Should China further proceed with its reform and opening-up? In this regard, President Xi Jinping has given a very clear answer. Xi emphasized the determination of China to carry out their part on reform and opening-up. According to President Xi Jinping, "China's reform and opening-up will not stop." He stated that, "the more complicated the environment, the more important it is for us to remain committed to reform and opening-up, and we will never return to the old practice of the closed country."

Xi's high-profile comments on reform and opening-up were aimed at the skepticism and hesitancy towards reform and opening-up in China over the recent years, as well as the de facto slowdown in the progress of reform. Objectively speaking, there is indeed a phenomenon of "reform hesitation" in the domestic market and on a social level.
The emergence of "reform hesitation" is related to the inadaptability in several aspects:
First, the progress of China's reform and opening-up is unadaptable with its continued rapid growth of the economy. Since its accession to the WTO in 2001, the scale of China's economy has grown from RMB 10 trillion to more than RMB 80 trillion. Such a huge economic expansion is no doubt benefits reaped from the reform and opening-up. Given its results, it has also created new demands for reform and opening-up in future economic expansion. The level of reform and opening-up required by the economy with a GDP of more than RMB 80 trillion is certainly different from that of an economy with a GDP of RMB 10 trillion. In this regard, the progress of China's reform and opening-up has not been synchronized with its rapid growth of GDP.
Secondly, China's reform and opening-up are incompatible with the new globalization. Since the beginning of the 21st century, economic globalization has been deepening and its contradictions have been constantly exposed and evolved. The problems of profit distribution and equity issues brought by economic globalization have intensified the contradiction between "capital" and "national boundaries" and stimulated the emergence and expansion of an anti-globalization wave. From the perspective of China, the new globalization has raised new demands for reform and opening-up. China is required to establish an open system in trade, capital flows, market access, technology transfer, intellectual property protection and other aspects that is consistent with international advanced standards. China can no longer share the benefits of globalization as it has in the past, but still needs to share its market with the rest of the world and make globalization-oriented institutional adjustments. In this respect, China's proactive adjustment is insufficient.
Thirdly, China's reform and opening-up are unadaptable with the new domestic market economy needs. As a big emerging market country, China has various "dividends" related to the development stages (such as demographic dividend, environmental dividend, and reform dividend) during the period of rapid growth. However, due to the rapid development and huge development inertia, it is easy to ignore the institutional construction and reform of the domestic market. Generally, the market has the following mentality: Since everyone is doing well under the current development model, why do we need to redistribute the interest and engage in thankless reform and opening-up? In fact, this mentality has dominated the Chinese development for a long period of time. Once economic growth slows down, the domestic market will be found wanting in reform and opening-up, and this is becoming an institutional obstacle for further development. In the past few years, the Chinese society has also been increasingly debating about the business environment of private enterprises. The overall survival and development of private enterprises have become increasingly difficult, which has exposed the shortcomings of insufficient reform and opening-up faced by the domestic market after slowdowns in development.
Since China is determined to carry out further reform and opening-up, the question is: how should China promote the reform and opening-up in the new era? What is the key focus of the reform and opening-up in the new era?
In the discussion on reform and opening-up at the end of 2018, many scholars reviewed the course of China's 40 years of reform and opening-up and discussed it from multiple aspects. According to these discussions, we found that China's current discussion on reform and opening-up is basically entangled in two fundamental problems: market-oriented reform and rule of law reform.
Emphasizing marketization is to insist on engaging in a market economy. Socialism with Chinese characteristics has now entered a new era. In this new era, what China has to establish and develop is a "socialist market economy", and the focus should still fall on the basic attributes of a "market economy", with socialism as the core system and market economy as the goal. The market-oriented reform in the future should not be merely a concept, nor should it remain in the principles of reform, but something that really builds and improves corresponding rule-based systems that centers on the market economy. Under market-oriented reform, it is not difficult to find solutions to the problems of the state-owned economy, the status of private enterprises and financing issues.
By emphasizing the rule of law, China's market economy and national governance will hopefully be built based upon the legal system. Although the current governance of many countries in the world is more about the personality and characteristics of the leader. Historically however, especially since the end of the Second World War, if a country wants to maintain prolonged stability, its rule of law should become an institutional arrangement that is widely recognized by the government, the society and the market. If we follow the principles of rule of law-based reform, it is not difficult to find specific and optimization-focused measures for many specific problems in the Chinese market, such as the protection of the interests of private enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises, the protection of private wealth and the protection of the rights of private entrepreneurs, among others. From the perspective of national governance, after the completion of anti-corruption tasks, the government can enhance the legal system in order to consolidate the government's achievements in anti-corruption. Replacing administrative management with rule of law governance is probably the right way forward for state governance.
Final analysis conclusion:
At present, China still has concerns of "reform hesitation". China should breakdown these concerns and turn them into a driving force for reform and opening-up. In addition, China should focus on market-oriented and rule of law-based reform, which are the basic principles needed to ensure effective progress in future reform efforts.