China Rejects "Crowding-Out Thesis," Touts Developing-Nation Access at CIIE

SHANGHAI — Chinese Vise Premier Ding Xuexiang took the stage Friday to open the 9th China International Import Expo in Shanghai. One pointed, sharp remark stood out above all others: "The so-called 'China-crowding-out thesis' hyped by certain institutions and media stems from zero-sum-game thinking and simply does not hold water."

That stinging comment set the tone for the keynote speech by Ding, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, as he welcomed international guests to the "Pearl of the Orient" on the theme of "New Era, Shared Future". The vise premier defended Beijing’s role in global industrial chains at the annual trade meeting, saying that foreign-funded firms in the country accounted for 27% of China’s total exports and 16% of its total trade surplus in 2025."

Surpluses build up in China, but benefits build up for everyone," Ding told the audience, noting that multinational investors have averaged roughly nine percent return on investment over the past five years. Beijing also has been building industrial parks across Southeast Asia and Africa to boost local employment and industrialization.

In response to the wider scrutiny of acute global development imbalances and severe shocks to the international economic order, Ding shared four observations on how Beijing pursues a “positive, dynamic and upward-oriented trade balance” by growing the common economic pie rather than deliberately chasing surpluses. He noted that traditional manufacturing giants like Britain, the United States, Japan and Germany have long enjoyed trade surpluses, with German and Japanese current-account surpluses frequently exceeding 6% of gross domestic product.

China has remained the world’s second-largest market for goods imports for 17 years and a crucial export market for close to 80 countries. It has a goods surplus and a deficit in services trade. Consequently, the current-account surplus-to-GDP ratio in China fell from 9.9% in 2007 to 3.7% last year, which Ding said is well within the reasonable range recognized internationally. In addition, the growth of China's imports was 22.3% in the first three quarters of the year, 5.7 percentage points faster than the growth of exports.

High-tech products accounted for more than half of the growth in China’s exports in the same three months, supported by a 99.1% surge in exports of integrated circuits and a 45.6% increase in exports of the “new three items.”

Chinese products compete not because of government subsidies but because of technological strengths built through long-term heavy investment in R&D and innovation drive of enterprises, Ding said, noting that Beijing is ready to expand global cooperation in scientific innovation, digital economy and green development.

The Vise Premier warned against "over-stretching security concepts and beggar-thy-neighbour policies" on geopolitical trade frictions, which only worsen global trade imbalances. Ding cited World Trade Organization research showing that current restrictive measures affect about 20 percent of global goods imports, and said that trade barriers and interruptions to normal high-tech trade hinder China’s acquisition of many goods it wishes to import, leading to significant losses for all concerned. He urged trading partners to cut trade costs and settle disputes through dialog based on equality and mutual trust.

The Shanghai expo, which was launched in 2018, has held eight previous sessions, with President Xi Jinping attending multiple opening ceremonies to champion the multilateral trading system through the event’s core platform functions of international procurement, investment promotion, people-to-people cultural exchanges and open cooperation. Policies announced at the expo have reduced China’s overall tariff level to 7.3 percent, fully lifted foreign-investment access restrictions in the manufacturing sector and expanded the negative-list regulatory model to cover cross-border services trade and data flows, and offered zero-tariff treatment to all least-developed African countries that have diplomatic ties with Beijing, Ding said.

Ding mentioned concrete business benefits from the event, which draws approximately 4,000 exhibitors each time, such as a Swedish medical company that established its regional headquarters in Shanghai after exhibiting a radiotherapy system at the trade fair; the technology went through clinical trials and regulatory approval rapidly and now treats more than 40 types of cancer, assisting tens of thousands of patients. He also mentioned the case of Peruvian alpaca artisans, who went from USD 10,000 per year in orders to USD 50,000 per month through the expo, pulling over 200 local families out of poverty.

At the same time, the Hongqiao International Economic Forum, held concurrently, has been releasing the World Openness Report and World Openness Index for six consecutive years, and is publishing its Report on Capacity for Exporting to China with the ongoing “Export-to-China” events.

Looking forward, Ding said he was confident China would meet its annual economic targets amid a complex and stern external environment, laying a solid basis for the 15th Five-Year Plan period. By the end of that plan, Beijing anticipates annual retail sales of consumer goods to be around RMB 60 trillion and the domestic services sector to be more than RMB 100 trillion.