The "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Comprehensively Deepening Reform and Advancing Chinese Modernization" (hereinafter referred to as the "Decision"), reviewed and adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, emphasizes "improving the institutions and mechanisms for high-standard opening up" and makes important arrangements for steadily expanding institutional opening up, deepening the reform of the foreign trade system, deepening the reform of the management systems for foreign investment and outbound investment, optimizing the regional opening-up layout, and improving the mechanisms for promoting high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. This provides guidance for further advancing high-standard opening up and promoting high-quality development.

　　Persisting in Promoting Reform through Opening Up

　　Opening up is a distinctive hallmark of Chinese modernization. In the new period of reform and opening up and socialist modernization, China caught up with the times in great strides by relying on reform and opening up. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party and the country have achieved historic accomplishments and undergone historic changes, also by relying on reform and opening up. On the new journey in the new era, to create a new situation in Chinese modernization, we must still rely on reform and opening up. The "Decision" clearly states that "Chinese modernization is continuously advanced through reform and opening up, and will surely open up broad prospects through reform and opening up" and that "reform and opening up have only a starting point and no finishing line." When making arrangements for "improving the institutions and mechanisms for high-standard opening up," it proposes that "we must adhere to the basic state policy of opening up, persist in promoting reform through opening up, rely on China's advantage of a super-large-scale market, enhance our opening-up capacity in expanding international cooperation, and build a new system of a higher-standard open economy." All of this sends a strong signal that reform will not pause and opening up will not stop. At present, economic globalization is encountering headwinds, and the United States and other Western countries are sparing no effort to suppress and contain China, attempting to "decouple and sever supply chains" from China. The more this is the case, the more we must stand on the position that benefits national development and global open cooperation and mutual benefit, and use high-standard opening up to push economic globalization continuously forward.

　　Promoting reform and development through opening up is a successful practice in China's reform and development. In December 1978, the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made the historic decision to shift the focus of the Party and the country's work to economic development and to implement reform and opening up. In August 1980, the Party and the state approved the establishment of special economic zones in Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, and Xiamen, and in April 1988 approved the establishment of the Hainan Special Economic Zone. The development of the special economic zones served as an important window and demonstration driver for national reform and opening up and socialist modernization, and also raised requirements for establishing a socialist market economy system. A socialist market economy is in essence a rule-of-law economy, and relevant legal systems were gradually established and improved along with the process of opening up. Over the more than 20 years since joining the World Trade Organization, China has promoted reform through opening up, advanced institutional reform, revised laws, and cut tariffs, with the overall tariff level reduced from 15.3% to 7.3%. At present, China is building a new system of a higher-standard open economy, aligning rules, regulations, management, and standards with international practices in the economic and trade fields, and the trend of promoting reform through opening up has become more prominent.

　　Persisting in promoting reform through opening up reflects the direction and requirements of domestic reform. Building a new system of a higher-standard open economy is a strategic measure through which we take the initiative to promote reform and development through opening up, and it needs to be coordinated with a high-standard socialist market economy system. If domestic institutions and mechanisms do not adapt to the requirements of opening up, it will be difficult to achieve high-standard opening up; if there are obvious market distortions domestically, the institutions and mechanisms for opening up will also be affected. In an open environment, enterprises can raise funds domestically, introduce foreign investment, and also invest overseas. If the efficiency of financial resource allocation in the domestic market is relatively low, cross-border capital flows will accordingly become abnormally active, which may lead to the state imposing controls on cross-border capital flows. Therefore, building a high-standard socialist market economy system and improving the institutions and mechanisms for high-standard opening up must be advanced in tandem.

　　Steadily Expanding Institutional Opening Up

　　"Adhering to institution building as the main line" is one of the principles for further comprehensively deepening reform. In the field of opening up, compared with opening up based on the flow of goods and factors, institutional opening up is opening up at a higher level.

　　The "Decision" proposes to "steadily expand institutional opening up" and requires proactively aligning with high-standard international economic and trade rules. The series of important arrangements made in the "Decision" have extensive influence and far-reaching significance.

　　High-standard international economic and trade rules differ from traditional trade rules in their requirements. Traditional trade rules mainly focus on border measures such as tariffs and non-tariff measures, and mainly affect the import and export environment. Previous economic and trade agreements required contracting parties to continuously lower tariff levels and reduce non-tariff measures. From this perspective, China's tariff level is already far below the average level of developing countries, and its degree of openness is already relatively high. The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement, and others extend to behind-the-border measures, requiring enterprises producing export goods to comply with high-standard economic and trade rules in areas such as intellectual property protection and labor protection, and requiring exporting countries to also comply with high-standard economic and trade rules in areas such as industrial subsidies, environmental standards, government procurement, and e-commerce. To steadily expand institutional opening up, we need to proactively align with high-standard international economic and trade rules and achieve mutual compatibility of rules, regulations, management, and standards in areas such as property rights protection, industrial subsidies, environmental standards, labor protection, government procurement, e-commerce, and finance.

　　Steadily expanding institutional opening up is also an inherent requirement for further comprehensively deepening reform. Through institutional opening up, China can not only create a transparent, stable, and predictable institutional environment, but also enable the behavior of domestic enterprises, the way industries operate, and management institutions and mechanisms to meet higher standards, which helps better establish an efficient comprehensive intellectual property management system, improve the ecological environment governance system, improve the social security system, and promote the smooth completion of reform tasks in various areas.

　　The "Decision" proposes to "safeguard the multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization at its core, actively participate in the reform of the global economic governance system, and provide more global public goods." At present and for some time to come, the World Trade Organization will remain one of the international organizations in which China is relatively deeply involved and plays a positive role. Comprehensively and deeply promoting the reform of the World Trade Organization and striving to make it play an effective role should become a practical lever for China's participation in global governance. Steadily expanding institutional opening up, proactively aligning with high-standard international economic and trade rules, and establishing compliance mechanisms that connect with internationally accepted rules will help China support the reform of the World Trade Organization, enhance its effectiveness and authority, promote the improvement of the governance architecture of economic globalization, and safeguard the development rights, interests, and space of developing countries.

　　Comprehensively Raising the Level of Opening Up

　　Building a new system of a higher-standard open economy involves all aspects.

　　The "Decision" emphasizes "deepening the reform of the foreign trade system" and "deepening the reform of the management systems for foreign investment and outbound investment." It requires strengthening the coordination of trade policies with fiscal, tax, financial, and industrial policies, which helps promote the mutual reinforcement of domestic and international dual circulation; requires accelerating the reform of integrating domestic and foreign trade and actively responding to the trends of digitalization and greening in trade, which helps provide a more convenient and efficient development environment for various business entities in domestic and foreign production, circulation, consumption, and other fields, and helps enterprises quickly and flexibly switch between the domestic and international markets; requires advancing regulatory innovation in customs clearance, taxation, foreign exchange, and other areas to create an institutional environment conducive to the development of new forms and new models of business; requires innovating and upgrading trade in services, fully implementing the negative list for cross-border trade in services, and promoting the orderly expansion of opening up in areas such as telecommunications, the internet, education, culture, and healthcare; and requires creating a first-class business environment that is market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized, and protecting the rights and interests of foreign investment in accordance with the law.

　　The "Decision" emphasizes "optimizing the regional opening-up layout." It sets out requirements for the eastern coastal region, the central and western regions, and the northeastern region that conform to local development realities and comparative advantages, and accelerates the formation of a comprehensive opening-up pattern featuring land-sea linkage at home and abroad and mutual reinforcement between east and west. It requires creating open highlands in diverse forms, leveraging the advantages of coastal, border, and riverfront areas and major transportation routes, and optimizing the division of regional opening-up functions. It requires implementing the strategy of upgrading pilot free trade zones, encouraging pioneering and integrated exploration, and accelerating the construction of the Hainan Free Trade Port. It requires consolidating and enhancing Hong Kong's status as an international financial, shipping, and trade center, supporting Hong Kong and Macao in building highlands for attracting international high-end talent, and improving the mechanisms for Hong Kong and Macao to better play their roles in China's opening up.

　　The "Decision" emphasizes "improving the mechanisms for promoting high-quality Belt and Road cooperation." In particular, it requires continuing to implement the Belt and Road Science, Technology, and Innovation Cooperation Action Plan and strengthening the building of multilateral cooperation platforms in areas such as green development, the digital economy, artificial intelligence, energy, taxation, finance, and disaster reduction. It both attaches importance to advancing major landmark projects and emphasizes promoting "small and beautiful" livelihood projects, while also paying attention to the building of multilateral cooperation platforms, which is conducive to strengthening intergovernmental cooperation, pooling advantageous resources from all parties, and better achieving mutual benefit and win-win results.