Institutional openness expands new space for multilateral trade - Interview with He Ping, Vice Dean of the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University

As a major trading nation, China has played the role of a 'stabilizing sea needle' and contributed to global trade stability through its own stable trade. Recently, He Ping, Vice Dean of the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University, stated in an interview with Economic Daily that China continues to play a role in maintaining the multilateral trading system, and with the deepening of opening-up to the outside world, China will share development opportunities with more countries.

This year's Government Work Report proposes to expand market access and open up areas with a focus on the service industry, further expand pilot projects for opening up value-added telecommunications, biotechnology, foreign-owned hospitals, and other fields, and orderly expand the opening up of the digital field. This provides a new direction for trade between China and other countries and regions, "said He Ping. In the past, China's trade with other countries was mainly focused on manufacturing products, relying on a complete industrial system to achieve steady growth in trade scale. Now, it is expanding comprehensively into the service industry, marking an important optimization of China's foreign trade structure and opening up new space for deepening bilateral and multilateral trade cooperation.

This year's Government Work Report proposes a series of practical measures, such as reducing the negative list of cross-border service trade, which sends a clear signal that China is promoting institutional opening up. He Ping said, "In the future, China's foreign trade will rely more on market forces to allocate resources and regulate order, which is good news for trading partners. It means that the Chinese economy and the world economy will be more deeply integrated, mutually beneficial and shared

The introduction of foreign investment in more fields will also promote the upgrading and upgrading of domestic enterprises. He Ping stated that China's orderly development in the fields of digital and service trade not only brings new development opportunities for global enterprises, but also injects momentum into the upgrading of its own economy. By introducing new competitors, creating a better and healthier competitive environment for domestic service providers can promote the competitiveness of local enterprises to a new level.

In 2025, China's foreign trade imports and exports will reach a historical high of 4.547 trillion yuan. Among them, the import and export to countries jointly building the "the Belt and Road" was 23.6 trillion yuan, up 6.3%, accounting for 51.9% of the total import and export value; Imports and exports to ASEAN, Latin America, and Africa amounted to 7.55 trillion yuan, 3.93 trillion yuan, and 2.49 trillion yuan, respectively, with growth rates of 8%, 6.5%, and 18.4%. He Ping said that although the external environment is complex and changeable, and Sino US trade has undergone structural adjustment, through cooperation with the global southern countries and countries jointly building the "the Belt and Road", the diversification of trade partners has achieved remarkable results. At the same time, the structure of foreign trade continues to optimize, and the proportion of high-tech and high value-added products in trade has increased. Private enterprises have become the main force in export growth.

There is a fundamental difference between green trade and digital technology related trade and traditional commodity trade. Green technology has significant external spillover effects and can benefit all application countries; digital technology and new business models such as e-commerce break geographical boundaries and closely connect markets of various countries. He Ping said that the rapid development of these new business models not only profoundly reshapes the traditional international trade model, but also injects new momentum into global economic and trade cooperation through technological linkage and industrial integration.

As China continues to promote trade facilitation, encourage service exports, and expand the import of high-quality products, global trading partners are facing multiple development opportunities. He Ping stated that China's steady promotion of institutional opening up helps to build a more stable, predictable, and trustworthy international trade environment, effectively hedging external uncertainty risks such as intensified global trade frictions and frequent policy fluctuations, and providing important support for stabilizing the global industrial and supply chains.

From expanding market access to optimizing trade structure, from promoting trade balance to leading rule innovation, China continues to inject stability and positive energy into the multilateral trading system. China is committed to maintaining the multilateral trading system and the concept of globalization, and making international trade smoother and more convenient by reducing trade barriers. He Ping said that China's new measures of opening up to the outside world will promote the development of economic globalization towards a more open, inclusive, and win-win direction.