China, EU to further clear trade barriers

BEIJING - China and the European Union (EU) wraps up three-day talks here Thursday on an investment agreement aimed at further tearing down barriers to their two-way economic cooperation.

It has now been a common sense in this era of economic globalization that the fewer trade and investment impediments, the more efficient and beneficial trade can become.

Meanwhile, halfway around the world in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, where the 2014 World Economic Forum is just underway, business and political leaders are expected to brainstorm how China, the EU and the United States can better their cooperation so as to facilitate a more sustained and robust economic recovery worldwide.

For the record, these economies are each other's major trading partners, with total trade volume exceeding trillions of US dollars.

Also, more than five years after the outbreak of the global financial crisis, the United States has finally begun to show signs of recovery while the euro-zone economies are gradually starting to walk out of the shadow of the suffocating sovereign debt crisis.

Yet it is certainly not a proper time for misplaced complacency, as the global economy still faces an uphill climb before it declares a final and complete victory against all odds.

To build a more solid foundation for economic expansion, removing trade barriers and curbing the reemergence of trade protectionism is by far the most pressing task challenging Beijing, Brussels and Washington.

For years, the EU has refused to recognize China's full market economy status. The regional bloc also insists on an arms embargo against Beijing.

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the United States has shut the door on Chinese investment by companies Huawei and ZTE, evoking hollow excuses such as national security.

Moreover, Washington is also good at picking trade fights with China on all kinds of products, from textiles and tires to solar panels and wood flooring.

However, if breakthroughs cannot be achieved in a timely fashion, the two economies will miss the opportunity to build a stronger partnership of high complementarity with China.

That is because Beijing rolled out, and is determined to carry out, the most sweeping reforms in decades at a key Communist Party of China plenary session late last year.

Once meticulously implemented, these set of reforms will usher in enormous opportunities for future growth not only in China, but countries around the world.

China, the United States and EU stand as the most prominent economic heavyweights in the world, and their economic performances have substantial impacts on the well-being of the global economy.

By clearing impediments along the road forward, they are capable of not only promoting their own growth, but serving to underpin a much more balanced and intact global economic recovery in the years ahead.