Editor's note: At the G20 Summit meeting, held in Osaka, Japan, on Friday, President Xi Jinping delivered a keynote speech and unveiled plans for greater opening-up. An article in the journal Quishi comments:

Since the launch of reform and opening-up policies in 1978, China has been constantly opening its doors to the outside world and sought to boost its exchanges with the world. In 2001, China joined the World Trade Organization, which has helped both its own economy and that of the world.

In the first 10 years after joining the WTO, China realized double-digit annual growth, and became the second largest importer as well as the biggest exporter in the world. The facts show that opening-up has already become a valuable experience of China, as well an important way for it to make greater contributions to the world. That applies in both the high-speed growth period and the high-quality growth period.

In today's new era, which features higher quality growth, greater opening-up is still of the utmost importance. First, it is the driving force for accelerating the optimization of the country's economic structure. The core of high-quality growth is shifting the economy from its reliance on large investments of low-cost production elements to relying on innovation. That shift would be impossible without the ample support of opening-up.

Second, greater opening-up can constantly deepen the ongoing reform. High-quality growth means a fundamental change in the economic development mode, for which the prerequisite must be administrative reforms. For example, high-quality growth needs rule of law, transparent and expectable business environment, which in turn requires the leadership to take all measures to reform. The greater the opening-up is, the deeper the reform.

Third, greater opening-up allows China to better cope with external challenges. As China gains increasingly greater influence in the world, the resistance and challenges it meets are growing, too. Especially over the past few years, some anti-globalization forces, combined with trade protectionism and unilateralism are rising. In order to cope with these challenges, China needs greater opening-up.

Last but no less important, with greater opening-up, China will be an important driving force for the high-quality growth of the global economy. The majority of problems the world faces are related to development gaps, China can help narrow these with greater opening-up, as well as set an example to the rest of the world.