BEIJING: Terry Junior Auchland Andrew, a reporter and anchor for government-owned Antigua and Barbuda Broadcasting Services, has recently gained a deeper understanding of China.
“That’s one thing I picked up in all the speeches [from the Chinese leadership]—world peace,” he said as he recalled his attending the press conferences on the sidelines of China’s most important annual political gatherings that concluded on March 11 and 13, respectively.
The annual gatherings of the National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature, and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country’s top political advisory body, are commonly known as the Two Sessions. As an international journalist, Andrew was invited to cover the events, enabling him to gain a better, firsthand understanding of China and its domestic and overseas policies.
“Several parts [in the government work report delivered to the NPC on March 5] stood out for me… There are the local challenges China is dealing with, but the country still wants to continue its globalization effort. That is always welcome,” Andrew told Beijing Review. Andrew said that the Belt and Road Initiative, a China-proposed undertaking that aims to boost connectivity along and beyond the ancient Silk Road routes, mentioned in this year’s government work report has already borne fruit in Antigua and Barbuda since its joining the initiative in 2018.
One of the examples is the renovation and expansion of St. John’s Harbor, a main port on Antigua Island. With the project’s completion in September 2022, Antigua and Barbuda now has the largest passenger and cargo terminal in the Eastern Caribbean region, boosting local economic development as it is able to host multiple container ships and cruise ships simultaneously. “That has put us at an advantage over all the others (countries in the region),” Andrew said. He added China has also helped his country construct a range of athletic facilities, with the island’s biggest international stadium—the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium—being one of them. China proposed the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013 as a major platform for global cooperation. Over the past decade, the country has signed more than 200 cooperation documents under the initiative with 151 countries, or three fourths of the world’s countries, and 32 international organizations, according to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
–The Daily Mail-Beijing Review news exchange item
