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Summer Davos answers why global businesses should stay engaged with China: commentary

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Summer Davos answers why global businesses should stay engaged with China: commentary

2025-06-27 17:42 Last Updated At:18:07

Chinese solutions to global challenges and new growth drivers in the Chinese economy demonstrated at the just concluded 2025 Summer Davos forum have answered why the rest of the world should stay engaged with China, a China Media Group commentary said on Thursday.

An edited English translation of the commentary is as follows:

"This year marks the 30th anniversary of Qualcomm's entry into the Chinese market. Over the past 30 years, we have witnessed China's transformation from a follower to a global leader in mobile communication technology," Meng Pu, chairman of Qualcomm China, told Real Point Commentary on Wednesday on the sidelines of the 2025 Summer Davos Forum, also known as the 16th Annual Meeting of New Champions of the World Economic Forum, which was held in north China's Tianjin Municipality from Tuesday to Thursday.

The three-day event attracted nearly 1,800 guests from more than 90 countries and regions, a record attendance for recent years. It also featured nearly 200 sub-forums, all calling for open cooperation.

The current international economic and trade landscape is undergoing profound changes. Rising unilateralism, protectionism, and escalations of geopolitical conflicts are subjecting the world economy to the dual shocks of "tariffs and war."

While the international economic and trade landscape is undergoing a profound change, constructive actions are more precious than ever for international economic and trade cooperation. China's three proposals, namely resolving differences and disagreements through equal consultation, safeguarding common interests in mutually beneficial cooperation, and contributing to each other's development by generating more growth, resonated strongly with the participants at the forum.

They believe that Chinese solutions not only align with the general trend of global economic integration, but also demonstrate China's commitment to making the pie bigger and sharing it with other countries.

Noting China has a vast and vibrant consumer market, strong industrial foundations, persistent innovation and rapid development of new industries and technologies, and a continuously improving business environment, many participants at the forum said that in a challenging international situation, China will provide sustained new momentum for the world economy and the development of multinational corporations.

Currently, the Chinese market is continuously expanding and upgrading, creating more room for global economy and trade to grow.

China is the world's second largest consumer market and importer, with nearly 50 trillion yuan (about 7 trillion U.S. dollars) of consumption, over 50 trillion yuan of investment and over 20 trillion yuan of imports, and the figures are still increasing.

China's new growth drivers also stem from relentless innovation.

In recent years, the emergence of Chinese tech companies like Hangzhou's "Six Little Dragons" has sparked global interest in China's innovation ecosystem. China has maintained the world's largest full-time equivalent (FTE) research workforce for years, boasting the world's most comprehensive academic system and the largest talent pool.

The "Six Little Dragons" refer to the six enterprises of Game Science, DeepSeek, Unitree Robotics, DEEP Robotics, BrainCo and Manycore Tech.

The explosive growth of large language models has made AI a popular word at the 2025 Summer Davos Forum. Industry insiders believe the application of related technologies in the development of new materials could boost the efficiency by 100 to 1,000 times. And China is playing a key role in this transformation.

It is because of these new drivers that foreign companies are making decades-long plans for their development in China.

In the first five months of 2025, 24,018 new foreign-invested enterprises were established on the Chinese mainland, a year-on-year growth of 10.4 percent.

Multinationals are demonstrating through actions that, both in the past and now, they aspire to be companions of China.

As former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said at the forum, the rest of the world should "stay engaged with China."

Summer Davos answers why global businesses should stay engaged with China: commentary

Summer Davos answers why global businesses should stay engaged with China: commentary

The number of temporary accommodation registrations of foreign nationals in Shanghai hit a record high of 7.139 million in 2025, up 49.6 percent from the previous year, the Exit-Entry Administration Corps of the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau said at a press briefing on Thursday.

The figure, which had already doubled in 2024, points to a continued rise in the number of foreign nationals visiting and staying in the city, highlighting the metropolis's growing appeal to international visitors.

Shanghai also issued more than 200,000 visas and residence permits to foreigners for the second consecutive year in 2025.

Long-term permits, including residence permits, accounted for a share 10 percentage points higher than the previous year, reflecting growing demand for extended stays.

Officials said the increase mirrors Shanghai's expanding openness and improving services for foreign visitors and residents.

"In 2025, Shanghai processed 7.139 million temporary accommodation registrations for foreigners. Following a doubling from the year before last, the figure rose by another 49.6 percent year on year, marking a historical high in the number of foreign nationals coming to Shanghai," said Song Weiqi, deputy head of the administration corps.

Accommodation registrations are required for foreigners staying in China. In 2025, 94.7 percent of temporary accommodation registrations were handled directly by hotels, resulting in a convenient check-in process.

Among foreigners residing in Shanghai's residential communities, 84.8 percent opted for online self-reporting via a multilingual platform that offers efficient, flexible registration.

Meanwhile, to ease the surge in passport applications for foreign travel ahead of the upcoming Chinese New Year holiday in mid-February, the administration corps announced plans to extend service hours for residents.

Shanghai hits a record-high 7.14 million expat accommodation registrations in 2025

Shanghai hits a record-high 7.14 million expat accommodation registrations in 2025

Shanghai hits a record-high 7.14 million expat accommodation registrations in 2025

Shanghai hits a record-high 7.14 million expat accommodation registrations in 2025

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