Global Times | China's commitment to openness sends a constructive, certain signal to an uncertain world: Brazilian scholar
In an era marked by intensifying geoeconomic frictions and disruptions to global value chains, economic governance has become a far more complex task for major economies. Under such circumstances, governing a country of China's scale requires a highly mature and finely calibrated system of political coordination - one capable of maintaining national cohesion while organizing systematic and creative responses to external shocks.
It is against this backdrop that the Central Economic Work Conference (CEWC) should be understood. The strong leadership of the Communist Party of China and its collective decision-making mechanism have been proven effective in mobilizing society and advancing national development. The CEWC provides an essential institutional platform for the country's top leadership to assess domestic and external conditions, identify major challenges, and formulate strategic priorities and policy orientations for the coming year.
This year's meeting, with its emphasis on expanding domestic demand, fostering new quality productive forces, preventing and defusing risks in key areas, and implementing more proactive and impactful macroeconomic policies, reflects a clear-headed assessment of China's current stage of economic development. It also demonstrates an effort to anchor the objectives of the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) more firmly in annual governance practice.
China's current development reflects a profound shift in economic policy management: the state continues to play an indispensable role in planning, strategic guidance, and incentive design, while enterprises and universities are increasingly taking the lead in technological breakthroughs and practical problem-solving, forming a more tightly coordinated and synergistic relationship. This synergy provides a solid institutional foundation for China to advance high-quality development in the coming year and over the medium to long term.
More broadly, as some countries narrow the channels of globalization, China is also creating new opportunities for the world economy. This is reflected not only in its continued market opening, but also in its ability to provide cost-effective and replicable technological solutions, particularly for countries in the Global South. The rapid build-out of large-scale wind and solar power facilities in Brazil, for instance, would be difficult to imagine without equipment manufactured in China. Chinese companies are also reshaping the global automotive industry by advancing electric and hybrid vehicles, strengthening industrial competitiveness while contributing to the global energy transition and climate response.
From this perspective, China's innovation models are not only a pillar supporting its own high-quality development, but are also generating positive spillover effects that serve as public goods for global sustainable development.
Looking ahead, China's economic prospects remain underpinned by strong endogenous drivers. Based on my long-standing engagement with China, I maintain a cautious yet positive assessment of its medium- and long-term development trajectory. During recent visits to some Chinese universities, I was impressed by the strong sense of commitment among scholars and young people to building a more modern and equitable society. Their focus on learning and innovation reflects the depth of China's human capital base.
This confidence extends beyond academic institutions. In cities such as Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Wuhan, a palpable sense of economic dynamism can be observed in everyday commercial activity, reflecting resilient market vitality and sustained momentum in business activity and consumption. These observations suggest that 2026 is likely to be a year of steady progress for China's economy, with broadly balanced macroeconomic fundamentals, continued breakthroughs by enterprises in key areas, and sustained confidence underpinned by strong institutional strengths and internal resilience.
China's continued commitment to opening-up further reinforces this outlook. Since the global financial turmoil of 2008, China has gradually emerged as an important engine of global economic growth. At times of severe international shocks, China's ability to maintain economic stability and resilience has provided critical support to global recovery, particularly for developing economies.
Under initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative, China has been actively promoting mutually beneficial cooperation. Its productive investment has significantly improved infrastructure conditions in many countries and encouraged multilateral financial institutions to reassess policy approaches that had long underprioritized infrastructure development. In this sense, China has consistently played the dual role of stabilizer and builder in the global development agenda.
When some major powers attempt to impose protectionism and a "decoupling" mentality on global trade, China's commitment to openness sends a constructive and certain signal to the uncertain world. This stance helps safeguard the stability of global industrial and supply chains and injects much-needed certainty into an increasingly fragmented world economy.
The Asia-Pacific region offers a clear illustration of this stabilizing role. Since the beginning of this century, the Pacific Rim has emerged as one of the most dynamic centers of global economic activity, particularly in East and Southeast Asia, while maintaining relative stability despite historical and geopolitical challenges - largely due to deepening economic and trade integration.
In this process, China has become a central economic pillar in the region, serving as the largest trading partner for most economies and playing a key role in advancing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. Against this backdrop, China's continued engagement in regional cooperation provides an important platform for further deepening economic ties and strengthening policy coordination across the Asia Pacific.
By leveraging its experience in economic transformation and innovation, China is well positioned to advance a pragmatic cooperation agenda focused on connectivity, the digital economy, and artificial intelligence - offering a new path to managing risks through high-quality development and stabilizing expectations through shared growth amid rising global uncertainty.