After four days touring the frontlines of China's economic evolution, from manufacturing hub Xinyu to entrepreneurial engine Wenzhou, a group of former international political leaders and scholars converged in Beijing on Sunday for the Mingde Strategic Dialogue 2026.
Joining their Chinese counterparts for the third edition of the event hosted by Renmin University's Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, the group gathered under the theme "Resilience and Vitality: New Opportunities China's Development Brings to the World" to discuss where the world's second-largest economy is headed and what it means for global growth.
Former Ethiopian President Mulatu Teshome, the first from the visiting delegation to take the floor, set an optimistic tone for the dialogue.
"The global economy is searching for silver linings, and today China's high-quality development is providing exactly that, helping serve as a stabilizer for the world economy," Teshome said.
China is accelerating the global green shift through mass electric vehicles (EVs) adoption, widening Global South trade corridors and offering zero-tariff access to some, and redefining supply chains through advanced manufacturing and digital innovation, he further explained.
Days ago on a single ride from his hotel to an airport in Shanghai, the former president conducted a personal tally along the highway: 240 green license plates reserved for new energy vehicles against just 27 traditional blue ones, real-time evidence of China's adoption of clean technology.
Chinese high-tech advances, particularly in EVs, present a vital opportunity for developing nations like Ethiopia, which now bans diesel vehicle imports to adopt affordable, eco-friendly EVs that cut oil import needs, Teshome told CGTN.
Moreover, Teshome highlighted that Chinese vehicles now exceed many legacy Western equivalents in quality, offering strong aesthetic appeal, modern design, comfort and styling for global consumers.
"The industrial achievements which China has had, we take it as an opportunity, not as a challenge, not as a threat," he told CGTN on the sidelines of the dialogue.
Yet, while developing nations view China's industrial expansion as a catalyst for their own economic transitions, some Western capitals have increasingly signaled alarm. This divergence in global perspective became a central focus during the afternoon sessions, where attendees turned their attention to a seemingly growing wave of trade barriers erected against Chinese exports.
Addressing the dialogue, George Galloway, a former member of Parliament of the United Kingdom, argued that this backlash reflects a political double standard. He pointed out that some economies deliberately frame China's normal export activities as "overcapacity" to justify trade restrictions under the banner of "de-risking."
"We used to call it exports when we were overproducing," Galloway told the attendees. "It was merely exports."
To underline the historic irony, he drew a direct parallel to the industrial revolution: "Britain was once quite the 'overproducer' itself, and we loved that. But we don't love it when the shoe is on the other foot," he quipped.
Galloway went on to criticize the apparent Western pivot away from traditional capitalist logic and free-market principles it used to hold dear.
"The belief in free trade, and the belief that the market is king, and that the consumer is king – all of these things are abandoned in the interests of protectionism and the protest against overproduction," he observed.
Responding directly to these Western friction points, Chinese economists at the forum offered a systematic defense of the nation's industrial path, reframing China's rapid technological ascendance as a structural rebalancing of the global economy.
Tu Xinquan, dean of the China Institute for WTO Studies at University of International Business and Economics, pushed back against Western narratives that accuse China of shocking the global trading system.
In reality, Tu argued, Western anxieties stem from Chinese enterprises breaking long-held monopolies through genuine technological breakthroughs.
Rather than shutting doors, he noted, Western economies should welcome Chinese firms going global, a necessary step toward resolving global imbalances and stabilizing supply chains.
In hard economic math, former Vice Minister of Finance Zhu Guangyao quantified the sheer magnitude of opportunity awaiting international businesses during China's 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026–2030).
Under baseline projections, where nominal GDP reaches 180 trillion yuan at a stable exchange rate, China's economy could expand by roughly $6 trillion over the five-year cycle. That incremental growth alone, Zhu stressed, exceeds the total annual GDP of Germany, the largest economy in Europe, that stood at more than $5 trillion in 2025.
Huang Hanquan, head of the Chinese Academy of Macroeconomic Research, outlined three structural pillars through which China supports global growth: its ultra-large domestic market anchoring international trade, its industrial upgrades powering global industrialization and green transformation, and its expanding foreign direct investment driving global rebalancing.
"A resilient and dynamic China brings not a shock to the world, but unprecedented opportunity," Huang concluded.
(Cover: A file photo of a container ship entering the Qingdao Port in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province. /VCG)