Lawrence J. Lau reviews the highlights of the nation’s annual NPC and CPPCC meetings to check the health of its economy and society, and finds the progress in both areas encouraging, not least the successes in judicial reform.

President Xi has expressed a desire to uphold and develop the world order. President Xi has expressed a desire to uphold and develop the world order. If Xi is up to the challenge and prevents a breakdown in global trade, China will have will have saved more than its own skin.

As President Trump and President Xi prepare to meet in the near future, the current environment makes it unrealistic to expect any breakthroughs in bilateral relations. The sheer complexity of US-China relations, widely differing viewpoints, and the unsettled policy approach by the new U.S. administration make the willingness to meet and talk already an advance.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of the OBOR initiative is the increased understanding and tolerance of people of different backgrounds and the recognition of the need to collaborate peacefully with each other, in order to achieve the win-win objective.

If the US wants to control the global value chain again, it should further open its market and integrate into the global value chain, rather than rely on the “return home” and “America First” policies to pull the chain apart. Only by restructuring the global value chain and by allowing the free movement of production factors can the world create new trade.

In a February 24th speech, U.S. President Trump made his strategy for trade policy clear. The U.S. will negotiate bilateral, rather than regional or multilateral agreements, and favor U.S. producers rather than market forces. Trump’s approach to trade policy means radical change for the world’s longtime leader of efforts to reduce global trade barriers with trade agreements.

Calling something a ‘win-win’ is one of Beijing’s favorite phrases, and whether it is derided as a slogan for China’s external relations or is explained as a core principle in China’s foreign policy approach, there is no doubt that it is firmly part of Beijing’s official lexicon. Finding situations where everybody wins is not easy, especially at the global level, but with green finance, China has come quite close to the fulfilling the true meaning of the term.

Last month, China commemorated the 20th anniversary of the death of Deng Xiaoping, the chief architect of the economic reform and opening up that catapulted the country to the top rungs of the global economic ladder. The anniversary comes at a time when economic openness is under threat, as the United States is now being led by a president who believes that the way to “make America great again” is to close it off from the world.

While the Trump administration has announced withdrawal from TPP, in favor of bilateral economic cooperation and negotiation to protect US interests, it does not necessarily mean the US has given up its quest for dominancy in global trade rule-making. Meanwhile, other TPP signatories, including Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, are not willing to let the deal fall by the wayside. That means the spirit of TPP lives on even if the agreement itself does not.

Both economies have too much to lose by putting up trade barriers, thanks to their intricately connected markets. China and the US should build common understanding through communication at various levels and find more points of converging interests so as to avoid risks and strengthen cooperation.