How to view the changes in the global trade pattern
In recent years, economic globalization has encountered setbacks, with trade protectionism and unilateralism continuing to spread. A few Western countries have politicized, instrumentalized, and weaponized economic and trade issues, exacerbating global trade uncertainty. At the same time, the economic and trade strength of countries in the global South is growing stronger, and a new round of technological revolution is accelerating its penetration and integration into the economic and trade fields, accumulating new momentum and vitality for international economic and trade development. The global trade pattern is undergoing profound changes in the process of interwoven contradictions and dynamic transformation. In response to the new changes in global trade, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that China's determination to expand high-level opening up, share development opportunities with the world, and promote economic globalization towards a more open, inclusive, balanced, and win-win direction will not change. It is of great significance to steadfastly promote economic globalization, use China's high-level opening up to promote common development of the world, and inject more certainty and positive energy into international economic and trade cooperation.
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Currently, economic globalization has entered a period of deep adjustment, and the traditional trade pattern has undergone significant changes, reflected in fundamental shifts in trade promotion paradigms, trade development priorities, trade competition methods, and trade growth drivers, presenting four distinct characteristics.
The paradigm of trade promotion has shifted from global expansion to regional contraction. In the past, the global trade promotion paradigm was built on the basis of a value chain globalization layout that prioritized cost efficiency, and multilateralism was the overall trend. Nowadays, the United States continues to escalate trade protectionism, maliciously paralyzing the World Trade Organization Appellate Body, seriously impacting the global supply chain, and making security and resilience the priority options for multinational corporations' global layout. The trade promotion paradigm is gradually showing a trend of regionalization contraction. On the one hand, trade flows have shifted from global division of labor to intra regional circulation. The proportion of intra regional trade in North America, East Asia, and other regions has expanded. The US Mexico Canada Agreement, which came into effect in 2020, has expanded intra regional trade in North America, with Mexico and Canada becoming the top two trading partners of the United States; The trade between China and ASEAN Free Trade Area has grown rapidly, and since 2020, ASEAN has surpassed the European Union and the United States to become China's largest trading partner for six consecutive years. On the other hand, political stance and values have gradually become the focus of trade access. The United States has implemented preferential trade arrangements with its allies and so-called "friendly countries", and has implemented "decoupling and chain breaking" measures against its geopolitical rivals. As a result, a large number of transit trade and third zone curve trade have emerged, leading to an increase in global trade complexity and posing severe challenges to the global multilateral trading system.
The focus of trade development has shifted from being dominated by developed countries to balanced development between the North and the South. In the past, developed countries relied on their strong capital and technological strength to shift low-end manufacturing to countries in the global South through industrial transfer, while also consuming a large amount of high-quality and affordable products manufactured by countries in the global South, establishing a global trade division of labor and final consumption system centered around them. Currently, this model has changed, with the trade status of southern countries rising and gradually driving global trade development together with developed countries. In terms of trade share, the global proportion of goods trade among G7 countries has continued to decline from over 45% at the beginning of this century to around 30% currently, while the proportion of emerging economies has increased from 23% to 42%. From the perspective of trade growth rate, the trade growth rate of countries in the global South exceeds that of developed countries, especially with rapid export growth. In the first half of 2025, the export growth rate was 5.2%, far exceeding the 1.8% growth rate of developed countries. From the perspective of the trade market, in the past, 80% of the world's final consumption demand came from developed countries, but now the internal consumption demand in emerging markets is constantly increasing, with over 57% of southern countries exporting to other southern countries. The monopoly position of the "ultimate consumer" in developed countries has been weakening. For example, in 2025, the proportion of the United States in China's import and export has dropped from nearly 20% at the peak to 8.8%, while that of the "the Belt and Road" countries has risen to 51.9%.
The mode of trade competition has shifted from shaping comparative advantages to competing for dominance in rule making. In the past, relying on production cost control to bring comparative advantages centered on high-quality and affordable goods was a winning weapon in trade. Nowadays, in addition to the game of commodity prices, the game of rules and regulations centered on the discourse power of technical standards has emerged as a new force. A few Western countries are using traditional competitive measures such as tariffs, anti-dumping and countervailing duties to protect their industries, while increasing the application of rules to seek dominance in trade competition. The current US government frequently uses "equivalent tariffs" not only to protect its own industrial interests, but also to pressure competitors to make concessions in digital technology, key minerals, and domestic trade rules. The EU has implemented carbon tariffs, forcing trading partners to comply with EU low-carbon standards for their goods and strengthening its rule leadership on climate change issues.
The driving force of trade growth has shifted from scale expansion to value appreciation. The growth of goods trade brought about by large-scale production based on resource endowment has gradually shifted towards the driving force of rising commodity value brought about by trade service, greening, and digitization. Service trade is increasingly becoming the most dynamic component of global trade. From cross-border delivery of services to overseas consumption, service trade has expanded rapidly. From 2019 to 2024, the average annual growth rate of global service trade exports was 6.7%, significantly higher than the average annual growth rate of global goods trade of 4.1%, becoming an important driving force for trade growth. Digitization significantly empowers trade growth. The application of technologies such as artificial intelligence throughout the entire lifecycle of product research and development, production, management, and services has rapidly improved the technological content and market response efficiency of products. The improvement of digital infrastructure and the rise of digital trade platforms have given rise to the "de intermediation" cross-border e-commerce model, becoming a new driving force for the growth of goods trade. Taking China as an example, cross-border e-commerce imports and exports will reach 2.75 trillion yuan in 2025, an increase of 69.7% compared to 2020. Greening creates a new trade track. Whoever can provide green products holds the right to trade development under resource and environmental constraints. Global green trade will exceed $5 trillion by 2024, accounting for 18% of the total global trade.
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The changes in the global trade pattern are an inevitable result of the tremendous changes in the original global political, economic, technological, and other fields. The root cause lies in the mutual influence and comprehensive effect of driving factors such as economic globalization cognition, power balance, technological revolution, and productivity development.
Some Western powers have politicized economic and trade cooperation, using trade as a tool for geopolitical games. The United States simply attributes its chronic problems such as trade deficits, unemployment, and massive federal debt to the global trade division of labor system, and exhibits strong protectionism and unilateralism in foreign economic policies. It unilaterally emphasizes its own interests first, generalizes national security, politicizes and ideologizes trade policies with Cold War thinking, distinguishes trade camps with so-called "democratic human rights" values, and regards countries that do not accept American values as geopolitical threats and conducts trade suppression. Especially the current US government frequently uses the tariff stick, intending to force other countries to sign new trade agreements that are in line with US interests, forcing industries to return to the United States, and using differential tariff pressure to force the industrial chain from "non ally countries" to so-called "like-minded countries" for industries that cannot return. Under the pressure of anti globalization trade policies, multinational corporations are forced to change their original trade division of labor, restructure regional supply chains while considering security and resilience, increase the scale of procurement within the region, and thus promote significant changes in the global trade pattern.
The rise of countries in the global South demonstrates a powerful force in reshaping the global trade landscape. With the rise of countries in the global South, the traditional division of labor in trade, where developed countries occupy high-end production capacity and transfer low-end manufacturing outward, has been substantially restructured. Some countries in the global South have gradually become major production centers and technological iteration sites, accumulating a strong and complete trade industry foundation and forming the strength to reshape the global trade pattern. Some emerging economies are upgrading their industrial structures towards medium to high-tech manufacturing, with a booming development of digitization, intelligence, and greening, greatly narrowing the development gap with developed countries. The countries of the global South are committed to building a fair and reasonable mechanism for South South cooperation, exerting collective action through the "BRICS+" and "SCO+" mechanisms, actively setting global economic and trade issues, strengthening cooperation in the production and supply chain, and enhancing the discourse power of international trade governance, so as to maintain the ability and resilience to influence changes in the trade pattern even in the face of weak demand and trade pressure in developed countries.
A new round of technological revolution is flourishing, reshaping the way global trade competition is conducted. The new round of technological revolution has shifted the focus of trade competition from strengthening price advantages to emphasizing technological content. The original competition of commodities was to use the endowment of factors such as land, labor, and raw materials for scale production to reduce costs. Nowadays, the inherent time lag between technological change and business cycles is constantly shortening, and the competitiveness of a large number of traded goods is determined by the level of technology content rather than the cost. Especially with the deepening penetration and integration ability of digital technology in industrial upgrading and energy transformation, the competition in goods and services trade in high-tech fields such as chips, artificial intelligence, life sciences, deep-sea aerospace, and new energy is becoming increasingly fierce, and the trade competitive advantage is increasingly manifested as a high-tech competitive advantage. Trade rules corresponding to technology have become an important means of maintaining competitive advantage. Standard rules such as environmental protection, cross-border data flow, and intellectual property rights constitute new trade barriers, shifting the international trade competition from a product cost game to a "technology rules" dual game.
The global productivity transition and consensus on climate and environmental governance have brought new momentum to international trade. The leap of productivity is continuously opening up new space for trade growth through industrial transformation and upgrading, integration of data and intelligence, and green value orientation. The global productivity leap is reflected in the acceleration of industrial structure upgrading, the strengthening trend of service-oriented manufacturing, and the gradual shift from selling products to selling "products+services". The added value of trade is more reflected in service value-added. It is reflected in the integration and penetration of digital intelligence in various fields. Cloud computing, the Internet, and cross-border payment break the time-space constraints of trade. Big data and blockchain technology achieve accurate docking of trade supply and demand. Digital platforms integrate R&D, manufacturing, logistics, finance, and after-sales links, so that global enterprises and consumers form trust links and expand the participants in digital trade. This is also reflected in the intensification of economic greening. Under the requirements of global climate change and environmental crisis management, global green procurement and consumption have become increasingly conscious actions. In addition, governments around the world are vigorously promoting green and low-carbon transformation, encouraging green trade, and driving green product and service trade to become important growth points.
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In the face of global trade changes, China should take the initiative to take responsibility and shape, and safeguard the common development interests of the world in the changing situation. We must adhere to multilateralism, rely on institutional openness and trade upgrading as the driving force, coordinate development and security, and build a response system that is in line with national conditions and in line with the responsibilities of major powers.
Advocate for inclusive economic globalization and promote the development of global free trade. Resolutely uphold the rules based and WTO centered multilateral trading system, actively participate in WTO reform, uphold its core values and basic principles, and promote the prompt resumption of normal operation of the dispute settlement mechanism. Build a high-level network of free trade zones, activate and explore the path to realizing the Asia Pacific Free Trade Area, upgrade existing free trade agreements, deeply couple infrastructure connectivity with mutual recognition of standard rules and trade cooperation, and consolidate the regional value network. Continuously releasing the dividends of a super large market to the world, leading the trend of global openness and cooperation, hedging against decoupling and closure, providing stable supply of high-tech, high standard, and high-quality intermediate and final products, injecting Chinese strength into global trade development and supply chain resilience. Expand trade and investment liberalization and facilitation with countries and regions around the world, deepen international collaboration in areas such as customs, inspection and quarantine, and cross-border payments, and jointly create an open and inclusive international trade environment.
Deepen institutional openness and enhance the discourse power of international trade rules competition. Efforts will be made to promote institutional openness in terms of rules, regulations, management, standards, etc., implement the strategy of upgrading the pilot free trade zone, construct the Hainan Free Trade Port with high standards, actively connect with international high standard economic and trade rules, conduct pilot projects, and focus on intellectual property protection, electronic authentication, government procurement, green and low-carbon areas, exploring the connection and compatibility between domestic rules and international common rules. Proactively shaping international trade rules, proposing Chinese solutions in areas such as digital trade facilitation, cross-border data flow, mutual recognition of green standards, resilience of production and supply chains, and new energy. Strengthen international green and low-carbon cooperation, establish product carbon footprint accounting standards and certification systems that are in line with international standards, and promote the green and low-carbon transformation of trade. Actively safeguarding the interests of countries in the global South in the competition of trade rules, promoting the applicability of principles such as special and differential treatment and fair development space, enhancing the voice of developing countries in rules, and promoting more fair and just international trade governance.
Promote the upgrading of trade quality and strengthen new drivers of trade. Promote the high-quality development of service trade, implement the national negative list for cross-border service trade, encourage the export of professional services such as research and development design, consulting, finance, accounting, and law, support the development of cross-border service outsourcing in fields such as new energy, digital intelligence, biomedicine, low-carbon environmental protection, and engineering design, and cultivate the "China Service" brand. Promote the high-quality development of digital trade, consolidate the construction of digital infrastructure, initiate the construction of national digital trade demonstration zones, cultivate leading enterprises in digital trade, promote the unmanned and intelligent transformation of overseas warehouses, and improve trade efficiency. Vigorously developing green trade, building a "full lifecycle" green trade system, promoting low-carbon transformation of high energy consuming industries and coordinated trade of green products, consolidating the export of "new three types", supporting the export of emerging green intermediate products such as green hydrogen energy equipment, offshore wind power modules, and bio based new materials, and expanding new advantages of green trade.