Shenzhen to host next APEC as China seeks to showcase openness, innovation

An aerial photo taken with a drone shows the Huawei building in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China. Yonhap.

Shenzhen’s selection as the host city for the 2026 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit highlights Beijing’s commitment to openness and its ambition to showcase the city’s innovation-driven growth on the global stage.

Announcing the selection at the conclusion of the 2025 APEC summit in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, Chinese President Xi Jinping described Shenzhen as “an important window to China’s unwavering pursuit of a mutually beneficial and win-win opening-up strategy."

Set to take place in November 2026, it will mark the third time China has hosted the summit, after it was held in Shanghai in 2001 and Beijing in 2014. Xi emphasized that China will leverage this platform to advance regional cooperation in areas such as free trade, connectivity, the digital economy and artificial intelligence.

Located just across the border from Hong Kong, Shenzhen is now home to some of China’s largest tech giants, including telecoms giant Huawei Technologies, internet service company Tencent Holdings, electric vehicle producer BYD and drone maker DJI.

The city’s transformation from a small fishing village began in 1980 when it was designated as China’s first Special Economic Zone under the “reform and opening up” policy initiated by the former leader Deng Xiaoping.

The bold experiment aimed to attract foreign investment, introduce market-oriented reforms, and drive economic modernization. Since then, Shenzhen quickly became a symbol of China’s rapid economic rise, evolving into a hub for innovation, trade and technology.

Chinese analysts note that choosing Shenzhen demonstrates Beijing’s commitment to openness and to showcase the city’s innovative spirit and resilience in development to the world.

Li Chen, associate director and associate professor at the Centre for China Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), specializing in China’s political economy, said that Shenzhen’s development history aligns with APEC’s focus on openness, free trade and acceleration of regional economic integration, making it an ideal choice.

He added that Shenzhen’s openness extends beyond trade and investment to encompass the creation of a business environment aligned with international standards.

Meanwhile, analysts noted that Shenzhen — an export-driven city — has borne the brunt of trade protectionism and technological decoupling, coming under direct strain from the U.S. trade war.

Government data from October showed that Shenzhen’s total imports and exports reached more than 3.36 trillion yuan in the first three quarters of 2025, a modest 0.1 percent increase from a year earlier. Exports amounted to 2.03 trillion yuan ($284.7 billion), down 4.7 percent, while imports totaled 1.32 trillion yuan, up 8.4 percent.

The city's deeply export-driven economy is anchored by its role as a global manufacturing powerhouse for products like electronics. It consistently leads Chinese cities in foreign trade and is a vital engine driving China’s export growth.

It is also a major hub for cross-border e-commerce, driven by its advanced smart logistics, supportive government policies and a high concentration of e-commerce companies and related services.

Major ports in Shenzhen, like Yantian, handle a significant portion of Guangdong’s container volume, and Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport has direct international cargo routes to major cities, including Mexico, London, Paris and Hungary.

A cargo ship with containers docks at a terminal at the Yantian port in Shenzhen, China. Reuters-Yonhap.

“Amid rising anti-globalization sentiments, the choice of Shenzhen by Beijing sends a clear message of maintaining openness, rejecting decoupling and disruption of industrial and supply chains,” said Li Jiahao, an associate research fellow at the Guangzhou Institute of the Greater Bay Area (GIG).

He added that Shenzhen is both the starting point and a symbol of China’s reform and opening-up policy; therefore, choosing it is a declaration of China’s commitment to opening up to the world.

“For a city, development not only relies on the accumulation of its internal strengths – such as industrial growth and technological innovation — but also on key international events that draw the world’s attention,” said Li of CUHK.

He added that the world would have the opportunity to gain a deep and comprehensive understanding of the development progress and overall strength of the Greater Bay Area through APEC.

Shenzhen is one of nine cities in Guangdong province that make up the Greater Bay Area, along with the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. In recent years, Beijing has focused on transforming the area into a world-class center for economic growth and technological innovation.

Beyond intergovernmental or large-scale corporate agreements, the platform of APEC could boost practical engagements where small and medium-sized businesses, business associations and think tanks from various economies can connect and cooperate, according to the GIG’s Li.

“A summit in Shenzhen will strengthen China’s open and cooperative stance in the field of innovation and promote its deeper integration into global industrial chains and innovation networks.”

Alyssa Chen is a reporter with the South China Morning Post. She is currently based in Seoul, writing for both The Korea Times and the South China Morning Post under an exchange program.