Nations call for multilateralism as WTO marks 30th anniversary

The World Trade Organization (WTO) commemorated its 30th anniversary on Thursday, with representatives from around the globe calling for a renewed commitment to multilateralism and a rules-based global trading system.

During the event, 41 economies jointly issued a Friends of Multilateralism initiative, recognizing the WTO's key role in driving global trade liberalization and integrating developing nations into the world economy over the past three decades. The statement emphasized that the multilateral trading system now faces serious threats, including supply chain disruptions and the resurgence of protectionism.

Participants urged all members to reaffirm their commitment to WTO rules, maintain open trade, and innovate reforms that will enable the organization to better address current global challenges, and safeguard the foundational role of the WTO-centered multilateral trading system.

Speakers from across the WTO membership, including Barbados on behalf of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group, Mozambique for the African Group, as well as the European Union, China, and Russia, expressed concern about rising unilateral tariffs and increasing global uncertainty. They reaffirmed the importance of the WTO's core principles, such as non-discrimination, and called for firm support of a WTO-centered, rules-based multilateral trading system, with a commitment to concrete actions for WTO reform and ensuring the success of the organization's 14th Ministerial Conference.

China's representative emphasized that growing global instability highlights the WTO's irreplaceable value. Criticizing the United States for imposing unilateral tariffs on WTO members including China, the Chinese side warned that such actions severely undermine the multilateral trading system and global economic stability, particularly harming vulnerable and least-developed economies.

China resolutely defends its countermeasures as necessary to safeguard its sovereignty, security and development interests, while also protecting international trade rules, fairness and justice. History has proven time and again that protectionism leads nowhere, and openness and cooperation are the right path forward, said the Chinese representative, adding that China remains committed to genuine multilateralism and to safeguarding the WTO's rules-based system for a more stable and predictable global economy.

The WTO was established in 1995, making free trade a universal principle in international trade and economic exchanges.

Nations call for multilateralism as WTO marks 30th anniversary

Nations call for multilateralism as WTO marks 30th anniversary

Nations call for multilateralism as WTO marks 30th anniversary

Nations call for multilateralism as WTO marks 30th anniversary

The 2026 Beijing Book Fair opened on Thursday amid China's endeavor to promote public reading.

The book fair is set at the China International Exhibition Center in Chaoyang District, covering an area of ​​50,000 square meters and presenting more than 400,000 titles with over 2,700 booths.

A new regulation the country just rolled out, which will take effect on Feb. 1, aims to raise the intellectual, moral, scientific, and cultural standards of the Chinese people and enhance overall social civility, contributing to China's efforts to build itself into a country with a strong socialist culture.

Major publishing groups and institutions are also seizing this opportunity to align with the implementation of national policies and regulations to gain a competitive edge in the industry.

"In planning our publishing strategy for 2026, the regulation to promote public reading is a great boon to our book industry. We will deepen our presence in the market of Chinese language and writing reference books, and further our efforts to integrate digital and intelligent technologies to empower the publishing industry following the concept of building an independent Chinese knowledge system," said Gu Qing, Party secretary of the Commercial Press.

Publishers pledge that they will leverage their strengths in serving economic growth hotspots and turn out more high-quality books in alignment with national strategies.

"We should leverage the current booming industries in the economic development, and the rich audio-video and film resources, to create and public good books in formats to the liking of the people," said Zhu Yanbo, head of marketing department of China Radio and Television Publishing House.

"Like the trilogy of Conscience Challenge (an anti-corruption novel) we published, the sales volume of its first print was over a million copies, and the reprint has now sold over 200,000 copies. How to make books closer to life and people is something our publishing industry should focus on," said Liu Haitao, Party secretary of China Democracy Legal System Publishing House.

2026 Beijing Book Fair opens