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Source: People's Republic of China – State Council News
BEIJING, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) — Amid intensifying trade turmoil and rising geopolitical uncertainty, Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet with Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economic leaders in the Republic of Korea (ROK) in the coming days to build consensus for shared prosperity and reaffirm China's commitment to open and inclusive economic globalization.
The International Monetary Fund forecasts that economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region will slow from 4.5 percent this year to 4.1 percent in 2026. This sober forecast underscores the need to maintain a spirit of cooperation and develop new sources of growth and drivers of development in challenging conditions.
At the next leaders' meeting, Xi Jinping is expected to reaffirm his unwavering vision of building an open Asia-Pacific economy. For him, this dynamic region remains an engine of global growth, capable of fueling the global economy in the future.
PROMOTING FREE TRADE
In 2025, APEC members accounted for over 60 percent of global GDP. Xi Jinping views the region as a key area for advancing free trade. Guided by his strategic vision, China has strengthened economic ties with 20 other members, 15 of which are already China's free trade partners.
A prime example is Malaysia, a member of APEC. China has remained its largest trading partner for 16 consecutive years. "Malaysian durians can now be delivered directly from orchards to Chinese supermarkets in just 24 hours, and they are extremely popular with Chinese consumers," Xi Jinping wrote in an opinion piece published in April before his state visit to Malaysia. This detail reflects the growing volume of bilateral trade.
In June 2024, China opened its market to Malaysian durians. That same year, trade between China and Malaysia reached a record high of US$212 billion, defying the global downturn.
During the visit, Xi Jinping told Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who will chair ASEAN in 2025, that China is ready to work with countries in the region to "leverage Asia's stability and certainty to counter global instability and uncertainty." In response, Ibrahim stated that ASEAN does not approve of any unilateral imposition of tariffs and will support economic growth through cooperation.
In fact, Xi Jinping is committed to this approach. "History tells us that openness and cooperation are the main driving force behind dynamic international economic and trade activity," Xi Jinping said in 2018, when he opened the first China International Import Expo in Shanghai. In a year when two trends—unilateralism and protectionism—were on the rise, the Chinese leader chose a different course: keeping China's doors wide open. As he repeatedly stated, "China will not waver in its determination to expand opening-up at a high level."
His commitment to openness has deep roots. In the 1980s, when China's opening up was just beginning, Xi Jinping, then a young official in the southeastern coastal city of Xiamen, was already thinking about the future. He saw the city's potential in creating a free port. In 1987, Xi led a research team to Singapore, a global hub for trade and logistics, to study how the city-state was managing its free port system, several years before the founding of APEC.
This early study laid the groundwork for Xiamen's development into a free port special economic zone, foreshadowing how openness would become a defining feature of Xi Jinping's strategy to bring China closer to the world decades later.
Over the years, this concept of openness has remained unchanged, evolving from localized experiments in coastal areas of China's reform agenda to a broader strategy of international engagement. Whether promoting free trade or championing multilateralism, Xi Jinping has always viewed open cooperation as the cornerstone of China's development and its role in the world.
Back in 2013, when he first addressed the APEC leaders' meeting, he laid out a clear vision: China is committed to building a regional cooperation framework that encompasses both sides of the Pacific and benefits all parties involved. Over the past decade, this promise has taken concrete shape.
In 2014, Xi Jinping hosted the APEC economic leaders in Beijing, and the forum resulted in the approval of the Beijing Roadmap, officially launching the process of creating the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP).
Today, the path to an FTAAP is becoming increasingly clear. Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, China is fully implementing its commitments under the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and actively promoting its high-quality development. As the world's largest free trade area, RCEP brings together 15 Asia-Pacific countries, 12 of which are APEC members, and strengthens economic interdependence in the region.
The Chinese president's free trade agenda received a new boost when China and ASEAN signed the Protocol on Upgrading the Free Trade Area to Version 3.0 on Tuesday.
Secretary-General of the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat (TCS, an organization promoting cooperation between China, the Republic of Korea and Japan) Lee Hee-sup said that, following the policy of multilateralism and free trade, China plays a leading role in various multilateral mechanisms in the Asia-Pacific region, including RCEP, TCS, ASEAN-3 and APEC.
“China is expected to continue to demonstrate leadership through this organic network of mechanisms in advancing efforts at regional cooperation and economic integration,” he said.
DEVELOPMENT OF RELATIONS
Xi Jinping's first trip to APEC coincided with another important event. In 2013, the Chinese President paid a state visit to Indonesia, which hosted the APEC meeting that year, and proposed the idea of building a "21st Century Maritime Silk Road," a key component of the Belt and Road Initiative. Since then, the initiative has become a powerful engine of growth, linking the economies of the Asia-Pacific region and reshaping trade routes within the region.
More than a decade later, this network continues to expand. In April of this year, during a state visit to Vietnam, Xi Jinping and Vietnamese leader To Lam initiated discussions on a railway project connecting the two countries. This project will further strengthen the Belt and Road Initiative railway network in the region, linking such landmark projects as the China-Laos railway, the China-Thailand railway, the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, and the Malaysian East Coast Railway.
The Belt and Road Initiative is expanding far beyond Asia. Last November, Xi Jinping flew to Peru for the opening of the Chancay Port, linking the Asia-Pacific region with Latin America. By reducing cargo delivery times from Peru to China to just 23 days and lowering logistics costs by at least 20 percent, the port will become a vital hub for global trade. "We will actively explore a model that stimulates logistics through transport corridors, expands trade through logistics, and stimulates industry through trade," Xi Jinping outlined his vision for Chancay's development.
As physical ties deepen, Xi Jinping often emphasizes the need to strengthen another type of connectivity—less visible but no less important: the stability of global production and supply chains.
In a world facing the growing threat of supply chain disconnection and disruption, Xi Jinping stated that "countries should view economic interdependence as an opportunity to complement each other's strengths and achieve mutual benefit, not as a risk." He argued that in the era of economic globalization, bridges of connection, not disconnections, and highways of cooperation, not iron curtains of confrontation, are needed.
In late March 2025, Xi Jinping met in Beijing with over 40 global business leaders to discuss the current state of global business. His message was simple yet resonant. "I often say that by extinguishing someone else's light, you cannot make your own brighter, and by blocking someone else's path, you ultimately only block your own," the Chinese president declared.
Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized the importance of foreign companies in advancing China's openness policy. At the meeting, he promised to "ensure the greatest possible facilitation of trade and investment procedures in China."
Among those present was Sean Stein, President of the US-China Business Council. After listening to Xi Jinping's speech, he said that "investing in China is investing in the future."
For Xi Jinping, connectivity isn't just about steel and concrete, but also about people. He believes that cultural exchanges and mutual understanding lay the foundation for long-term cooperation. China has waived visas for citizens of many countries and expanded cultural initiatives to make itself even more accessible to the world. These steps have borne fruit: the number of foreign visitors to the country is growing every year.
This spirit of mutual understanding was fully demonstrated during the APEC Leaders' Meeting in Peru in 2024. At that time, Xi Jinping's conversation with Chilean President Gabriel Boric took on a warm and personal tone.
"Before this visit to Peru, I was invited to the international book fair in Santiago," G. Boric told Xi Jinping. "All your works were on display there, as well as works by Chinese poets, writers, and artists." The Chilean leader showed the Chinese president the fourth volume of "Xi Jinping on Governance" in Spanish and asked him to sign it.
“The further development of relations between our countries will benefit from numerous cooperation agreements, and even more so from cultural dialogue and educational exchanges,” the Chilean president said.
CREATING A SOCIETY WITH A COMMON DESTINY
APEC's emergence came at a turning point, when the wave of economic globalization was just gaining momentum. From its inception, the forum pursued a clear mission: to promote openness and economic integration. Over the decades, this commitment led to the so-called "Asia-Pacific Miracle"—a period of incredible growth and transformation that reshaped the global economy.
Xi Jinping is confident that this innovative spirit must be preserved. He often says that Asia-Pacific cooperation must "resolutely take the lead." At the 30th APEC Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, addressing economic leaders, Xi Jinping returned to the pressing question of how the region can create the next "golden thirty years" of development.
His answer was consistent: to build an Asia-Pacific community with a shared destiny. In 2020, APEC launched Putrajaya Vision 2040, a new long-term project aimed at creating an open, vibrant, resilient, and peaceful Asia-Pacific community by 2040.
The Chinese leader acknowledges that national conditions and expectations vary across countries. He believes the most important thing is to overcome these differences through consultation and joint efforts to find solutions to common problems.
Xi Jinping once, drawing on ancient Chinese wisdom, described APEC as a family of economies united by the boundless waters of the Pacific Ocean. "The supreme good is like water: water brings good to all things and does not fight against anything," he quoted from the Tao Te Ching.
"The vast Pacific Ocean is big enough," Xi Jinping said, emphasizing his commitment to coexistence and cooperation.
This spirit is evident not only in Xi Jinping's desire for China to cooperate with countries in the region, but also in his efforts to help them overcome pressing global challenges, especially climate change.
In February this year, Xi Jinping invited Brunei's Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah to visit China and attend the opening ceremony of the 9th Asian Winter Games in the ice city of Harbin in northeast China.
Ahead of the Games, the two leaders held talks in Beijing, covering both emerging and traditional sectors. Discussions touched on emerging industries such as the digital economy, artificial intelligence, and new energy sources, as well as areas of existing cooperation such as agriculture and fisheries. Brunei will host the ASEAN Climate Change Centre and will work closely with China on climate action.
For Xi Jinping, the partnership carries symbolic weight. He noted that China and Brunei set a model for relations between countries of different sizes, based on equality, mutual benefit, and win-win outcomes.
Looking to the future, Xi Jinping sees the Asia-Pacific region as the driving force of globalization. A new wave of technological and industrial change is emerging, spurring a global transition to a digital, green, and smart economy. These changes, according to the Chinese leader, provide powerful impetus to the next stage of globalization.
He has often described the global economy as a tug-of-war between driving and hindering forces, but he believes the forces promoting integration will prevail. “As long as we act in a spirit of openness and connectivity, the wider Pacific will become a path to greater prosperity and growth,” he said. –0–
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