Li Dawei: The Connotation and Direction of Actively Expanding Autonomous Opening-up
The recommendations for the "15th Five-Year Plan" [1] position "actively expanding autonomous opening up" as a critical task for expanding high-level opening up to the outside world. The 2025 Central Economic Work Conference also emphasized the importance of expanding autonomous opening up in the service sector in an orderly manner. "Autonomous opening up" has become a keyword in China's strategy for opening up to the outside world. Facing a new developmental situation, China’s opening up must transform from "following the pace" to "setting the pace." To achieve this "pace-setting" role, China must become a standard-bearer and a model for global cooperation in opening up; autonomous opening up is therefore an inevitable choice, which will fully demonstrate China's confidence in its opening and its sense of responsibility as a major power.
The so-called autonomous opening up emphasizes the philosophy of independence, self-reliance, mutual benefit, and win-win results. It is rooted in the needs of Chinese-path modernization, grounded in a scientific assessment of the complex changes in the external environment, and characterized by proactive innovation in the models, rhythm, and scope of opening up to better serve high-quality development. This is a prominent feature of China's opening up in the New Era. Specifically, innovating the model of opening up means we cannot simply imitate the specific practices of other economies; rather, we must creatively and scientifically design programs for cooperation based on a process of sublation [2] that fits our national conditions. Mastering the rhythm of opening up means we cannot be forced into passive opening by internal or external pressures—especially external ones; instead, we must correctly handle the relationship between high-level opening and high-level security to achieve a "dual enhancement" of both opening levels and risk-control capabilities. Optimizing the scope of opening up means we cannot indiscriminately copy the "opening lists" of other economies, but must proactively expand opening in key industries and fields based on the actual needs of high-quality development.
As we enter the period of the "15th Five-Year Plan," autonomous opening up holds great significance. Internally, it is an inevitable requirement for promoting high-quality development. By centering on the reality of domestic development and coordinating foreign trade with cross-border investment, and technological innovation with industrial cooperation, autonomous opening up promotes the interconnection of domestic and international markets, industrial integration, innovative synergy, and the alignment of rules. This helps compensate for shortcomings such as insufficient domestic effective demand and sluggish circulation of high-end factors [3], thereby enhancing economic efficiency and resilience to lay a solid foundation for modernization. Externally, it is a strategic choice for opening up new prospects amidst profound changes [4]. In the face of trade protectionism and "decoupling and breaking chains" [5] pursued by certain Western countries, autonomous opening up helps China better coordinate two markets and two types of resources, expand diversified international markets, and hedge against external uncertainties. Simultaneously, it leverages China's advantages in institutions, industry, market scale, and talent to aggregate high-quality global resources, expand cooperation networks, and enhance the resilience and competitiveness of industrial and supply chains, sharing opportunities and developing together with the world.
It must be recognized that actively expanding autonomous opening up is not only a major deployment based on the needs of Chinese-path modernization but also an innovation of systems and mechanisms to adapt to the latest situational changes. This requires us to identify new directions and proactively shape and lead a new pattern of opening up.
For instance, we should actively create new rules while benchmarking against and aligning with high-standard international economic and trade rules. In fields such as trade and investment facilitation, service sector opening, and fair competition, we must actively align with high-standard international rules and accelerate the construction of a new system for a higher-level open economy. Meanwhile, as the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation—represented by artificial intelligence—accelerates its breakthroughs, there is an urgent need to construct new economic and trade rules compatible with these changes. China attaches great importance to developing new quality productive forces and has both the capacity and the necessity to independently explore and form international cooperation rules that ensure mutual benefit in emerging and future industries, making significant contributions to improving the global economic governance system.
Furthermore, we should orderly expand unilateral opening while promoting agreement-based opening. Currently, the multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core, along with various regional trade agreements, remains the most important mechanism for global trade governance. China must persist in maintaining the status of the multilateral trading system as the main channel for international rule-making and support necessary reforms to the WTO. At the same time, we should proactively explore new models of agreement-based opening that align with the developmental aspirations of the vast number of developing countries, striving to form comprehensive and systematic institutional arrangements for cooperation with more economies. Concurrently, in new fields such as service sector market access and the cross-border movement of personnel, we need to introduce unilateral opening measures that both align with the general direction of economic globalization and favor high-quality development, injecting new impetus into the deep development of globalization.
Additionally, we should guide the rational and orderly cross-border layout of industrial and supply chains while aggregating high-quality factors. To strengthen the domestic cycle [6] and climb toward the high end of the global value chain, we must continuously enhance our attractiveness to high-quality global resources such as talent and data. It should also be noted that many developing countries are vigorously promoting industrialization and urgently need cooperation in industrial and supply chains. Therefore, within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, we can consider exploring models such as cooperation in new infrastructure construction to jointly build resilient and secure cross-border industrial and supply chain networks with partner countries. This will not only promote domestic industrial transformation and upgrading and extend the value chain but also open up broader spaces for cooperation, forming a new situation of mutually beneficial opening up.
Overall, China’s autonomous opening up accounts for both China's needs and the world's expectations. We must proactively align with high-standard international economic and trade rules, focusing on the service sector to expand market access and fields of opening. We must also expand our "circle of friends" in economic and trade relations, accelerating the progress of regional and bilateral trade and investment agreements. By focusing on key areas and implementing precise policies, we will forge new advantages in international cooperation and competition through autonomous opening up.
First, place greater emphasis on the service sector as a priority for attracting the aggregation of high-quality factors. Expanding the opening of the service industry is the focus of high-level opening up. Critical factor-intensive service industries—such as telecommunications, culture, healthcare, and education—can be treated as key areas for autonomous opening. This involves relaxing market access and actively promoting the compatibility of industry operational rules with "behind-the-border" rules [7] and high-standard international rules regarding intellectual property protection and environmental protection. We should encourage the issuance of negative lists for cross-border data flows that are scenario-based and field-level, facilitating the legal, orderly, and free flow of data. Institutional innovations in areas such as scientific and technological investment, research management, S&T evaluation, and university curriculum settings should be promoted to attract outstanding talent from all sectors and fields globally.
Second, place greater emphasis on developing new models of trade and investment cooperation. We should accelerate the digitalization, intelligentization, and greening of trade in services, and actively develop new forms of cross-border e-commerce such as personalized customization. We must expand trade in intermediate goods and green trade, giving full play to the role of foreign trade in driving consumption and investment. Eligible regions should be encouraged to actively develop market procurement trade and new types of offshore trade. Support for the domestic reinvestment of foreign-funded enterprises should be increased, and the scope of industries where foreign investment is encouraged should be expanded. We must also speed up the improvement of the overseas comprehensive service system and enhance the effectiveness of outward investment management to help build a cross-border economic and trade cooperation network that is centered on our needs and is both resilient and secure.
Third, place greater emphasis on creating diverse types of high-ground platforms for opening-up and cooperation. Consideration can be given to granting more institutional innovation authority to Free Trade Ports and Free Trade Pilot Zones in areas such as customs supervision and the formulation of industry rules and standards. We should explore the optimization and integration of existing National Key Development and Opening-up Experimental Zones and Cross-border Economic Cooperation Zones to form new types of platforms for opening up along the borders. We should accelerate the innovative upgrading of Comprehensive Bonded Zones and develop new business formats such as R&D design, testing, and maintenance. Simultaneously, we should coordinate the layout and construction of major platforms for scientific and technological innovation, service trade, and industrial development.
Fourth, place greater emphasis on the high-quality joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative. We must strengthen the function of the coordinated management mechanism for Belt and Road cooperation planning, implementing a batch of "hard connectivity," "soft connectivity," and "heart connectivity" [8] projects under these plans. We should actively expand new spaces for cooperation with partner countries in fields such as green development, artificial intelligence, the digital economy, health, tourism, and agriculture. Pragmatic cooperation under the Belt and Road should be deepened, the construction of "Silk Road E-commerce" cooperation pilot zones accelerated, and the internationalization of the Renminbi promoted. Localities should be encouraged to deepen cooperation with partner countries based on their unique advantages, forming a group of branded cooperation initiatives.