Based on the background of the “great change unseen in a century”, this paper focuses on the topic of China’s efforts to promote the building of an open world economy. On the one hand, it sorts out the thought thread of building the world economy by Britain and the United States. This paper argues that their purpose of building the world economy based on “universal values” is to control its development and solidify the “core-periphery” structure. However, countries in the world differ in many dimensions (such as resource structure, cultural tradition, social system, stage of development, etc.); the world economy built by them inevitably encounters a series of practical difficulties caused by inequality, imbalance, non-inclusiveness and non-win-win situation. On the other hand, this paper summarizes China’s concept system of promoting the building of an open world economy, and makes a comparison and reference analysis with that of Britain and the United States. We believe that China’s efforts to build an open world economy can lay a solid economic foundation for a community with a shared future for mankind. China’s concept system can be summed up as follows: equality, openness and inclusiveness as the premises; reform, innovation, cooperation and competition as the driving forces; fairness, justice, wide consultation and joint contribution as the principles; shared benefits, linkage, coordination and balance as the supportive system; mutual benefit, sharing and win-win as the goals; and prosperity and harmony as the visions.
We also think that when China promotes the building of a new world economy, (1) It must adhere to the concept of “common values” and make a profound expose and criticism of the concept of “universal values” and its instrumentalization. “Common value” is the conceptual basis for China’s building to be superior to that of Britain and the United States. (2) Lessons should be drawn from the endogenous fragility of the unilateral free trade regime. Free trade should be reciprocal and binding. (3) The United States should be deeply criticized for going against globalization, returning to trade and investment protectionism, and moving toward unilateralism in recent years. It is necessary to clearly explain the superiority of China’s building philosophy and action plan to increase the confidence and expectation, and China can do this because its philosophy and plan have more acceptable basic premises, more diverse sources of motivation, more thoughtful principles, and a distribution philosophy that takes account of the interests of all parties. (4) It is necessary to establish a long-term mechanism for dispute settlement. Otherwise, the maintenance of the world economic order will be difficult. The analysis implies that the world economy is a complex and large system, and China still has weak spots such as a weak sovereign currency and discourse power that needs to be enhanced. China should seize the opportunity to catch up and further lay a solid foundation for building an open world economy.