BEIJING -- China's new economic development pattern of "dual circulation" is not a short-term measure to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic or rising protectionism, but an active policy choice based on changes in the country's development conditions and demands for long-term high-quality growth, experts said Tuesday.

Currently, protectionism and anti-globalization are on the rise, but they are not the main reasons for China to adopt the new development pattern, Yao Jingyuan, a research fellow at the Counsellors' Office of the State Council, told a press briefing.

The new development strategy comes as China's comparative advantages have undergone new changes, Yao said.

The country had put forward the strategy of expanding domestic demand more than a decade ago, Yao said, noting that the super-large market with 1.4 billion people and massive domestic consumption potential emerged as China's new comparative advantages.

Taking the domestic market as the mainstay under the new development pattern doesn't mean a return to an inward-looking economy and will not affect China's commitment to opening-up, said Justin Yifu Lin, a counselor with the State Council and honorary dean of the National School of Development, Peking University.

According to Qiu Baoxing, also a counselor with the State Council, the strategy of dual circulation will further promote China's broader and higher-level opening-up.

To take the domestic market as the mainstay, it requires efforts such as deepening reforms further and making consumption the core driving force of the economic growth, experts said.