Viewing the New Global Trade Pattern from the Chain Expo

The 4th China International Supply Chain Promotion Expo was recently held in Beijing. As the world's first national level exhibition with supply chain cooperation as its theme, the Chain Expo not only adheres to the concept of "promoting reform and development through openness", but also undertakes the responsibility of a major country to "share opportunities and develop together with countries around the world". It has become an important platform for promoting the formation of a new global trade pattern.

This year's Chain Expo has set up exhibition areas for six major chains and supply chain services: digital intelligence technology, advanced manufacturing, green agriculture, healthy living, intelligent vehicles, and clean energy. The original digital technology chain has been upgraded to a digital intelligence technology chain, and an artificial intelligence zone has been established for the first time. The innovation chain zone launched in the previous edition has also been optimized and improved, clearly reflecting the development orientation of digital transformation, technological innovation, and industrial integration. The artificial intelligence zone is designed according to the industrial evolution logic from data and perception, computing power and algorithms to applications and solutions, presenting the entire process from data collection, intelligent computing to scenario implementation, clearly indicating that the competition of artificial intelligence is not only about model iteration, but also about whether it can penetrate into actual industrial scenarios and form replicable solutions. Some leading domestic and foreign enterprises appeared on the same stage, carrying out cooperation and docking for future industries. The Chain Expo is not only a centralized display platform for the achievements of China's modern industrial system construction, but also an important carrier for promoting the deep integration of the real economy and the digital economy. At the same time, it conveys a high level of concern for the security of the real economy and supply chain to the world, and presents a panoramic view of the new trend of global industrial chain and supply chain evolution towards digitization, greening, and integration.

The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to "expand high-level opening up to the outside world and create a new situation of win-win cooperation". Nowadays, the Chain Expo has become an important platform for promoting two-way investment cooperation. Firstly, the scope of global supply chain cooperation entities continues to expand. According to statistics, a total of 676 domestic and foreign chain leading enterprises, specialized and new enterprises, and related institutions participated in this year's Chain Expo, from 85 countries, regions, and international organizations. Among them, foreign enterprises and institutions accounted for 36.5%, which has increased compared to the previous edition. More than 1200 exhibitors and upstream and downstream partners of the supply chain jointly appeared, and the number of participating companies reached a historical high. Secondly, the precision docking efficiency of trading entities has significantly improved. The Chain Expo has placed supply and demand docking, enhanced mutual trust, and deepened long-term cooperation in a more prominent position. The "Find Friends" model has been upgraded to version 4.0, relying on China's independently developed "Feizhan" platform to digitally and accurately match the supply capacity, procurement needs, technical directions, and cooperation intentions of exhibitors and buyers, promoting enterprises to shift from "offline encounters" to "precision docking". In the past two months, the platform has formed 8892 supply-demand matching results. Thirdly, the international industrial cooperation mode is accelerating its transformation. The Chain Expo will embed exhibition, docking, research and development, investment, service and other links into the supply chain cooperation scene, enabling enterprises from different countries and links to form closer linkage around technological innovation, capacity cooperation, market development and standard connection. As a result, in the cooperative ecosystem built by the Chain Expo, international trade is deeply coordinated along the industrial chain, and a new trade pattern that emphasizes resilience, win-win, and sustainability is gradually taking shape.

Chinese path to modernization provides a solid support for the new pattern of global trade. We must jointly maintain the stability of the global industrial and supply chains, which is an important guarantee for the healthy development of the world economy. China is providing solid support for international supply chain cooperation with its institutional advantages, complete industrial system, super large market, and continuously improving technological innovation capabilities, contributing to the global response to the threat of "decoupling and chain disconnection", maintaining the stability and smoothness of global industrial and supply chains, and promoting the construction of an open world economy.

The advantage of China's industrial system is the direct reason for attracting companies from various countries to participate in the exhibition. This exhibition is organized from the perspective of the entire industry chain, presenting a complete chain from upstream raw materials, midstream production and manufacturing to downstream application services. This type of bottom gas source comes from China's complete industrial system. China is the only country in the world that has all industrial categories in the United Nations Industrial Classification, with complete industrial supporting facilities, outstanding integration advantages, and stable production capacity supply. This is the fundamental support that distinguishes the Chain Expo from general exhibitions. China's institutional advantage is the fundamental guarantee for maintaining long-term mutual trust and cooperation among countries. Firstly, the Chain Expo upholds the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind and engages in high-level cooperation with various countries. Secondly, leveraging its institutional advantages, China has continuously expanded high-level openness, promoted rule integration, and facilitated industrial synergy through the Chain Expo, effectively enhancing international mutual trust and providing important institutional guarantees for global enterprises to deeply participate in supply chain cooperation and share opportunities for industrial development. China has a super large market, advanced technological conditions, and rich application scenarios. This not only improves the efficiency of transforming scientific and technological achievements from the "laboratory" to the "big market", but also provides a broad space for countries to carry out more extensive and in-depth cooperation and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results. In short, in the international environment of some countries engaging in "decoupling and chain disconnection", many multinational companies still choose to participate in the exhibition in Beijing, fully reflecting their high recognition and long-term confidence in the opportunities in the Chinese market, the strength of Chinese manufacturing, and the prospects of Chinese supply chain cooperation.

This year's Chain Expo released the 2026 edition of the Global Supply Chain Promotion Report and the Global Supply Chain Resilience Index matrix, and continued the tradition of previous editions by releasing the Beijing Initiative. These achievements provide a public reference framework for all parties to understand supply chain risks, assess supply chain resilience, and deepen supply chain cooperation. China has built an open platform, gathered wisdom from all parties, and promoted pragmatic docking through the Chain Expo, contributing more open, inclusive, pragmatic, transparent, and widely participated cooperation solutions to global supply chain governance.