Sun Lixing The first China International Import Expo (CIIE) highlights China’s contribution to oppose trade protectionism and promote global trade and presents to the world again that China is a power with sense of responsibility. Against the backdrop of the current anti-globalization and trade protectionism, global trade frictions are escalating, bringing about huge negative impact on the global trade growth that just got over the last round of the international financial crisis and began to recover. Since the US is still a major import market in the world, global commodities need to find new export markets after the US administration adopts comprehensive retrenchment strategies of international economic and trade. The holding of the first CIIE in China, which helps further open up the market in China and increase import, not only plays a key role in avoiding the shrinkage of global trade and promoting global economic and trade cooperation, but also fully reflects China’s role as a major power and the world’s second largest economy. The CIIE stands as a positive contributor to defending economic globalization, promoting trade liberalization, and facilitating the sustained recovery of the world economy. Statistics from the UN demonstrate that China’s imports have been increasing in a row since the reform and opening-up in 1978. The share of China’s imports in the world rose from 0.93% in 1979 to 11.59% in 2017. China’s world ranking in terms of imports share jumped from 23rd in 1979 to 2nd in 2017. China’s imports in the future will have huge room for growth. As President Xi Jinping pointed out on the opening ceremony of the first CIIE, it is expected that China will need to import over 30 trillion US dollars and 10 trillion US dollars of goods and services in the next 15 years. China’s initiative to increase imports not only serves as a historic opportunity for companies from all over the world to enter the huge Chinese market, but also will effectively enhance the global trade liberalization, create new demands and inject new impetus for the world’s economic growth. The holding of the CIIE also proves from one perspective to the world that China intends to build an open and inclusive new global economic and trade order. China is not planning to move anybody’s “cheese”. Instead China takes the first CIIE as an opportunity to break the interests-driven traditional international economic and trade order based on the “zero-sum game” confrontational thinking, and promote the Belt and Road international economic and trade cooperation based on mutual benefit and win-win cooperation with the purpose of building a community of shared future for mankind. When the economic globalization encounters severe challenges and increasing trade protectionism, China demonstrates her resolve to open up its market further with the launch of the first CIIE and practical actions, winning wide acclaim from the international community. Ms. Arancha Gonzalez, Executive Director of the International Trade Centre (ITC) — the joint agency of the UN and the World Trade Organization (WTO) — indicated that the first CIIE would foster new opportunities for global development and effectively promote international trade and multilateral cooperation. The Diplomat Magazine of the US viewed that the holding of the CIIE in China fully demonstrated the country’s determination to explicitly support inclusive globalization in the current global context. Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE) also expressed similar views and considered the Expo to be a platform for China to adhere to trade liberalization and economic globalization. The News International (the largest English newspaper in Pakistan) further pointed out that the CIIE would effectively strengthen the business contacts among countries and help foreign companies better integrate into the Chinese market by combining the Country Pavilion, Enterprise & Business Exhibition and forums to promote free trade and an open global economy. Government officials of many countries also expressed that they should make their best to seize this opportunity and demonstrate their strengths. Mr. Luis Guillermo Solís River, former President of Costa Rica, expressed that the CIIE was not only crucial to the future of Latin America, but also an unprecedented opportunity for embarking on a new journey on the path of globalization cooperation among countries all over the world. Mr. Tarek Kabil, current Trade and Industry Minister of Egypt, believed that the CIIE was a very good platform for Egypt to display the most competitive products fully. Dr. Rob Davies, Minister of Trade and Industry of South Africa, said the CIIE provided South African companies with the sound opportunity to explore the Chinese market so that South Africa would focus on cooperation with China in agriculture and agricultural product processing industry. Ms. Shinta Kamdani, Vice Chairwoman of Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, also said that it was very important for Indonesia to be able to participate in the Expo. Since the CIIE has provided opportunities for foreign companies wishing to expand their exports to China to have a close contact with the Chinese market, Indonesia also hopes to employ this platform to make its featured products known to the world. Mr. John Edwards, Consul General of the UK in Shanghai, expressed his hope that the Chinese consumers may find the best British products from different industries on this CIIE. As the largest open international platform, companies from all over the world also put high expectations on the CIIE. A total of 172 countries, regions and international organizations as well as more than 3,600 companies participated in the Expo with a total exhibition area of 300,000 square meters. Over 400,000 domestic and foreign buyers came to negotiate and make procurements. Among them, companies from the developed economies such as Japan and the US played active parts. According to statistics from the Japan Exterior Trade Research Organization (JETRO), about 380 Japanese companies and groups signed up for the Expo, making Japan the largest exhibiting country. There were over 180 exhibitors from the US, ranking third among the participating countries. Many Fortune 500 and multinational companies, such as Qualcomm, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, General Motors, and DuPont, were among the participators. In addition, more than 100 companies from 30 African countries also showcased their products at the Expo as a gesture to explore the vast Chinese consumer market. The holding of the first CIIE, as an important move for China to further open its market and build a new pattern of open economy, will help promote the high quality development of the Chinese economy. The first CIIE will be the world’s first large-scale import exhibition and an international platform for China to promote global trade growth. It is also a very important indicator for the transformation and upgrading of China’s foreign trade and will pave new roads and build new bridges for the trade and investment cooperation among the countries along the Belt and Road. The concluded cooperation agreements and purchase orders have shown that the results of the first CIIE are remarkable and beyond the expectations of most exhibitors. In only three days from the opening of the CIIE, over 20 Chinese and Australian companies have entered into important memorandums on cooperation agreements. Among them, a number of agreements span 5 years, with a total value of more than 15 billion Australian dollars, involving tourism, resources, infrastructure, e-commerce, food, alcohol and logistics services. Companies from the cultural and creative industries of China and the UK have signed eight agreements with a total value of more than 40 million pounds. China State Shipbuilding Corporation signed the first large cruise ship building contract in China with Carnival Corporation and Fincantieri. In terms of the distribution of contracted enterprises, 34% are from the developed countries such as the US, Germany, Japan, South Korea, France, and Britain, 34% from countries along the Belt and Road, and 10% from the least developed countries, which fully reflects the extensiveness of the Expo as an international public product. As an effective way to expand trade with the third-party countries, the holding of the CIIE in China will also attracts some overseas high-tech products to make their debut in China, which is of great significance as a response to trade protectionism. The CIIE is not only conducive to opening up new dimension for the Belt and Road economic and trade cooperation, but also facilitates the development of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone. Therefore, a new pattern of open two-way trade will be developed through the transition from “buying from all over the country to sell to the world” to “buying from all over the world to sell to the country.” The CIIE also plays a very significant role in promoting the development of cross-border e-commerce in China. Cross-border e-commerce companies can form a cross-border e-commerce procurement alliance by establishing a one-stop cross-border e-commerce transaction service platform to provide accurate cross-border e-commerce channel matchmaking services for imports of overseas commodities. In recent years, the scale of cross-border e-commerce imports and the number of cross-border online shoppers in China have been surging. According to statistics from the China E-Commerce Research Center, the transactions of China’s import cross-border e-commerce market was RMB1.5 trillion yuan last year, while it exceeded one trillion in the first half of this year. The number of cross-border online shoppers in China reached seventy-five million in the first half of this year. At the Expo, Alibaba Group announced that it would achieve a global import of 200 billion US dollars in the next five years. JD expected to directly sign and purchase nearly 100 billion yuan of imported brand goods. Suning’s global procurement scale was expected to reach nearly 15 billion euro, introducing 5,000 overseas brands into the Chinese market. On the other hand, China’s reform and opening-up and the Belt and Road Initiative have enabled Chinese companies to “go global” and integrate into the global value chain of production, which raises the added value of products and reduces the consumer price of products in the meanwhile by relying on the network effect of products. Thanks to the holding of the CIIE, China can bring better and economical products to domestic consumers, promote consumption upgrading, propel the transformation and development of the Chinese economy, and allow countries around the world to share the benefits of China’s economic development. China has entered a new stage of continuous consumption expansion. Over the past 10 years, China’s overseas consumption has maintained a double-digit annual growth. According to a report released by the World Tourism Organization UNWTO, the overseas consumption of Chinese tourists in 2017 was US$257.7 billion, accounting for more than one-fifth of the total consumption of global outbound tourists and twice the amount consumed by the US tourists who ranked second. The holding of the CIIE will help to enrich domestic consumption choices and win back consumers by expanding imports of high-quality consumer goods and services. In addition, China’s future economic development will face the bottleneck of increasingly severe resource shortages, while China is a large consumer country. By holding the CIIE, China can make better use of domestic and international markets to attract and integrate global resources to facilitate the high quality development of the Chinese economy. (The author is the director, researcher, and doctoral tutor from the Office of International Investment of the Institute of World Economy, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.)