On October 12, Mr. Long Yongtu, former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation and Chief Negotiator of China’s Accession to the WTO attended the video conference with the theme of “The International Economic Cooperation After the Pandemic” which was hosted by the Trilateral Commission, an international NGO as a panelist. Ambassador Lu Shuming, former Vice President of CPIFA, Ambassador Zhao Weiping, Vice President of CPIFA and Professor Lawrence Lau, former President of Chinese University of Hong Kong joined the conference together with about 80 Trilateral Commission members around the world.

Long Yongtu said in the conference discussion that the international cooperation had been severely weakened by the pandemic. “We have to restore the linkage of trade and investment, rebuild the damaged global production chain and supply chain, rebuild the linkage between individual country and the multilateral systems. The most important issue at this moment is to restore the mutual trust of the countries around the world and to restore the credibility of multilateral organizations and other regional arrangements. This is a process of confidence building, a process of consensus building, a process of depoliticizing, and a process to restore the respect for science and scientist.”

Long Yongtu pointed out that the international society should make effort in the following three areas. “First, we should restore and strengthen the international trade and investment on the basis of international rules and common practices. Countries should respect the basic economic common senses, such as comparative advantage, mutual complementarity and mutual benefit. Second, we should restore, rebuild and redistribute the production chain and the supply chain through international cooperation. We need to emphasize every linkage of the global supply chain to be strengthened, either manufacture or service. To achieve this, each individual government should demonstrate their leadership and responsibility to ensure the effective control of the pandemic. This is the very precondition for rebuilding the global supply chain. We would have hoped to see some new multilateral arrangements like the G20 during the 2008 financial crisis. However, if we could not see any possibilities now, at least we can support the WHO to help it play a more effective role to control the pandemic. Besides, we need to strengthen our support on WTO and other regional arrangements. With a new WTO Director General, we hope to see a new start of this World Trade Organization. As for the regional arrangements in Asia, China is working hard with other countries to accelerate the negotiation of RCEP. We hope that we can conclude this negotiation by end of this year. As for CPTPP, China has said many times that we hold an open attitude, and we hope CPTPP could be a successful story.”

Long Yongtu also called for creating a good atmosphere for international economic cooperation by supporting the globalization. He pointed out, “Every government should adapt measures to let all the people in their countries share the benefits of globalization. If the benefits of globalization are only shared by one part or one segment of the population, while the other parts or other segments of the population could not be benefited, or even be damaged, there will be no support for economic globalization. After the pandemic, we hope to see a new development approach, which puts people's lives, people's health and people's happiness in the center. If we can reach a consensus on this new development approach, we all have a better chance not only to strengthen the economic cooperation, but more importantly, the implementation of the economic globalization.”

The Chinese group of the Trilateral Commission was officially formed in 2015, with the CPIFA as the secretariat.