategic layouts. From deepening service sector openness to establishing a new institutional framework for openness, from optimizing investment structures to enhancing full-cycle services, China is providing comprehensive safeguards for multinational companies to “want to come, stay, and thrive.” From a “national security” perspective, the United States released the “America First Investment Policy” memorandum in February 2025, designating China as a “foreign adversary” and accordingly tightening bilateral investment flows between the two countries. In June 2026, the United States added another 188 China entities to its export control list, covering sectors such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and new energy vehicles. These measures have somewhat undermined the stability of global industrial and supply chains.
China is advancing the revision of the new Foreign Investment Law, explicitly prohibiting the use of administrative measures to force technology transfers and ensuring that foreign-funded enterprises enjoy equal policy support as domestic enterprises. China actively aligns with international high-standard economic and trade rules, accelerating reforms in institutional and regulatory frameworks in areas such as intellectual property protection, government procurement, and fair competition, thereby providing foreign-funded enterprises with more stable, transparent, and predictable institutional safeguards. As Vice Chairman Han Zheng stated, China has always been a builder of an open world economy, a promoter of global common development, and a supporter of mutually beneficial cooperation among enterprises worldwide. In a world fraught with uncertainties, China is offering multinational corporations the most reliable partners and the most stable development prospects through institutional certainty, policy continuity, and the immense potential of its markets.