Openness brings progress, while closure is bound to lag behind. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the General Secretary of the Supreme Leader has made overall plans for the great rejuvenation strategy of the Chinese nation and the unprecedented changes in the world in the past century, profoundly summed up China’s practical experience in opening up, and pointed out that "the door to China’s opening up will not be closed, but will only grow wider", "Reform and opening up is a key measure to determine the fate of contemporary China, and it is also a key measure to determine the success or failure of Chinese-style modernization", emphasizing the continuous increase of high-level opening up. The important exposition of the Supreme Leader’s General Secretary on opening to the outside world is an important part of the Supreme Leader’s economic thought, which provides a fundamental basis for promoting high-level opening to the outside world in the new era.
In the new era and new journey, we must profoundly understand the significance of promoting high-level opening up, fully grasp the new stage of development, focus on building a new development pattern, promote high-quality development with high-level opening up, and comprehensively promote Chinese-style modernization with high-quality development.
First, promoting high-level opening to the outside world is an objective requirement based on the new stage of development and adapting to the changes of major contradictions in our society.
The main contradiction in our society has been transformed into the contradiction between the people’s growing need for a better life and the unbalanced development, which is a historic change that has a bearing on the overall situation. At present, China’s innovation ability has not adapted to the requirements of high-quality development, the agricultural foundation is still unstable, the gap between urban and rural regional development and income distribution is large, and there are shortcomings in people’s livelihood security. At the same time, the people’s needs for a better life are more extensive. The people not only put forward higher requirements for material and cultural life, but also have increasing requirements for democracy, rule of law, fairness, justice, security and environment.
After the rapid development since the reform and opening up, a series of great achievements in China’s economic development have fully proved that opening up is an important driving force for China’s economic and social development, and opening up to promote reform and development is an important magic weapon for China’s development to continuously achieve new achievements. Whether it is to better grasp the characteristics and requirements of the new stage of development or to better adapt to the main contradictions and changes in our society, it is necessary to continuously increase the intensity of high-level opening up. By promoting high-level opening to the outside world, we will expand the import of high-quality products and services to better meet the consumption needs of the people at different levels and in different fields; By better attracting foreign investment and foreign investment, promoting the stable scale and excellent structure of foreign trade, creating more and better quality employment opportunities, and continuing to play the supporting role of exports in the economy; By optimizing the regional open layout, we can promote the orderly flow of factors and rational allocation of resources, and achieve more balanced and full development.
Second, promoting high-level opening-up is an inevitable choice to promote high-quality development and accelerate the construction of a new development pattern.
High-quality development is the primary task of building a socialist modern country in an all-round way. Accelerating the construction of a new development pattern is a strategic decision based on achieving the goal of the second century, overall development and security. At present, China’s development faces new strategic opportunities, new strategic tasks, new strategic stages, new strategic requirements and new strategic environment. Unswervingly promoting high-quality development and speeding up the construction of a new development pattern can we put the development of the country and the nation on the basis of our own strength and firmly grasp the destiny of China’s development and progress in our own hands.
Looking at the world first, the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is reconstructing the global innovation map and reshaping the global economic structure. Uncertain and unpredictable factors are increasing, and the international environment facing China’s development is becoming more complicated and severe. Looking at China again, China’s development has many advantages and conditions, but the problem of insufficient development imbalance is still outstanding, and the task of reforming key links in key areas is still arduous. In the past, China’s economic development achievements were achieved under open conditions; In the future, China’s high-quality economic development must be promoted under more open conditions. We must firmly grasp the new opportunities brought by high-level opening up, firmly grasp the strategic basis of building a new development pattern to promote high-quality development, and better coordinate domestic and international circulation. On the one hand, we should put our development foothold at home and rely more on the domestic market to achieve economic development. Enhance the endogenous power and reliability of domestic large-scale circulation, improve international competitiveness, and enhance the attraction and driving force for international circulation. On the other hand, the new development pattern is by no means a closed domestic cycle, but an open domestic and international dual cycle. It is necessary to improve the quality and level of international circulation, make effective efforts in attracting and utilizing foreign capital and improving the quality and level of trade and investment cooperation, better attract global resource elements, and form new advantages in participating in international economic cooperation and competition.
Third, promoting high-level opening-up is an important aspect of overall development and security and firmly grasping the strategic initiative.
It is an important principle of our party to coordinate development and security, enhance the sense of hardship and be prepared for danger in times of peace. We should not only deeply understand that development is the foundation of security and security is the condition of development, but also grasp the relationship between openness and development, openness and security, effectively prevent and resolve major risks that affect China’s modernization process, actively shape our favorable external environment, and ensure a new development pattern with a new security pattern.
On the one hand, the world’s unprecedented great changes have accelerated its evolution, global sources of turmoil and risk points have increased, and China’s external environment is complex and severe. It is important and urgent to prevent and resolve major risks and safeguard national economic security. On the other hand, history and reality have repeatedly proved that integration into the world economic development is the general direction of history. If China wants to develop its economy, it must dare to swim in the Wang Yang sea of the world market. Only by opening the door to construction and promoting high-level opening to the outside world can we obtain more high-quality resources such as capital, technology, market and talents necessary for promoting development, inject new impetus, add new vitality and expand new space for economic development, and thus achieve a higher level of security. It can be said that in order to win advantages, initiative and future, China’s development must conform to economic globalization and rely on the advantages of China’s ultra-large-scale market to implement a more proactive opening strategy.
Fourth, promoting high-level opening-up is a realistic way to promote economic globalization in a more open, inclusive, inclusive, balanced and win-win direction.
The world economy prospers when it is open, but declines when it is closed. The development of China cannot be separated from the world, and the development of the world also needs China. At present, the recovery of the world economy is weak, which is not only influenced by economic factors and COVID-19 epidemic, but also influenced by the counter-current of economic globalization and the rise of unilateralism and protectionism. It should be noted that it is impossible to artificially cut off the capital flow, technology flow, product flow, industrial flow and personnel flow of various countries’ economies and let the world economy return to isolated small lakes and rivers, which is also inconsistent with the historical trend. Facing the opportunities and challenges brought by economic globalization, we must conform to the general trend, take the initiative, make full use of opportunities, cooperate to meet challenges, and promote the process of economic globalization to be more dynamic, inclusive and sustainable.
In this regard, it is necessary to firmly pursue the win-win opening-up strategy, continuously increase high-level opening-up efforts, improve the top-level design of the new open economic system, deepen the reform of institutional mechanisms in the field of trade and investment, steadily expand the institutional opening-up of rules, regulations, management and standards for international trade and investment, and enhance the linkage effect of two resources in the domestic and international markets; Expand market access, comprehensively optimize the business environment and improve the service guarantee system; Promote the high-quality development of the "Belt and Road", strengthen the docking with development strategies and cooperation initiatives of various countries, promote the facilitation of cross-border flow of various resource elements, and cultivate more growth points for economic cooperation.
China has started a new journey of building a socialist modern country in an all-round way and marching towards the goal of the second century. We should adhere to the guidance of the Supreme Leader’s Socialism with Chinese characteristics Thought in the new era, thoroughly study and implement the Supreme Leader’s economic thought, unswervingly expand opening up in an all-round way, and actively raise China’s opening up to a new level.
[The author is a researcher at the Socialism with Chinese characteristics Thought Research Center of the New Era, the supreme leader of the Central Party School (National School of Administration)]
(Editor: Li Junhui)