An article signed by Luo Wen published in "People's Daily": Using law-based market regulation to support high-quality development

　　Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has continuously improved the socialist market economic system, promoted economic and social development under the rule of law, and driven historic achievements and transformations in the cause of the Party and the country. China has embarked on a new journey to comprehensively build a modern socialist country. The great changes in the new era fully demonstrate that the rule of law is both an inherent requirement of socialist modernization and an important guarantee for comprehensively building a modern socialist country. On this new journey, we must adhere to Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as our guide, deeply study and implement Xi Jinping's thought on the rule of law, place comprehensive law-based governance of the country in a global, strategic, foundational, and safeguarding position, better leverage the rule of law to consolidate fundamentals, stabilize expectations, and benefit long-term development, and focus on building law-based market supervision to empower and strengthen high-quality economic development.

　　★Deeply Understand That the Socialist Market Economy Is Essentially a Rule-of-Law Economy★

　　General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "The socialist market economy is essentially a rule-of-law economy." This important assertion profoundly reveals the intrinsic relationship between the market economy and the construction of the rule of law, clearly explains the important role of the rule of law in the development of the market economy, and points out the direction and fundamental basis for us to promote high-quality economic development through legal thinking and legal methods.

　　The rule of law guides the development direction of the socialist market economy. A rule-of-law economy is a distinctive feature of China's economic modernization. Implementing the new development philosophy, building a new development pattern, and promoting high-quality development urgently require accelerating the construction of an efficient, standardized, fair, competitive, and fully open national unified market to facilitate the smooth flow of goods, factors, and resources on a larger scale. We must adhere to the rule of law as the guide, continuously improve market rules, strengthen the construction of a high-standard market system, resolutely eliminate local protectionism and market segmentation that hinder the construction of a national unified market, ensure a stable, fair, transparent, and predictable business environment from the source, effectively boost the confidence and vitality of market entities, and continuously strengthen the endogenous driving force for the development and prosperity of the socialist market economy.

　　The rule of law regulates the order of the socialist market economy. Market allocation of resources is the most efficient form, but the market is not omnipotent; it has inherent defects such as externalities, information asymmetry, and monopolies. Some market entities, driven by economic interests, may violate transaction rules and engage in illegal activities, which must be regulated under the rule of law to ensure that the market economy is both vibrant and orderly. We must adhere to regulation for the people, continuously strengthen safety supervision of food, drugs, industrial products, special equipment, and other areas, increase consumer rights protection, strengthen anti-monopoly and anti-unfair competition efforts, promote fair competition through just regulation, regulate market economic order, and safeguard the vital interests of the broad masses of the people.

　　The rule of law guarantees the development and prosperity of the socialist market economy. Marx pointed out: "Trade came first, and then trade developed into law." "This actual relationship, produced through exchange and in exchange, later took the legal form of contracts." The market is not a completely spontaneous order; the rule of law provides unified rules for market transactions, defines the rights and obligations of market entities, promotes the better integration of an effective market and an active government, continuously supplies high-quality public products and services to market entities, and ensures the prosperity of the market economy. We must enhance legal awareness, vigorously improve the ability and level to resolve urgent and difficult problems of enterprises and the public according to law, continuously deepen reforms such as "Internet + government services," "one-stop online services," "cross-province services," and "one-stop services," effectively improve the convenience of public services, and provide a solid guarantee for high-quality development.

　　★Accurately Grasp the Practical Logic of Law-Based Market Supervision Serving High-Quality Economic Development★

　　In recent years, market supervision departments have implemented Xi Jinping's thought on the rule of law, practiced the concept of a rule-of-law economy, promoted the "rule of law in overall work and overall work in the rule of law," gathered the power of the rule of law, and served high-quality economic development.

　　Construct a legal and regulatory framework for market supervision based on a systematic approach. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party, the State Administration for Market Regulation has promoted the formulation and revision of 16 laws and regulations in the market supervision field, amended 14 provisions, formulated and revised 93 rules, abolished 46 rules, and amended 58 rules, laying a solid foundation for advancing sound legislation and good governance. Centered on building a unified national market, it has driven the development of administrative regulations such as the Market Entity Registration Management Regulations and issued supporting rules, striving to establish a registration management system that is streamlined, efficient, fair, transparent, with easy market entry and strict oversight. It has facilitated the first revision of the Anti-Monopoly Law, establishing the fundamental status of competition policy and the legal status of the fair competition review system. Focusing on digital economy governance, it has promoted the enactment of the E-Commerce Law and supporting regulations, strengthened regulatory frameworks for new economies and new business models, reinforced platform operators' responsibilities, and built new national competitive advantages. In line with the "Four Strictest" requirements (strictest standards, strictest supervision, strictest punishment, strictest accountability), it has advanced the revision of the Food Safety Law implementation regulations, established a "blacklist" system for illegal food additives; promoted the formulation of the Vaccine Administration Law to support epidemic prevention and control under the rule of law; formulated and issued regulations on enterprises' fulfillment of food safety primary responsibility supervision and management, special equipment manufacturers' fulfillment of quality and safety primary responsibility supervision and management, and industrial product manufacturers' fulfillment of quality and safety primary responsibility supervision and management, firmly safeguarding the safety baseline. Centered on building a quality-strong nation, it has formulated and issued systems such as national standard management, consumer product recalls, and the three guarantees for household automobiles, improved quality development policies, and enhanced the effectiveness of quality governance.

　　Promote the implementation of market supervision law with a people-centered approach. Focus on protecting fairness and drawing red lines, consolidating the fundamental status of competition policy, and investigating and handling monopoly and unfair competition cases according to law. Focus on ensuring safety and guarding the bottom line, maintaining market order, actively protecting the quality and safety of epidemic-related materials and livelihood goods during COVID-19 prevention and control, strictly guarding the import cold chain "physical defense" checkpoint, timely introducing policies and measures to help enterprises overcome difficulties, strongly supporting epidemic prevention and control and the overall economic and social development. Continuously carry out the "Iron Fist" campaign to investigate and handle illegal cases in the livelihood field. Focus on promoting development and raising standards, striving to solve bottlenecks, difficulties, and pain points in the development of market entities, and promoting the quantitative and qualitative improvement of market entities. As of May 2023, the number of market entities nationwide exceeded 173 million, strongly supporting China's economic aggregate to surpass the 100 trillion yuan mark, stable growth of national financial resources and social wealth, and providing employment for more than 700 million people.

　　Promote market supervision law enforcement and supervision with fairness and civility as standards. Adhere to using the rule of law to set rules and boundaries for administrative power, reduce burdens on market entities, and seek development. Implement a list management system to ensure fair, lawful, people-oriented, and clean use of power. Fully implement the administrative law enforcement responsibility system, adhering to "where law enforcement goes, supervision follows." Adhere to the unity of political, social, and legal effects, formulate administrative penalty discretion application regulations, guiding opinions, and supporting discretion standards, making regulatory law enforcement both strong and considerate. Coordinate reform and development, further promote "post-approval reduction of certificates" and simplify approvals, reduce 28 types of production licenses, delegate approval authority, facilitate access, and improve operational efficiency to support the development of the real economy.

　　Strengthen legal guarantees for market supervision with the goal of improving efficiency. Fully promote the integration of institutions, teams, and institutional norms, coordinate the allocation of administrative law enforcement functions and resources, continuously improve execution and credibility, and transform reform achievements into regulatory effectiveness. Focus on the "key minority" of leading cadres, strengthen the cultivation of legal talents, and continuously improve legal application ability and development safeguarding ability. Fully promote grassroots infrastructure construction, deeply carry out "rule of law at the grassroots" activities, and vigorously promote the standardization and normalization of market supervision offices. Fully promote legal publicity and education in the field of market supervision, formulate and implement the "Eighth Five-Year" legal education plan, implement the responsibility system of "who enforces the law educates on the law," build a "smart legal education" system, strengthen legal interpretation of social hotspots, tell good rule-of-law stories, spread positive legal energy, and strive to create a legal environment where regulatory departments administer according to law, market entities operate lawfully, and consumers protect their rights according to law.

　　★Focus on Creating a First-Class Business Environment to Empower High-Quality Development★

　　The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China has outlined a grand blueprint for comprehensively building a socialist modern country and advancing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation through Chinese-style modernization. We must focus on high-quality development as the primary task, strive to create a first-class business environment characterized by market orientation, rule of law, and internationalization, ensure market orientation through the rule of law, promote internationalization, stimulate market vitality, enhance openness, and empower high-quality development.

　　Effectively promote institutional innovation adapted to the unified national market, creating an open, transparent, efficient, and equitable market-oriented environment. Follow the laws of the market economy, remove institutional and mechanism barriers that restrict the market's role, and fully stimulate the vitality of business entities. Adhere to promoting development and ensuring good governance through sound laws, advance the establishment, revision, abolition, and interpretation of relevant laws, regulations, and rules, solidify reform achievements through institutional rules, and enhance the guiding role of top-level design. Optimize and consolidate legal rules that maintain fair competition in the unified national market, adapt to the competition intensity, methods, and patterns of China's super-large-scale market, accelerate the formulation and revision of laws and regulations such as the Anti-Unfair Competition Law and the Fair Competition Review Regulations, fully leverage the decisive role of the market in resource allocation, better play the government's role, continuously improve policy unity, rule consistency, and enforcement coordination, reduce institutional transaction costs, and create broader space for the healthy development of enterprises. Clean up and abolish regulations and practices that hinder the unified national market and fair competition. Explore and formulate regulatory rules that meet the development needs of the platform economy to release new momentum for high-quality development.

　　Effectively advance rule-of-law supervision, credit supervision, and intelligent supervision, creating a stable, fair, and predictable rule-of-law environment. Deeply understand that "the rule of law is the best business environment," thoroughly grasp the laws of market economic development, adhere to the rule of law as fundamental, credit as the foundation, and intelligence as the means, continuously improve the modernization level of market supervision, and provide support services for advancing the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. Fully leverage the guarantee role of rule-of-law supervision, bring administrative actions fully under the rule of law, continuously improve the ability to promote development, solve problems, and prevent risks using rule-of-law thinking and methods, promote career development and safeguard a better life through scientific legislation, strict law enforcement, and vigorous legal education, and provide reliable legal protection for various business activities. Strive to achieve rule-of-law supervision that is evidence-based, orderly, effective, and proactive: sort out responsibility lists, clarify statutory powers to be evidence-based; adhere to procedural justice and standardized law enforcement supervision to be orderly; establish quantitative indicator systems and conduct rule-of-law construction evaluations to be effective; resolutely break down invisible barriers such as "entry allowed but operation not allowed" and difficulties in market exit to be proactive. Fully utilize the incentive and restraint role of credit, innovate credit supervision tools, improve systems such as credit commitments, information disclosure, dishonesty punishment, and credit restoration, strengthen credit risk management and differentiated management, and further enhance supervision effectiveness. Accelerate the advancement of intelligent supervision, improve mechanisms for real-time collection, scientific analysis, and extensive application of supervision information, enhance non-site supervision and penetration supervision capabilities, efficiently and accurately prevent and resolve risks and hidden dangers, and comprehensively improve the pertinence, scientific nature, and effectiveness of supervision.

　　Effectively cultivate new advantages in international competition and cooperation, creating an open, inclusive, mutually beneficial, and win-win international environment. Fully, accurately, and comprehensively implement the new development philosophy, continuously improve the level of opening-up, and promote reform, development, and innovation through openness. Relying on China's super-large-scale market advantage, further reduce transaction costs, enhance the centripetal force of unified openness and orderly competition, strengthen the potential of domestic circulation and external attractiveness, actively and orderly promote the international alignment of market rules, improve market access convenience, public service convenience, and enterprise information transparency, attract more international capital, projects, and talents to invest and develop in China, take root, and achieve high-level "bringing in." Benchmark against international advanced levels, strengthen the docking and policy coordination of international and domestic competition rules, steadily expand institutional opening in rules, regulations, management, and standards, promote regional trade cooperation, and advance the high-quality development of jointly building the "Belt and Road"; support enterprises to deeply participate in global industrial division and cooperation, actively participate in international standardization activities, become participants and leaders of high-standard international rules, and support and encourage Chinese capital and enterprises to "go global" with high quality. Actively participate in international governance in fields such as metrology, certification and accreditation, competition policy, and special equipment, continuously enhance China's voice and influence in global governance in related fields, promote better connectivity and alignment between domestic and international markets, safeguard the security and stability of industrial and supply chains, and provide support and guarantee for broader, wider, and deeper opening-up.

(The author of this article, Luo Wen, is Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Director of the State Administration for Market Regulation)