The ongoing 22nd APEC meeting started recently in Beijing, with the establishment of a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP), cooperation for global value and supply chains, and multilateral trade regime reform on its agenda. The conference has been widely expected to complete the formulation of the road map to build the FTAAP, implement information exchange regarding the FTAAP and promote further integration of the Asia-Pacific region.

Free trade and integration is a well-accepted and widely popular international norm. The international system is the outcome of long-term interstate interaction, which leads to international norms. And therefore, international society comes into being, and is maintained by an international order that is, in essence, the international norm.

China entered the WTO in 2001, an important step toward its integration into the international economic system.

Before this, as a member of the UN and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China was deeply identified with multilateralism and sovereignty equality, the main norms in the international political arena.

China is getting stronger in terms of comprehensive strength. In 1993, when China began to rise rapidly in terms of GDP, some scholars in Western academia developed the theory of the "China threat." In 2003, when China presented the idea of "peaceful rise" to the world, some research fellows in the West questioned the real intentions of China behind the scenes. In 2010, when China grew into the second largest economy in the world, it was questioned whether it would strive for a dominant role in establishing a new international order.

Undoubtedly, China is always faced with some voices asking whether it is satisfied with the prevalent international norms.

Those who hold that China will rise to be a great power and will choose to challenge the position of the dominant country by means of war are complete realists. They regard only conflict as significant and ignore cooperation.

This echoes the "power transition" theory.

In this theory, when the power of the challenger parallels that of the dominant country, war is most likely to break out, for challengers attempt to overturn the present international order and war will help achieve this.

China has been socialized during the process of its integration into the international system, has complied with international norms consciously, and has put free trade norms into practice.

The ASEAN-China Free Trade Area was proposed by China in 2001, and was achieved in 2010, which lays a solid foundation and setting an example for the FTAAP.

Meanwhile, China proposed the "ASEAN plus three" mechanism, accelerating trade cooperation and integration among ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea.

When positively pushing forward the FTAAP, China displayed good faith as a satisfied country and a responsible state. It has been ready and is willing to disseminate free trade norms, and achieve the economic integration of the Asia-Pacific region.

Li Jieyu, an assistant professor at the Hainan Provincial Party School