BEIJING: Leaders from various countries with differing political systems and beliefs discussed common development and prosperity at this week’s Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) in China’s capital Beijing.
Ten years on, there is a better understanding of the nature of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — it is not a tool for expanding geopolitical influence but a platform for cooperation, as the facts have shown. China’s solid commitments during the forum have the potential to enable global development and a shared future for humankind.
In September 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the building of the Silk Road Economic Belt at Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev University to forge closer economic ties, deepen mutual cooperation and broaden the development space for Eurasia.
About one month later in Jakarta, Indonesia, Xi said that China would strengthen maritime cooperation with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries to make good use of the China-ASEAN Maritime Cooperation Fund set up by the Chinese government and build the Maritime Silk Road of the 21st century.
From Eurasia to Southeast Asia, the BRI, comprising the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road of the 21st century, seeks development not only for China but across the world. It acknowledges that economic globalization is an irreversible trend and calls for a more inclusive, balanced, and mutually beneficial approach to it.
At the second BRF in 2019, Xi called for efforts to enhance the synergy between the Belt and Road cooperation and the development strategies of national, regional and international governments.
“Through bilateral, tripartite and multilateral cooperation, we need to encourage the full participation of more countries and companies, thus expanding the pie of common interests,” he said. China has signed more than 230 BRI cooperation agreements with more than 150 countries and 30 international organizations. These agreements yielded a number of signature projects and many small-scale yet impactful projects, according to a white paper by the Chinese government titled “The Belt and Road Initiative: A Key Pillar of the Global Community of Shared Future.” –Agencies
