China urges the United States to stop playing up tensions and instigating confrontation in the South China Sea, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun said on Friday.
Guo made the statement in response to a media query about U.S. State Department spokesperson's remarks concerning Huangyan Dao.
Huangyan Dao has always been China's territory. It is within China's sovereign rights to establish and administer the Huangyan Dao national nature reserve, Guo said.
He pointed out that the United States is in no position to point fingers, and the "South China Sea arbitration award", which is illegal, null and void, provides no solid ground for the U.S. to speak for the Philippines.
China urges the U.S. to stop playing up tensions and instigating confrontation in the South China Sea, stop citing the illegal and invalid "award", and stop using maritime issues as a pretext to smear China, said the spokesman.
China urges US to stop playing up tensions in South China Sea
Foreign investment utilized by national economic and technological development zones (ETDZs) accounted for nearly a quarter of the country's total in 2025, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Commerce in Xiamen City, east China's Fujian Province, on Wednesday.
The report was released at the 26th China International Fair for Investment and Trade underway in Xiamen.
In 2025, the total amount of actual foreign investment utilized by national ETDZs reached 25.6 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 24.5 percent of the nation's total, it said.
As key platforms for China's opening-up, national ETDZs are undergoing a transformation: rather than simply competing on preferential policies, they are now focusing on new quality productive forces, building high-quality industrial ecosystems tailored to local conditions and prioritizing sectors such as advanced manufacturing, biopharmaceuticals and robotics.
At an investment promotion and matching event during the fair, representatives from national ETDZs across the country engaged in face-to-face exchanges with corporate representatives regarding industrial development needs.
"Companies used to focus on land and government policy subsidies. Now, more businesses pay attention to local supporting industrial chains, the open application scenarios in our market and the development of our overall financial ecosystem including funds and financial institutions," said Yang Jie, member of the Party Working Committee and director of the Investment Promotion Bureau of Nantong Economic and Technological Development Zone in Jiangsu Province.
China's ETDZs attract quarter of nation's total foreign investment in 2025: report
