This course aims to enable the students to fully grasp the history, current situation, reform and development strategy, management system, principles and policies of China's foreign trade, as well as to understand the economic and trade relations between China and other countries/regions and the global and regional international organizations. After learning, students will have a general picture of China's foreign trade development process, the development strategies of its foreign trade, China's foreign trade management system reform, and the promotion of trade with other nations, understand the necessity of China's transformation from a big trading country to a world trade power, and know the implementation of the major strategies in China's foreign trade. This will pave the way for the students’ future work and research relating to China’s foreign trade.

“Introduction to China’s Foreign Trade” is one of the key courses of the international economics and trade major. It is a course studying the relevant theoretical and practical issues in China's foreign trade. This course focuses on cultivating students' ability to apply theoretical knowledge to analyze the development of China's foreign trade. The contents of the course mainly cover: the outlook of China's foreign trade development; theoretical basis of China's foreign trade development; the macro system reform of China's foreign trade; the main strategies of China's foreign trade development; and a number of related issues in foreign trade of China. The aim of this course is to acquaint the students with the basic facts and figures of China's foreign trade, and to help them better understand China's views on its foreign trade, so as to promote the trade relations between China and other countries/regions. 

Major prerequisite courses for this course "Introduction to China's Foreign Trade" mainly include: International Trade, Macroeconomics, International Finance, and International Economic Geography, etc. In order to better understand the course contents, it is preferable for the students to have the necessary background knowledge of China's history, culture, modern China's development in general and China's economic achievements after the reform and opening-up in particular. On top of this, basic professional knowledge of international trade, international finance, development economics, and world economic geography is also needed.

There are a number of websites that can facilitate the students' studying the course “Introduction to China’s Foreign Trade”.  They are the websites of the World Trade Organization (the WTO), China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), China’s General Administration of Customs, China’s National Bureau of Statistics, China’s Belt and Road Portal (Yi Dai Yi Lu Wang) , and the UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development). With regard to the terminologies, theories, events, and personages, the students might get some help from the Wikipedia. Taken into consideration the fact that  not only China’s foreign trade, but the world trade in general, are in a constant state of change, it is necessary to upgrade the course content in order to stay abreast of the times. And these websites can be of great assistance.