In a bid to further open up China's medical sector, Qingdao - a city in Shandong Province previously renowned for its water sports, beer festival, and strong manufacturing industry - is being transformed into a burgeoning pharmaceutical hub.
The British-Swedish biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is currently building a new production facility in the city.
It came as a surprise to many that a city in China, traditionally known for its manufacturing, outperformed cities in the U.S. and Europe to attract AstraZeneca, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies.
Executive Vice President of AstraZeneca China, Leon Wang, credited this success to China's increased openness in the healthcare services sector.
"The China government started its open-door and reforms policy almost 40 years ago. We can feel every day that the environment is improving and simplifying. Whenever we have issues, we always can turn to the government, and we always get a prompt reply," he said.
"When AstraZeneca was set up here, we quickly helped them apply for production and operation licenses. Normally, this process takes over a month, but thanks to our efficient collaboration and prompt document submissions, the relevant authorities reviewed everything quickly. We managed to get the approval in just 12 days, a record time for Shandong Province," said Li Mingkuan, head of the investment promotion department at the Qingdao National High-tech Industrial Development Zone Management Committee.
The attractive business environment and proactive government support are increasingly drawing healthcare enterprises to Qingdao and other parts of China.
"In the Qingdao High-tech Zone, there is a significant concentration of biopharmaceutical industry. You'll find well-known companies like AstraZeneca, as well as smaller, innovative enterprises," said Xie Cuicui, a staff member at a Korean-invested biotechnology company.
The policy relaxation significantly shortens the product-to-market cycle, reducing the time to market from five years to three.
China's efforts extend beyond these initial steps. A policy document released after the third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee, held in Beijing from July 15-18, 2024, outlines the country's ambitions to expand its pharmaceutical industry further and ease market access within the sector.
"Officials from the Ministry of Commerce have already conducted surveys here. I believe that a series of measures will be introduced soon, and we look forward to more multinational enterprises investing in Qingdao and across China as these policies get implemented," Li said.
Qingdao's transformation highlights China's initiative to open up its pharmaceutical sector, enhancing both the industry and healthcare.
China further expands pharmaceutical sector, eases market access
China will firmly fight against economic hegemony, advocate justice, and stick to the right path against the sweeping tariffs by the United States, and will open ever wider to the world no matter how the international situation changes, according to a commentary of The Real Point published on Sunday.
An edited English version of the commentary is as follows:
In response to the U.S. imposition of "reciprocal tariffs" on all trading partners, China issued the Chinese Governments Position on Opposing U.S. Abuse of Tariffs on Saturday, after taking a series of countermeasures.
The thousand-word document pointed out that the United States uses tariffs as a weapon to exert extreme pressure and pursue its own selfish interests, which is a typical act of unilateralism, protectionism and economic bullying.
The paper also emphasized that China does not provoke trouble but is not afraid of trouble, and will continue to implement a high-level trade and investment liberalization and facilitation policy to share development opportunities and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results with countries around the world.
Li Haidong, a professor at China Foreign Affairs University, told The Real Point that this position paper demonstrates China's high sense of responsibility to uphold fairness and justice without fear of power politics, which will be conducive to the efforts of the international community to pool together resultant forces and continue promoting economic globalization.
Meanwhile, China's determination to promote high-level opening-up has boosted the courage and confidence of other countries to fight against unilateral bullying and injected certainty into a changing and turbulent world, according to Li.
There are no winners in a trade war and there is no way out for protectionism. When the U.S. complains that the whole world is taking advantage of it, it deliberately distorts a fact that the U.S. is the biggest beneficiary of the world's free trade system since the end of World War II.
Since the establishment of diplomatic relations with China in 1979, the United States has long been reaping substantial profits from its economic and trade ties with the country. More than 70,000 American companies have invested and started businesses in China, and exports to China supported 930,000 jobs in the United States, which maintained a huge surplus in service trade in particular.
According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, in 2023, the United States exported 46.72 billion U.S. dollars in services to China, and had a trade surplus of 26.57 billion U.S. dollars in services with China.
The Economist criticized the current U.S. trade policy for ignoring the unprecedented prosperity that globalization has brought to the United States.
The U.S. arbitrarily uses tariffs to blackmail other countries at will, attempting to sacrifice the interests of the whole world for U.S. hegemony. But any exertion of pressure and intimidation are useless to China.
This year, in the face of the continuous tariffs imposed by the United States, China has introduced a series of precise and effective measures, as one of the first countries taking countermeasures. The country's move is not only to safeguard its own sovereignty, security and development interests, but also to defend the multilateral trading system and international trade rules.
The world is not a jungle society, and everything must be fair and just. Development is a universal right of all countries in the world, not an exclusive right of a few countries.
The United States has unilaterally imposed tariffs on all its trading partners, violating the WTO's Most-Favored-Nation treatment principle and attempting to subvert the existing international economic and trade order. Its nature is to pursue "America first" and "America special" and deprive other countries of their legitimate right to development.
Over the past days, the European Union, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Japan, Australia, Singapore, South Africa, Canada and other countries have been criticizing the United States.
China's position paper clearly states that "international affairs should be addressed through consultation, and the future of the world should be decided by all countries", reflecting the common aspirations of the international community and China's consistent position of speaking and doing fair things.
While the United States continues to build "high walls around a small yard" and erect tariff barriers, China is constantly "opening its doors" and "building bridges and roads" to bring more opportunities to the world.
On March 28, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with representatives of the international business community in Beijing and reiterated that China is determined to promote reform and opening up, China's door will only open wider, and China's policy of welcoming foreign investment has not changed and will not change.
The China Development Forum 2025, held in Beijing from March 23 to 24, attracted more than 80 representatives of multinational companies, among which American companies made up the largest proportion, reaching about one-third.
A report released by global management consulting firm Kearney shows that in the ranking of foreign direct investment confidence in the next three years, China has jumped from 7th to 3rd, and ranked first in the special ranking of emerging markets.
At a time when the world is in turmoil and the United States is abusively imposing tariffs, China's position paper sends a strong message to the world about maintaining the multilateral trading system and promoting economic globalization.
The world wants justice, not hegemony. This is China's clear declaration and the common voice of the international community.
China opposes hegemony, upholds right path against sweeping U.S. tariffs: commentary
