China's future role in global trade

BEIJING - China's import will total $10 trillion in the next five years, about three times of Germany's gross domestic product (GDP). When Chinese President Xi Jinping announced this figure last month at the Boao Forum, foreign analysts knew its weight.

Against the backdrop of a rapidly changing global trade landscape, will China play a bigger role or be forced to retreat?

In recent years, China's share in global trade has been expanding. In 2012, China registered a total goods trade value of $3.87 trillion, overtaking the United States to claim the top ranking in this regard.

However, some experts believe, on the wrangling battle field for the right to set down international trade rules in the 21st century, China faces huge challenges, and even the risk of being marginalized. The major pressure comes from the United States.

With the unsolved deadlock in the Doha Round and a weak World Trade Organization (WTO), the US, as the world's largest economy, is establishing a US-dominated new 21st-century global trade pattern, backed by two pillars - the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

The US move is significant amid complex bilateral and multilateral links in international trade.

TTIP will bind together two large economies - the US and the European Union, with their combined GDP and trade value accounting for half and one-third of the global total respectively.

Using their dominant positions in international trade, the US and EU further push the formulation of new rules for global trade to cope with the rise of new economies, including China, while TPP is aimed at subjecting the stability of Asia-Pacific region to the new order, with security dragging trade against the backdrop of US' "Return to Asia" strategy.