Warranted endeavor to open up

Economies that emphasize development without prioritizing openness eventually will end up with neither

China's 45-year reform and opening up has seen the country progressively open up its coastal, inland, and border regions and embark on a path of positive interactions with the world, which serves as an outstanding example of warranted openness.

Is it always better for an economy to be more open? The answer depends on how warranted the openness is. This in turn is closely related to the economy's capacity to open up to the outside world.

For a country, its capacity for openness is the fundamental factor for the degree to which it opens to the outside world. The term "warranted openness" refers to the level of openness supported by the economy's capacity. As long as an economy stays within the range of warranted openness, the more it can open, the more it develops and the more secure it becomes. A country's openness capacity can be evaluated by its view on openness, systems for openness, and available resources.

Warranted openness and openness capacity imply the need to evaluate the openness of a country based on its development stage, avoiding being excessively conservative or blindly bold. As a country develops and its openness capacity builds up, warranted openness also grows progressively.

A country's capacity to open and its actual level of openness are mutually supportive and reinforcing. Only by focusing on nurturing its openness capacity can a country shoulder greater openness and gain higher benefits from it. On the other hand, high-level openness is an important guarantee for cultivating openness capacity, which develops only through global competition and cooperation, rather than standing still.

In today's global economic and trade landscape, cultivating openness capacity is particularly relevant to resisting the headwinds of rising protectionism, and encouraging countries to continue opening up.

According to the World Openness Report 2023, the World Openness Index 2022 was down by 0.4 percent from 2021 and 5.4 percent from 2008, continuing the downward trend over the past 15 years, with no signs of a stable foundation for recovery.

Despite sluggish indexes in openness policies and performance, there is still hope. According to the World Bank's classification, five out of the seven regions, including North America and Europe, saw openness declining, with only South Asia as well as East Asia and the Pacific showing an uptick.

It is noteworthy that emerging markets and developing economies are playing an increasingly important role in promoting global openness. From 2008 to 2022, the BRICS countries, countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, emerging markets and developing countries, and economies in East Asia and the Pacific have all seen rising openness indexes. The capacity cultivated by these economies will make the tailwinds of openness even stronger.

China is a prominent promoter of global openness and a remarkable fosterer of the openness capacity of developing countries.

For instance, the BRI is playing a major role in advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and nurturing development and the openness capacity of partner countries. Through infrastructure connectivity, unimpeded trade, and financial integration, the initiative is helping partner countries grow resource-related openness capacity. Through policy coordination and connecting people, it helps countries build systems for openness. Embedded with China's development and openness philosophy, the initiative supports partner countries to foster favorable views on openness.

China's modernization offers invaluable insights and references for the development and opening of developing countries. With high-level openness embedded throughout the country's modernization journey, the key takeaways are: how it balances opening and development, and how it ensures that the outcomes of openness are shared by the entire population. Its experiences and achievements provide a valuable reference for developing countries in constructing systems and views for openness.

In recent years, the cause of global openness has been facing daunting challenges. Fostering fresh momentum to expand openness is key to breaking through the obstacles. China will continue to uphold economic globalization, support countries worldwide, especially developing ones, to build capacity and expand openness, share the benefits of openness, and consistently promote the building of an open world economy and a community of shared future for mankind.

The author is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, director-general of the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the CASS and chief expert of the National Institute for Global Strategy at the CASS. The author contributed this article to China Watch, a think tank powered by China Daily.

Contact the editor at editor@chinawatch.cn