China to continue expanding opening up, offering opportunities for global firms: vice president

China will continue expanding high-level opening up and promoting high-quality development, while offering vast opportunities for global enterprises, Vice President Han Zheng said on Thursday.

Han made the remarks while addressing the opening ceremony of the Global Trade and Investment Promotion Summit 2025 in Beijing.

The current new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is deepening and evolving, with new industries and technologies, such as digital economy and artificial intelligence, being widely applied, said Han, noting that these advancements are reshaping the global trade and investment landscape, offering vast development opportunities and broad prospects.

As the world is accelerating into the era of digital intelligence, Han called for collective efforts to drive global trade and investment transformation and promote common development.

Han further pointed out that it is crucial to seize the new opportunities presented by the technological revolution and industrial transformation and expand the scope and depth of digital and intelligent technological innovation applications, so as to provide stronger momentum for global economic recovery and growth.

He stressed the importance of fostering open cooperation and mutual benefit in the era of digital intelligence, upholding fairness and inclusive benefits and bridging the digital and intelligence divides to create better conditions for international trade and investment cooperation.

Moreover, Han emphasized the need to safeguard the stability and smooth operation of global industrial and supply chains, empower upstream and downstream enterprises to better collaborate through digital and intelligent technologies, and enhance the resilience, efficiency, and vitality of the global industrial and supply chains.

China advocates an equal and orderly multi-polar world and an inclusive economic globalization that benefits all, Han said, noting that the country has remained a major contributor to global economic growth and a stabilizing anchor for the world economy.

China will further expand high-level opening-up, promote high-quality development, and offer vast opportunities to enterprises from all countries.

Partnering with China means walking alongside opportunities, he noted.

This was the fourth edition of the summit hosted by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.

More than 800 people from foreign governmental departments, international organizations, foreign chambers of commerce, global trade promotion organizations, enterprises, among others, attended the summit.

China to continue expanding opening up, offering opportunities for global firms: vice president

China to continue expanding opening up, offering opportunities for global firms: vice president

Washington's assertive moves, from attacks on Venezuela to threats against Iran and Greenland, reflect the final outburst of a declining unipolar order and may encourage countries in the Global South to band together as uncertainty grows, said American University history professor Anton Fedyashin.

U.S. President Donald Trump's policy agenda has drawn widespread criticism from governments around the world, as Latin American governments condemn the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and the European Union sharply rejects Trump's claims on Greenland, a territory of Denmark.

In a recent interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN), Fedyashin said that the U.S. president's brazen actions signal an impending end to America's excessive global influence.

"I think we are entering a period of global fragmentation, and that we are certainly entering a period when American hegemony is in relative decline. And I think that Donald Trump, by the way, is a manifestation. It's the 'extinction burst' of American hegemony, of the unipolar moment," he said.

Fedyashin predicted that stronger cooperation among Global South nations will become increasingly urgent as countries seek new pathways to accelerate development amid the renewed uncertainties from the U.S.

"What I think is more likely to start happening is that countries around the world will start banding together, in order to protect themselves against the United States, and against the West and whatever other outside actors there are. The world, the members of the Global South will start looking for alternatives to Western-dominated organizations, both economically and from the point of view of security. So I think that if the United States continues to be so unpredictable and aggressive, that the Global South, at least, will start coming together," said the historian.

US aggression signals hegemony faces "extinction burst": historian