Illustration: Xia Qing/GT

Import statistics from China's inland regions offer fresh insight into the evolving logic of the country's demand and openness. The imports of Northwest China's Gansu Province rose 10.4 percent year-on-year in the first 11 months to 46.53 billion yuan ($6.61 billion), according to local customs data cited by the Gansu Daily.

In the first three quarters of this year, Henan Province in Central China recorded imports of 220.87 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.1 percent.

These cases are not isolated. Rather, they reflect a broader shift in how different parts of China are building sustainable import capacity based on their own industrial needs, market functions and trade corridors. China's imports are not "weakening" as some Western media outlets have claimed, but are becoming more structured, rational and regionally balanced.

At the national level, customs data showed that China's total goods imports reached 16.75 trillion yuan in the first 11 months of the year, edged up 0.2 percent year-on-year. 

In November alone, imports amounted to about 1.55 trillion yuan, up 1.7 percent year-on-year. At a time when the global trade recovery remains fragile and import demand is subdued in many major economies, China's ability to maintain such a large and relatively stable import scale carries clear stabilizing significance for global trade.

More important than the overall data is the structural improvement behind it. In the first 11 months, China imported 6.69 trillion yuan worth of mechanical and electrical products, up 5.5 percent year-on-year, faster than overall import growth. This figure reflects the continued upgrading of China's manufacturing sector and sustained investment in industrial capacity. It shows that China's demand is shifting toward higher-quality inputs that enhance productivity.

The faster growth of imports in various inland regions highlights a more balanced pattern of opening-up and demand expansion. The growing trend underscores how inland provinces that were not traditionally major foreign trade players are increasingly integrating into global supply chains as China advances high-level opening-up and industrial upgrading.

Southwest China's Chongqing offers an even more telling case. According to local media reports, the municipality imported 181.15 billion yuan worth of goods in the first three quarters of the year, a sharp year-on-year increase of 16.2 percent. Trade with Belt and Road partner countries grew by 11.8 percent, while trade with Africa surged 38 percent and that with Central Asia soared 76 percent.

For some time, especially after China's November trade data showed a surplus of more than $1 trillion, certain Western media outlets have been hyping the misleading narrative that China's economic and trade growth comes "at the expense of other economies." 

For instance, an article by the Financial Times on November 27 blamed China for "making trade impossible," suggesting that as China is boosting production, it may "have no appetite for imports." An article by the Wall Street Journal on December 6 headlined "China's Growth Is Coming at the Rest of the World's Expense," claimed that China "is pursuing a beggar thy neighbor growth model at everyone else's expense."

These flawed arguments accuse China of "buying too little" while "exporting too much." Such claims deliberately rely on selective data and partial facts while ignoring the full picture, in order to distort and discredit China's economic performance.

As the figures and facts of inland cities' robust international trade cooperation show, China's economy continues to provide a stabilizing force for global trade, even as some Western countries disrupt international trade and industrial cooperation through protectionist measures. China's economic and trade growth, moreover, particularly benefits a wide range of developing and emerging market countries, sharing development opportunities with them.

Far from extracting growth from others, China is continuing to proactively expand its imports, sharing development opportunities with an increasing number of trading partners. In the first three quarters of this year, China granted market access for 135 new agricultural and food products from 50 countries and regions. It also implements zero tariffs on all product categories from the least developed countries that have diplomatic relations with China. These moves are creating new demand nodes and reinforcing global trade resilience at a time when many economies face weakening external demand.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. bizopinion@globaltimes.com.cn