Editorial: The China International Fair for Trade in Services showcases a unique landscape of globalization to the world
The theme of this year's Fair for Trade in Services is "Openness leads development, cooperation and win-win future", from which we can see a clear Chinese attitude. It has been 11 years since the establishment of CIFIT in 2012. During this period, the world has experienced many turbulence and challenges, including the rise of anti globalization trend, wars in some regions, the COVID-19, and climate change. However, China's position of adhering to opening up and multilateralism has not shrunk because of difficulties, but has become more clear and firm. Nowadays, international exhibitions such as the China International Fair for Trade in Services, the China International Import Expo, and the Canton Fair form a polyhedron of China's high-level opening-up to the outside world. Their regular hosting itself conveys the confidence and strength of unity and cooperation to the world.
A prominent impression among people is that this year's Service Trade Fair is more lively and international than before, with more companies coming, and new technologies and industries becoming more overwhelming. It is reported that 59 countries and 24 international organizations have set up exhibitions and events for this Service Trade Fair, with more than 2400 enterprises participating offline, attracting more than 500 Fortune Global 500 and industry leading enterprises to attend. The overall internationalization rate has exceeded 20%. In addition, more than 200 summit forums, forum meetings, and promotion negotiations will be held during this year's Fair for Trade in Services. More than 100 authoritative information such as the China Service Trade Development Report will be released, and more than 60 enterprises and institutions will launch a batch of new products and technologies in the field of artificial intelligence. In the current situation of global economic weakness and geopolitical tension, these numbers themselves can illustrate the problem.
The grand occasion of this Fair for Trade in Services has also exposed some erroneous statements currently prevalent in the international public opinion from multiple perspectives. Firstly, the statement that the Chinese economy is no longer attractive is self defeating. Due to the recent severe situation of goods trade exports and other factors, some foreign media accustomed to singing down the Chinese economy have made many so-called judgments about the Chinese economy, such as "foreign investment leaving China" and "China is no longer attractive". The reality presented by the Fair for Trade in Services is exactly opposite to these views. For most multinational companies and many countries, they are eager to seek opportunities in China after the epidemic. Whether it is the development potential of China's service trade or the new measures taken by the Chinese government, they are encouraged.
Secondly, actively decoupling from China has been proven to be an extremely naive viewpoint. For example, the high-tech field that the United States is striving to kick out China has precisely become one of the biggest highlights of this year's Fair for Trade in Services. Taking Qualcomm, an American company that has participated in the Fair for the fourth consecutive year, as an example, "black technologies" such as 5G, big language models, and virtual reality have become the focus of its exhibition this year. Qualcomm has once again expressed confidence in the development prospects of the Chinese market. For example, although anti China politicians in the UK frequently claim that the UK should "decouple" from China, as the guest of honor of this year's Fair for Trade in Services, the UK has not only sent the largest exhibition group of over 60 British companies and institutions, but also expressed that the Chinese market is nurturing huge opportunities, hoping to deepen cooperation in areas such as financial services and education. For many multinational corporations, there is a fundamental reality: without coming to China, they cannot achieve the economic scale required to maintain global competitiveness. Although there are some so-called "risk reduction" voices in the United States and the West now, it is certain that no one can turn a blind eye to the huge Chinese market.
Moreover, globalization has not collapsed, and globalization in the field of service trade has a unique landscape, in which China's high-level opening up is playing an important role. Although the growth of global trade in goods has slowed down under various factors, this is only one aspect of globalization that is currently present. In the service industry, which accounts for an increasing proportion of the world economy, the process of globalization is still in its infancy. If we consider the large-scale digital transformation of traditional industries and the continuous emergence of leading achievements in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, the globalization driven by service trade will far exceed some narrow analysis based on geopolitics. As the world's fourth largest service exporter and second largest service importer, China is promoting the development of service trade with its high-level openness and sharing development opportunities with the world.
In the current context of weak global economic recovery and various headwinds, the confidence brought to the world by the open, inclusive, mutually beneficial, and innovative drive demonstrated by the Service Trade Fair is real and powerful.
