In the 12 strategic tasks of China’s “15th Five-Year Plan” period, “expanding high-level opening-up” has been given a more prominent position. This is not the first time China has emphasized “opening-up”, but in today’s world, the word “opening-up” carries a different weight than before.
Zhang Monan, Deputy Director of the US and Europe Studies Department at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, pointed out that China has elevated opening-up to a higher priority level, which is not only based on the needs of its internal development stage but also an active choice to respond to changes in the external environment. She believes that China has entered a critical stage of high-quality development and the deep-water zone of reform, and therefore needs to share development opportunities with the world through deeper market connectivity.
Openness, first and foremost, concerns the intrinsic needs of China’s own development. At a press conference of the CPC Central Committee, Wang Wentao, Minister of Commerce of China, emphasized that “openness is an important tool for promoting reform and driving development.” China will continue to reduce barriers both “on the border” and “behind the border,” steadily advancing institutional openness. Data shows that in 2024, China’s total goods trade reached $6.16 trillion, ranking first globally for eight consecutive years; service trade also exceeded $1 trillion for the first time, ranking second in the world. High-level opening-up is becoming an important engine for China’s economic growth.
The current open pattern of China is undergoing a structural transformation. In the past, “opening up” mainly involved removing entry barriers, while today it places greater emphasis on the construction of rules and institutions. Zhang Monan pointed out that China’s approach to globalization is shifting from “exporting goods” to “empowering through technology.” Whether China can transform its technological advantages and industrial strength into standard advantages and rule-making discourse power is the key to its transition from “following” to “leading.”
High-level opening-up not only meets China’s own development needs but also responds to the world’s expectations. In frontier fields such as artificial intelligence, quantum information, advanced manufacturing, and biomedicine, China has taken the global lead and injected momentum into the growth of emerging industries worldwide with its innovative capabilities. Over the next five years, China plans to advance the construction of a trading powerhouse through three pillar systems: goods trade, service trade, and digital trade. Particularly in emerging areas like service trade and digital trade, these are becoming new frontiers of high-level openness. Artificial intelligence and digital technologies are also reconfiguring the processes and resource allocation of traditional trade, injecting greater certainty and resilience into the global economic and trade system.
In terms of open layout, China no longer relies on a single market, and the pattern of diversified progress is becoming increasingly clear. In recent years, the trade volume between China and Belt and Road countries has steadily expanded; with the implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), trade and investment exchanges between China and emerging markets such as ASEAN have become more active. Zhang Monan analyzed that while some countries are pushing for “decoupling and breaking chains,” China is actively playing the role of a “stable connection point” in the global supply chain; while some countries are raising market access barriers, China continues to attract global enterprises and capital by leveraging its super-large market.
It is worth noting that the communique of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee specifically added the word “actively” before “expanding independent opening-up”. This indicates that China’s opening-up is shifting from the “contractual opening-up” in the early days of its WTO accession to a more proactive “institutional opening-up”. This transformation has been increasingly perceived by foreign-funded enterprises. From 2021 to May 2025, cumulative foreign direct investment in China reached 4.7 trillion yuan, exceeding the total during the 13th Five-Year Plan period. Investing in China has evolved from an “optional” to a “mandatory” choice.
The head of Decathlon China stated that the Fourth Plenary Session’s further emphasis on “openness” has injected stronger confidence for multinational enterprises to deeply cultivate the China market in the long term. Zhang Ying, President of Dassault Systèmes Greater China, believes that “a China that continuously expands openness and encourages technological innovation is leading foreign enterprises to embrace unprecedented new opportunities.” He Jun, Executive President of North Asia for KSB Group, also pointed out that China’s strategic deployment in green transformation and innovation-driven development provides foreign enterprises with clear policy paths and broad growth prospects.
It can be said that the high-level opening-up promoted by China not only injects strong momentum into its own development, but also plays the role of a “stabilizing anchor” in global connectivity. China’s door of opening-up is not only opening wider, but also committed to building an effective and mutually beneficial set of rules, bringing broader markets, richer investment opportunities, and more sustainable development forces to countries around the world.