Amid mounting trade shocks and heightened geopolitical uncertainties, Chinese President Xi Jinping will join leaders from APEC economies in South Korea in the coming days, in a bid to build consensus for shared prosperity and reaffirm China’s commitment to open, inclusive economic globalization.
The International Monetary Fund has projected that economic growth in the Asia-Pacific will slow from 4.5 percent this year to 4.1 percent in 2026, a sobering forecast that underscores the urgency to keep the spirit of cooperation alive, and foster new drivers and growth momentum during these challenging times.
As the leaders gather once again, Xi is expected to double down on a long-held vision: an open Asia-Pacific economy. For him, this dynamic region remains the world’s growth engine, a force capable of fueling the global economy moving forward.
CHAMPIONING FREE TRADE
In 2025, APEC members collectively account for over 60 percent of the world’s total GDP. Xi has regarded the region as a key priority for advancing free trade. Driven
by Xi’s vision, China has strengthened its economic ties with other 20 member economies, among which 15 are already China’s free trade partners.
Malaysia, an APEC member, offers a vivid example.
China has been its largest trading partner for 16 consecutive years. “Malaysian durians can now be delivered directly from orchards to Chinese supermarkets within 24 hours, and they are immensely popular among Chinese consumers,” Xi wrote in a signed article this April ahead of his state visit to the country — a detail that captured the growing strength of bilateral trade.
In June 2024, China further opened its market to durians from Malaysia. That same year, China-Malaysia trade climbed to a record 212 billion U.S. dollars, bucking the global downturn.
During the visit, Xi told Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who chairs ASEAN in 2025, that China is ready to work with regional countries to “use Asia’s stability and certainty to counter global instability and uncertainty.” In response, Anwar said ASEAN does not approve of any unilateral imposition of tariffs and will maintain economic growth through cooperation.
In fact, Xi has been committed to such an approach. “History tells us that openness and cooperation are a major driving force behind dynamic international economic and trade activities,” Xi said in 2018 when he launched the first China International Import Expo in Shanghai. That year, as the twin forces of unilateralism and protectionism grew stronger, the Chinese leader chose a different course — to keep China’s door wide open. As he has repeatedly declared: “China will not change its resolve to expand high-level opening-up.”
His commitment to openness has deep roots. In the 1980s, when China’s opening-up had just begun, Xi, then a young official in China’s southeastern coastal city of Xiamen, was already thinking ahead. He saw the city’s potential to thrive by building a free port. In 1987, Xi led a research team to Singapore — already a global hub of trade and logistics — to learn how the city-state managed its free port system, years before APEC was founded.
That early exploration laid the foundation for Xiamen to become a free-port-style special economic zone, foreshadowing how openness would become a defining feature of Xi’s strategy for linking China and the rest of the world decades later.
Over the years, this vision of openness has remained steady, evolving from local experiments in China’s coastal reform zones to a broader strategy of international engagement. Whether in promoting free trade or championing multilateralism, Xi has consistently taken open cooperation as a cornerstone of China’s development and its role in the world.
As early as 2013, when Xi made his debut at the APEC leaders’ meeting, he set out a clear vision: a China committed to building a regional cooperation framework that spans both sides of the Pacific Ocean and benefits all parties involved. Over the last decade, that early pledge has taken shape.
The following year, Xi hosted APEC leaders in Beijing, where the forum adopted the “Beijing Roadmap,” officially launching the process toward a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP).
Today, pathways for FTAAP are emerging with growing clarity. Under Xi’s leadership, China is fully implementing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) commitments and actively promoting its high-quality development. As the world’s largest free trade zone, RCEP connects 15 Asia-Pacific countries — 12 of which are APEC members — and strengthens the region’s economic interdependence.
Xi’s free trade agenda gained fresh momentum, when China and ASEAN just signed the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area Version 3.0 on Tuesday.
Lee Hee-sup, secretary-general of the Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat (TCS), said by pursuing multilateralism and free trade, China is playing a leading role in various multilateral mechanisms in the Asia-Pacific region, including RCEP, TCS, ASEAN+3 and APEC. The TCS is an international organization promoting cooperation among China, South Korea and Japan.
“It is expected that China will continue to demonstrate leadership through this organic network of mechanisms, advancing efforts toward regional cooperation and economic integration,” he said.
ADVANCING CONNECTIVITY
Xi’s first APEC trip coincided with another major milestone. In 2013, Xi paid a state visit to Indonesia, the host of that year’s APEC meeting, and proposed the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, a key component of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Since then, the initiative has grown into a powerful growth engine linking economies across the Asia-Pacific and reshaping trade routes in the region.
More than a decade later, the network continues to expand. This April, during a state visit to Vietnam, Xi and Vietnamese leader To Lam initiated discussions on a railway linking the two countries. It will further weave the BRI railway network across the region, joining landmark projects such as the China-Laos railway, China-Thailand railway, Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway and Malaysia’s East Coast Rail Link.
The BRI extends far beyond Asia. Last November, Xi flew to Peru to inaugurate the Chancay port, a maritime gateway linking Asia-Pacific with Latin America. By shortening the shipping time from Peru to China to just
23 days and cutting logistics costs by at least 20 percent, the port is set to become a vital artery in global trade. Xi outlined his vision for Chancay: to “actively explore a model that drives logistics through transport corridors, boosts trade through logistics, and spurs industries through trade.”
As physical connections deepen, Xi often stresses the need to strengthen another type of connectivity — one that is less visible but equally critical: the stability of global industrial and supply chains.
In a world facing the rising threat of decoupling and supply chain fragmentation, Xi argued: “Countries should see economic interdependence as an opportunity to complement each other’s strengths and achieve mutual benefits, not as a risk.”
In Xi’s view, in the era of economic globalization, what is needed is not gaps of division but bridges of communication, not iron curtains of confrontation but highways of cooperation.
At the end of March this year, Xi met with more than 40 global CEOs and business leaders in Beijing to discuss the current global business landscape. His message was simple yet resonant: “I often say that extinguishing someone else’s light will not make your own shine brighter, and blocking another’s path will only end up blocking your own.”
Xi has repeatedly underscored the importance of foreign businesses in advancing China’s opening-up. At the gathering, Xi pledged to “provide the greatest possible facilitation for trade and investment in China.”
Sean Stein, president of the U.S.-China Business Council, was among the attendees. After hearing Xi’s remarks, he said, “Investing in China is investing in the future.”
For Xi, connectivity is not only about steel and concrete — it is about people. He believes cultural exchanges and mutual understanding lay the foundation for lasting cooperation. China has rolled out visa-free policies and expanded cultural initiatives to further expand the world’s access to China. The moves have paid off, with the number of foreign visitors to the country rising year over year.
This spirit of connection was on full display during the 2024 APEC Leaders’ Meeting in Peru, when Xi’s conversation with Chilean President Gabriel Boric took a warm, personal turn.
Boric recalled a recent moment back home. “Before this visit to Peru, I was invited to an international book fair in Santiago,” he told Xi. “All your works were on display, alongside the works by Chinese poets, writers and artists.” Boric presented Xi with a Spanish copy of Xi Jinping: the Governance of China, Volume IV, and asked him to sign it.
In that hall of words and ink, continents seemed to draw closer. “This makes me extremely delighted,” Boric said. “The future development of relations between our two countries will benefit from our many cooperation agreements, and even more so from the cultural dialogue and educational exchanges.”
BUILDING A SHARED COMMUNITY
APEC was born at a pivotal moment when a tide of economic globalization was beginning to surge. From the outset, the forum carried a clear mission: to advance openness and economic integration.
Over the decades, that commitment has given rise to what came to be known as the “Asia-Pacific Miracle,” a period of extraordinary growth and transformation that reshaped the global economy.
For Xi, this pioneering spirit must continue. He often says Asia-Pacific cooperation should “dare to take the lead.” As APEC turns 30, standing before APEC leaders, Xi has returned to a single, resonant question: How can the region create the next “golden thirty years” of development?
His answer has been consistent: build an Asia-Pacific community with a shared future. In 2020, APEC launched Putrajaya Vision 2040, a new long-term blueprint that aspires for an “open, dynamic, resilient and peaceful Asia-Pacific community by 2040.”
The Chinese leader acknowledges that countries differ in national conditions and expectations. What matters most, he believes, is addressing these differences through consultation and working together to explore solutions to common challenges.
Xi once drew on ancient Chinese wisdom to portray APEC as a family of economies linked by the vast, flowing waters of the Pacific Ocean. “The highest good is like water; water benefits all things without contending.”
“The vast Pacific Ocean is big enough,” Xi once said, underscoring his belief in co-existence and cooperation.
Such a spirit is not only exemplified in Xi’s push for China’s collaboration with regional countries, but also in his efforts to help them overcome pressing global challenges, particularly climate change.
This February, Xi invited Sultan of Brunei Haji Hassanal Bolkiah Mu’izzaddin Waddaulah to visit China and attend the opening of the 9th Asian Winter Games in China’s northeastern ice city, Harbin.
Ahead of the Games, the two leaders met in Beijing for talks that spanned both emerging and traditional sectors. Their discussion touched on new industries such as the digital economy, artificial intelligence and new energy, as well as longstanding areas of cooperation like agriculture and fisheries. Brunei will host the ASEAN Center for Climate Change and collaborate closely with China on climate action.
For Xi, the partnership carries symbolic weight. He noted that China and Brunei “have set a model for treating countries, big and small, as equals and pursuing mutual benefit and win-win cooperation.”
Looking ahead, Xi envisions the Asia-Pacific remaining the “locomotive” of globalization. A new wave of technological and industrial change is emerging, driving the global shift toward a digital, green, and smart economy. Such change, Xi argues, is building powerful momentum for the next phase of globalization.
He has often described the world economy as being caught in a tug of war between driving and obstructive forces, but he believes the forces driving integration will prevail. “As long as we act in the spirit of openness and connectivity,” he has said, “the vast Pacific will become a thoroughfare for more prosperity and growth.”
-XINHUA
