Davos participants hail China’s strong 2025 growth despite global headwinds

As global uncertainties weighed on growth, China stood out in 2025 with strong resilience, contributing most to the world economy, said distinguished figures at the 2026 World Economic Forum (WEF) gathering in Davos, Switzerland.

China's gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 5 percent year on year in 2025, hitting a record 140.19 trillion yuan (about 20 trillion U.S. dollars) and achieving the annual growth target, official data showed Monday.

The Chinese economy during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25) was marked by four consecutive leaps, surpassing 110, 120, 130, and 140 trillion yuan, despite multiple unexpected shocks.

For many years, China has contributed roughly 30 percent of global economic growth, cementing its role as an indispensable "ballast" for the world economy.

Forum participants observed that maintaining rapid growth is difficult for an economy of China's size. They emphasized that China’s robust economic results helped stabilize global confidence amid geopolitical challenges and trade frictions.

"China has been an important engine of growth over the past at least two decades, if not more. And so this is a very important of course data point that China is growing at this pace in this economic environment and obviously contributing to the picture that the IMF put out that we seem to have more resiliency in the world economy than maybe many predicted," said Mirek Dusek, managing director of the WEF.

"In 2025, despite the tariffs and all what has happened in trade and you have grown 5 percent that is more or less what was the target. It's important to understand is that China needs to grow between 4.5 and 5 percent and that will make the world economy also more stable because you are so important to the world economy, so it is something to be celebrated," said Rebecca Greenspan, secretary-general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

Under the theme "A Spirit of Dialogue," the five-day WEF event opened Monday, drawing nearly 3,000 leaders and experts worldwide to discuss five pressing global challenges, including enhancing cooperation, unlocking new sources of growth and deploying innovation at scale and responsibly.

Davos participants hail China’s strong 2025 growth despite global headwinds

The Global Security Initiative (GSI) proposed by China has shifted the paradigm in thinking about global security away from the traditional zero-sum mentality toward a vision rooted in dialogue and development, said a Chinese expert on Tuesday.

In April 2022, China proposed the Global Security Initiative (GSI), which aims to create a new path to security that prioritizes dialogue over confrontation, partnership over alliance, and win-win over zero-sum thinking.

The initiative provides a new course and approach to addressing the root causes of international conflicts and solving security challenges facing humanity.

During an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN), Wang Xinsong, associate professor at the School of Government at Beijing Normal University, hailed the initiative's importance amid escalating global challenges.

"It's been four years and we have witnessed that the Global Security Initiative or GSI has transformed from a framework in principle to an action plan with many actions having taken place in mediating the conflicts. The major difference between the GSI and the traditional and the existing mainstream idea about global security is that the mainstream idea is being the zero-sum mentality where the belief is that one country's safety is possible only if its neighbors safety is not existent. The GSI shifts the paradigm in thinking about global security away from the zero-sum mentality by arguing that security at the end of the day is very much related to development," Wang said.

Over the past four years, China has consistently promoted the implementation of the GSI. By the end of 2025, the initiative has received support and appreciation from more than 130 countries and regions, as well as international organizations, and has been explicitly incorporated into more than 140 bilateral and multilateral documents at home and abroad.

China's Global Security Initiative shifts paradigm away from traditional zero-sum mentality: expert