Exclusive Interview with Li Mingxing

Deepen Digital Cross-Border Trade, Jointly Draw a New Blueprint for Asia-Pacific Cooperation: Exclusive Interview with Li Mingxing, Global Director of the World Trade Centers Association & President of the Asia-Pacific World Trade Business Alliance

Editor’s Note：This exclusive interview is reprinted from the SinoUStimes. The interviewed expert, Mr. Li Mingxing, is a think tank expert of the Alliance of National and International Innovative Enterprises for the Belt and Road Regions and the Silk Road Dialogue Committee. In this exclusive interview, centering on core topics including digital cross-border trade, the development of the Asia-Pacific Economic Community and the value of the Shenzhen Cross-Border E-Commerce Fair platform, he conducts in-depth analysis of new pathways for the digital transformation of global economy and trade. His insights offer vital references for advancing regional cooperation and fostering an inclusive and equitable new landscape of global digital trade. This article is reprinted for readers’ reference.

The 9th Global Cross-Border E-Commerce Festival & the 12th Shenzhen International Cross-Border E-Commerce Trade Fair kicked off at the Shenzhen Convention & Exhibition Center on the morning of June 16. Invited to the opening ceremony, Li Mingxing, Global Director of the World Trade Centers Association (WTCA) and President of the Asia-Pacific World Trade Business Alliance, delivered a speech on behalf of WTCA and the Asia-Pacific World Trade Business Alliance. In the afternoon, he presented a keynote address at a special forum hosted by the Foreign Trade Development Bureau of the Ministry of Commerce of China.

Following the event, President Li Mingxing granted an exclusive interview to the US-China Times. Drawing on his profound academic expertise and experience in top-tier policy research, he elaborated comprehensively on brand-new pathways for global industrial cooperation in the digital trade era, focusing on three core themes: the industrial value of this year’s Shenzhen Cross-Border E-Commerce Fair, inclusive global economic and trade growth, and the development of the Asia-Pacific Economic Community.

Li Mingxing holds a Doctorate in Economics and works as a professor. He was a delegate to the 16th, 17th and 18th National Congresses of the Communist Party of China, and a member of the Economic Affairs Committee of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. He is a leading authoritative expert in China with interdisciplinary Chinese and international academic vision, national-level policy research experience and working experience in international economic and trade organizations. For his academic pursuits, he studied successively at the Department of International Economics of Jilin University and Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan, earning his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, and later conducted visiting research at University College London in the United Kingdom. Starting in 1995, he worked at core national economic authorities including the State Economic and Trade Commission and the Research Center of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC). He once served as Party Secretary and Director of the SASAC Research Center. Over the years, he has dedicated himself to national macroeconomic strategy, state-owned enterprise reform and the internationalization of domestic enterprises, and deeply participated in research and formulation of national opening-up policies.

Throughout his career, he has received numerous national honors such as the National Model for Ethnic Unity and Progress, Outstanding Young Talent of Central State Organs, and Advanced Individual for Returned Overseas Students. He also enjoys Special Government Allowances issued by the State Council. He has long focused on cutting-edge research topics including transnational operations of Chinese enterprises and investment layout of Fortune Global 500 companies in China. He is the author of multiple monographs including China’s Economic Strategy, whose research outputs have been published worldwide in multiple languages and wield extensive international influence. In recent years, he has kept close track of the integration of cross-border e-commerce and the real economy, and produced a series of research findings on standardized, internationalized and sustainable industrial development, providing crucial theoretical support for high-quality industrial growth.

When asked about his intuitive impressions of this year’s Shenzhen Cross-Border E-Commerce Fair, Li Mingxing stated that the global economic and trade landscape is undergoing profound shifts. Growth momentum in traditional bulk commodity trade is slowing down, global industrial and supply chains are entering a restructuring cycle, and all-round iteration and upgrading of digital technologies have pushed global trade into a critical phase of digital transformation. Digitization, intelligentization, inclusiveness and standardization have become irreversible mainstream trends across the industry.

Amid this new trade cycle, cross-border e-commerce, a core carrier integrating the digital economy and the real economy, has broken three long-standing barriers in traditional international trade: time-space restrictions, channel limitations and disparate rules. It has reshaped global commodity circulation routes, international cooperation models and the distribution pattern of global value.

As China’s pioneering demonstration zone for opening-up and a benchmark city for domestic digital trade and cross-border e-commerce, Shenzhen boasts a complete full-chain industrial supporting system, an efficient and mature supply chain ecosystem, a large pool of active market entities, and a world-class internationalized, market-oriented and law-based business environment. It has consistently led nationwide innovation practices in cross-border e-commerce, assembling top-tier domestic cross-border e-commerce firms, comprehensive service providers and overseas brands covering all dimensions of high-quality industrial resources.

After more than a decade of continuous refinement, the event has evolved into the 9th Global Cross-Border E-Commerce Festival and the 12th Shenzhen International Cross-Border E-Commerce Trade Fair. It has grown into a landmark industrial gathering that connects global markets, pools full-industry-chain resources, facilitates exchanges of cutting-edge industry insights and delivers cross-border industrial cooperation projects. The expo builds an efficient, mutually beneficial specialized matching platform, continuously empowering independent Chinese brands to go global, opening two-way trade channels between China and foreign countries, improving the full industrial ecosystem of cross-border e-commerce, and injecting robust momentum from Shenzhen into the coordinated development of global digital trade.

Founded in 1970, the World Trade Centers Association (WTCA), known as the “Commercial United Nations”, adheres to the core mission of “trade fosters peace and stability”. Its business network covers nearly 100 countries and over 300 cities worldwide. Granted special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council in 1977, WTCA has long championed openness and cooperation and promoted market-oriented economic and trade exchanges amid economic globalization.

Li Mingxing explained that since China launched its reform and opening-up drive, WTCA has deeply participated in and supported China’s foreign economic and trade cooperation. It previously issued a special resolution calling on all global member institutions to actively engage in the joint development of the Belt and Road Initiative, encouraging World Trade Centers across the globe to fully integrate into cross-border connectivity and cooperation frameworks. In the new era, China pursues the long-term goal of building a community with a shared future for mankind, upholding high-quality development, high-standard opening-up and inclusive international cooperation, and advocating a new type of inclusive and win-win economic globalization widely recognized by the international community.

As a Global Director of WTCA and drawing on decades of research in national macroeconomics, Li Mingxing has long collaborated with open-minded economic and trade practitioners worldwide. He strives to safeguard an open, inclusive and equitable multilateral trade cooperation system, stabilizes the global economy with pragmatic actions, and consolidates the economic and trade foundation for building a community with a shared future for mankind. He stressed that e-commerce has become an indispensable foundational vehicle for modern international cooperation. As a core new form of international trade, cross-border e-commerce drastically lowers the threshold for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to expand overseas, enabling millions of micro, small and medium market players to compete equally in global markets and emerging as a brand-new core engine driving global trade growth.

Looking ahead to the industry’s future, WTCA is fully embracing new opportunities in digital trade, designating cross-border e-commerce and digital commerce as its core development segments. It revitalizes its global member network via new trade formats, empowers World Trade Centers worldwide with digital services, and continuously contributes the organization’s strengths to sustainable global economic development.

The Asia-Pacific region serves as the core engine of global economic growth, as well as the world’s most dynamic and promising hub for cross-border e-commerce. Li Mingxing introduced that guided by WTCA’s development philosophy of “Connect Globally, Prosper Locally” and centered on the core principle of “Pragmatic Cooperation and Coordinated Development”, World Trade Centers from cities across China, Japan, the Republic of Korea and ASEAN jointly initiated the establishment of the Asia-Pacific World Trade Business Alliance at the 2024 WTCA Asia-Pacific Regional Annual Conference. Its core objective is to integrate high-end commercial resources of World Trade Centers across Asia-Pacific nations and open channels for pragmatic cooperation between World Trade Centers within and outside the region.

The 2026 APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting will be hosted in Shenzhen under the theme “Building an Asia-Pacific Community for Common Prosperity”. As the host, China has charted a clear development roadmap and created major cooperation opportunities for coordinated economic and trade growth across the Asia-Pacific region. Li Mingxing stated that the Asia-Pacific World Trade Business Alliance will seize this landmark APEC opportunity, leverage WTCA’s global network resources, deepen strategic cooperation with the Shenzhen Cross-Border E-Commerce Association, and upgrade a regular cooperation platform for cross-border e-commerce.

On one hand, it will help domestic manufacturers and consumer brands accurately tap into new overseas markets; on the other hand, taking advantage of Shenzhen’s role as a high-level opening-up gateway, it will welcome enterprises from the Asia-Pacific and all over the world to establish operations in China, participate in domestic high-quality development and share dividends from China’s super-large market. The Alliance will prioritize building a precise supply-demand matching system for the Asia-Pacific region, innovate a regular matching mechanism for two-way supply and demand lists, accurately align robust domestic supply chain capacity with diversified global consumer demand, advance complementary industrial resources and interconnected markets across the Asia-Pacific, and jointly forge a new landscape of an Asia-Pacific Economic Community featuring joint consultation, joint development and shared benefits.

At the end of the interview, Li Mingxing pointed out that digital cross-border trade constitutes a core lever to reshape the global economic and trade landscape. Thanks to the complete industrial foundation accumulated through over ten editions of the Shenzhen Cross-Border E-Commerce Fair, Shenzhen has evolved into a pivotal digital trade hub linking China with the Asia-Pacific and the rest of the world. Going forward, WTCA’s global network and the Asia-Pacific World Trade Business Alliance will continuously deepen coordinated collaboration with industrial stakeholders in Shenzhen. Leveraging high-caliber platforms including APEC and the Shenzhen Cross-Border E-Commerce Fair, they will steadily advance inclusive, equitable and digital global economic and trade cooperation, delivering long-term support for stabilizing global industrial and supply chains and realizing shared regional prosperity.