A positive cycle of development and opening-up: Powering a new chapter for China

BEIJING, Oct. 31, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report from China.org.cn on China's 15th Five-Year Plan:

In Arnstadt, a little city in Thuringia, central Germany, a modernized battery plant set up by Chinese company CATL is running in full swing. The city, once a hub for Germany's traditional automobile industry, has been reinvigorated by green technology, and the battery plant is now seen by locals as a new engine for the city's revival.

In recent years, an increasing number of Chinese enterprises along with their products have been lighting up the international market, while China's cutting-edge technologies have been leading the trend in many sectors. What's driving this remarkable momentum?

At the heart of it, I believe there are two engines: high-quality development and high-level opening-up.

First, about high-quality development. Compared to the extensive growth model in the past driven by heavy input, high-quality development highlights greenness, efficiency, and indigenous innovation. In the past five years, China's GDP has seen consecutive growth, and is expected to reach around 140 trillion RMB by the end of the year. In 2024, China accounted for 61.5% of the world's newly published generative AI patents, ranking first globally, and China is also among the global frontrunners in cutting-edge technologies including multimodal large models and humanoid robots.

The newly adopted "Recommendations of the CPC Central Committee for Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development" underscore the principle of high-quality development. "Make significant achievements in high-quality development" and "substantial improvements in scientific and technological self-reliance and strength" are listed as the top two among the seven key objectives over the 15th Five-Year Plan period. That means in the next five years and beyond, China will continue to follow its new development philosophy featuring innovation, coordination, greenness, openness and sharing; it will foster new quality productive forces suited to local conditions, driving sustained and healthy economic development as well as all-round social progress. That is an important premise for China's development fruits to benefit the wider world.

Next comes high-level opening-up. In recent years, China has been opening its doors wider to global business. It has been constantly shortening the negative list for foreign investment, and those efforts have paid off: China has remained the world's largest trader in goods for eight years in a row; over 110,000 China-Euro freight train trips have been completed; the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor now connects China with 577 ports in 127 countries and regions globally. Meanwhile, China has consistently shared its own development philosophy and fruits of innovation with other countries. For example, new energy vehicles from China are winning over consumers in Brazil; in countries including Kuwait, Chinese robots shuttle from shelf to shelf, helping sort parcels in smart logistics centers; in Kazakhstan, drones and operating teams from China have been providing "end-to-end" services for local farms…

For the five years to come, China will extend its efforts in high-level opening-up and create a new landscape that features collaboration and shared success. China's own opening-up efforts will further spur its reform and development, enabling it to share opportunities and pursue development together with the world.

Returning to the question at the beginning, we have an answer. One can say that down-to-earth measures to promote high-quality development have paved the way for expanding high-level opening-up, while the latter has in turn, enabled the fruits of high-quality development to be shared globally, thus feeding back into and inspiring a new round of growth. What China has achieved is the result of a positive cycle thanks to these twin engines.

Now the blueprint of the 15th Five-Year Plan is already in place. A China that has been striving for innovation-driven growth, for both itself and the world, is embracing the world with even greater openness. It is inviting global partners to join hands in writing a new chapter of progress.

China Mosaic
http://www.china.org.cn/video/node_7230027.htm 

SOURCE China.org.cn