This new phase goes beyond expanding trade volumes. It includes aligning domestic regulations with high-standard international economic and trade system, strengthening intellectual property protection, improving data governance frameworks, and orderly opening service sectors such as finance, telecommunications, healthcare and professional services.

　　Equally significant is the continued shortening of China's negative list for foreign investment -- now reduced to only 29 items alongside the removal of all restrictions in manufacturing. Even amid intensifying geopolitical tensions, China is signaling that its market remains structurally open and institutionally predictable.

　　When the world's second-largest economy deepens its alignment with global economic norms, it reinforces the resilience of the multilateral trading system. China's institutional opening offers a signal: integration, not fragmentation, remains a viable path to stability and shared growth.

　　Perhaps the most consequential structural shift underway is China's transition toward a new development paradigm with domestic demand as the mainstay. The government work report, released during this year's two sessions, places "building a robust domestic market" first among the major tasks for 2026.

　　In a volatile global environment, a strong domestic market is not inward retrenchment but a foundation for balanced integration. By relying more on household consumption, China is structurally optimizing its economic balance and better positioned to cushion both itself and its trading partners against external shocks.