BEIJING: President Xi Jinping has succeeded in shoring up more global confidence in common prosperity, unity and multilateralism in the long run, as some remarks from his latest landmark speech on the Belt and Road Initiative impressed and were supported by world leaders, officials and scholars.
Xi delivered his keynote speech, titled “Building an Open, Inclusive and Interconnected World For Common Development”, at the opening ceremony of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing on Wednesday.
In the speech, he announced eight major steps that China will take to support the joint pursuit of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, including “building a multidimensional Belt and Road connectivity network”.
He also highlighted the concept of “global modernization”, saying that China will work with all parties involved to deepen the Belt and Road partnership of cooperation and “make relentless efforts to achieve modernization for all countries”.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, when visiting the China Institute of International Studies in Beijing after the opening ceremony, quoted parts of Xi’s speech, such as “humankind is a community with a shared future” and “we should jointly address various global risks and challenges”.
“This is something all of those countries who subscribe to the policy of self-reliance and independence and wish to determine their own future independently are eager to hear,” Vucic added.
He recalled Xi’s visit to Serbia in 2016, saying the visit “helped with Serbia’s development tremendously”.
With China’s help, a Serbian steel mill, which is a landmark BRI project, had become one of Serbia’s top exporters.
“Some officials in the West see China as a rival and say they want to compete with and defeat China. This kind of thinking is still stuck in the old world order,” he said.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the Belt and Road Initiative provides a crucial and effective way to help developing countries achieve sustainable development, and sets a model for South-South cooperation.
The eight major steps announced by Xi fully align with the purposes and principles of the UN and can help developing countries accelerate their development, Guterres told Xi during their meeting on Wednesday.
Zhai Kun, a professor at Peking University’s School of International Studies, said the eight major steps show that “Beijing is determined to fully carry out the BRI blueprint and translate it into reality without interruption”.
“The detailed actions reflect an amazing evolution of themes for cooperation over the course of the past 10 years, from regular cross-border trade to social network-based e-shopping, and from basic digital infrastructure to artificial intelligence governance,” Zhai said. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
