27 August 2024, New York
Dear guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Dear friends,
Good evening! It is a great pleasure for me to participate in the sixth US-China Business Forum.
We meet at a difficult time. Global demand is sluggish. Inflation is high. Debt is rising. Geopolitical conflicts keep flaring up. Economic globalization is facing headwinds and the global openness index is falling. All of this has made the outlook for the world economy more uncertain. In such a complex world, seeking opportunities is a shared endeavor and expanding and deepening cooperation is the best way forward. I hope this Forum will provide a platform for all of us to seize opportunities and strengthen cooperation.
Not long ago, the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held its third plenary session, which drew up systematic plans for further deepening reforms in a comprehensive manner to promote China’s modernization. The meeting was a new milestone in China’s reform and opening-up process, and a gateway for the world to understand China. It will both shape China’s future course and influence the world in significant ways. The core message is that China’s path of reform and opening-up will never end. So what does this mean for the United States and the world? The answer is simple: opportunity, opportunity, and more opportunity.
First, more comprehensive reforms will create new growth opportunities. Reform and opening-up were crucial for China to keep pace with the times. Through reform and opening-up, we achieved our first centenary goal. To achieve the second centenary goal, we must continue on this path. The session introduced over 300 reform measures, all of which are to be completed by 2029. That is why some people call it “the most ambitious reform plan” in the world today. For example, we will deepen the reform of state capital and state-owned enterprises, push forward market-oriented reforms in sectors such as energy, railways, telecommunications and water conservancy, formulate a law to encourage the private sector, and create a fairer and more vibrant market environment.
In the first half of this year, China’s GDP grew 5% year-on-year, outperforming many other major economies, showing how resilient the country is. According to an IMF analysis, if China’s growth rate increases by 1 percentage point, growth in other economies will increase by about 0.3 percentage points. China will continue to be the largest contributor to global growth over the next five years. We expect the Chinese economy, with its larger size and stronger dynamism, to provide greater impetus to the global economy.
Secondly, opening up at a higher level creates new market opportunities. Opening-up is a defining feature of China’s modernization. The meeting made it clear that we will continue to push forward reform through opening-up and develop new institutions for a higher-standard open economy. Our goal is to make the pie bigger and the list of cooperation longer to achieve win-win results for all.
This means that we will open more doors. We will steadily expand institutional opening-up, conform to high-standard international economic and trade rules, and harmonize rules, regulations, management and standards in areas such as property rights protection, industrial subsidies, government procurement and finance. After a year of testing, our pilot free trade zones in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong and others have already fully aligned with international standards. We will open up more sectors such as telecommunications, the Internet, education, culture and medical services on our own initiative, and unilaterally extend opening-up to the least developed countries.
This also means that we will continue to remove barriers. We will further shorten the negative list for foreign investment, remove all market access restrictions in manufacturing, and fully apply the negative list for cross-border trade in services. Last week, we published a directive to further improve the market access system, detailing measures such as stronger policy coordination for domestic and foreign-funded enterprises and the removal of market access barriers.
Third, higher quality development creates new opportunities for collaboration. High-quality development is our main task in building China into a modern socialist country. The meeting called for the promotion of new, high-quality productive forces in line with local conditions. This includes the digitalization, intelligence and greening of traditional industries, the development of new industries such as AI, aerospace and biomedicine, and the further integration of digital technologies into the real economy.
Currently, China has 463,000 high-tech enterprises and over 4 million valid domestic invention patents. China ranks first among middle-income economies in the Global Innovation Index. Some of you may have noticed that the Chinese video game “Black Myth: Wukong” has recently become a global hit. Within just one hour of its release, the number of concurrent players reached 1 million, and the collaboration merchandise sold out quickly. So you can see the huge consumption potential of this emerging economy, and also the magic of merging traditional culture with modern technology.
Innovation is the hallmark of new, high-quality productive forces that require an open ecosystem. We will further optimize market access for new industries and new business forms, and make the Chinese market a magnet for global innovation to unleash the vitality of our economy and create more space for cooperation with other countries.
Dear friends,
The Sino-US relations of the past 45 years are an important inspiration to us. They show that when we work together, both countries and peoples prosper. But when we turn against each other, both sides and the world suffer. Cooperation is the only right choice. As the two main engines of global economic growth, China and the US account for more than a third of the world economy and about a fifth of world trade. Any decoupling between us would only make the world poorer. Over the past 45 years, our two-way trade has expanded more than 200 times, exceeding US$600 billion annually. In the first seven months of this year, our two-way trade grew by 4.1% (in RMB terms). So we are already closely intertwined and essentially inseparable.
Given the new circumstances and challenges, scapegoating will not solve any problem, and trade wars, industrial wars or technology wars will not produce winners. As the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation unfolds, all countries are in the same boat sailing against the current. Only by facing the challenges, increasing our competitiveness and paddling together can we ride the tide and move forward.
China and the United States should respect each other’s right to development, uphold reciprocity and mutual benefit, and find solutions through dialogue and consultation. We must expand cooperation in traditional areas such as economy, trade and agriculture, as well as promote cooperation in new areas such as climate change and AI, so that both our countries and the world emerge as winners.
The business community has always been an important participant and promoter of China-US relations, a positive force in deepening mutually beneficial cooperation, and a valuable bridge of goodwill between our peoples. I am pleased to see the lively interactions between the two sides in recent months. The USCBC board visited China. The chairman of the CCPIT led a delegation of Chinese entrepreneurs to the United States. The China-US Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum was successfully held. All of these testify to our common pursuit of greater exchanges and cooperation.
Tesla’s Gigafactory Shanghai can now produce more than 950,000 vehicles per year and the Megapack factory is almost half finished just three months after construction began. Apple is increasing its investments in China, expanding its applied research center in Shanghai and opening a new laboratory in Shenzhen. All of these are testaments to the dynamism of Sino-American economic cooperation.
When I was in California two weeks ago, I had some wonderful conversations with U.S. high-tech companies. They are so impressed by China’s world-class innovation ecosystem that cannot be replicated, and they believe that the next China is still China. I encourage business leaders of both countries to seize the momentum and work hand in hand, make their rational voices heard more widely, and forge closer ties while striving for greater success in bringing greater stability to Sino-US relations through concrete actions and fruitful cooperation.
Dear friends,
At the Paris Olympic Games, we saw athletes from all over the world living the Olympic spirit of “Faster, Higher, Stronger Together.” They followed the rules, showed mutual respect, strived to improve and strived for excellence. It was especially heartwarming to see athletes from China and the United States shake hands and congratulate each other after an intense competition.
Likewise, there is simply no reason why China-US relations should be a zero-sum game. Our two countries can help each other succeed in the race to the top, and both develop and prosper together on this vast planet. President Xi Jinping has outlined three principles for this relationship: mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation. We are willing to work with the United States in this spirit, enhance dialogue and communication, properly manage differences, and expand mutually beneficial cooperation to stabilize, improve, and advance relations.
Thank you very much.
