Great Exploration and Practice to Build a Mankind Community of Shared Future -- From the perspective of the Belt and Road construction

By Pan Shengzhou,

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Great Exploration and Practice to Build a Mankind Community of Shared Future -- From the perspective of the Belt and Road construction

By Pan Shengzhou,

People's Daily

The core essence of the Belt and Road Initiative

It is true that the Belt and Road Initiative uses the historical and cultural symbols from the ancient Silk Road, but it is neither a revival of the ancient Silk Road, nor a replica of the ancient Silk Road, but great innovation under the new historical conditions. An in-depth command of its core essentials, we should seize the following three aspects.

. On September 7, 2013, Comrade Xi Jinping said in his important speech delivered at the Nazarbayev University of Kazakhstan that in order to assure the closer economic ties and deeper mutual cooperation, broader space for development for European and Asian countries, we can use the innovative model of cooperation to jointly build an Silk Road Economic Belt, starting with a few to more, and from points to lines, and gradually form a region-wide cooperation. On March 28, 2015, comrade Xi Jinping pointed out in his keynote speech at the Boao Forum for Asia 2015 Annual Meeting that the Belt and Road construction upholds the principle of collective discussing, collective building and collective sharing, not to become closed, but open and inclusive; not a Chinese solo, but all countries’ chorus along the routes. On September 3, 2016, in his key-note speech at the opening ceremony of the Industrial and Commercial Meeting of the G20 Summit, comrade Xi Jinping once again stressed: "I put forward the Belt and Road Initiative in order to share with countries along the routes China’s development opportunities, and achieve common prosperity." "The Belt and Road Initiative is the initiative for development, the initiative for cooperation and the initiative for opening–up. What it emphasizes is a mode of equality and mutual benefit to jointly discuss, build and share, what it pursues is national policy connectivity, facilities connectivity, trade connectivity, capital connectivity, people-to-people connectivity, and what it seizes is the common denominator for development, so as to achieve the common prosperity of those countries along the routes.” The Belt and Road construction upholds jointly building and sharing as the principle, upholds the Silk Road spirit of peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning, mutual benefit and win-win outcome as a guide, upholds the building of a community of shared future and a community of shared interests as the cooperation objective, thus, gradually realizing the common dreams of peoples of all countries along the routes.

d. On April 29, 2016, at the CPCCC Political Bureau thirty-first collective study on the ancient Silk Road, and the Belt and Road construction, comrade Xi Jinping stressed, "we must take a higher position, and a broader perspective, based on absorbing and learning from historical experience, with innovative concept and innovative thinking, do down-to-earth work to ensure peoples of all countries along the routes to enjoy tangible benefits the Belt and Road construction brings to them". To promote the Belt and Road construction, it is necessary to handle well the relationship between the interests of China and the interests of those countries along the routes, the relationship among government, market and society, the relationship between trade and economic cooperation and cultural exchanges, the relationship between the opening-up and maintenance of national security, the relationship between pragmatic promotion of the Belt and Road construction and guiding public opinion, the relationship between the national overall objectives and specific objectives of localities. To promote the Belt and Road construction, it is indispensable to give play to the government coordinating role, and to the market role as well. The government should play a leading role in the publicity and promotion, strengthening coordination, and establishing mechanisms, meanwhile it should pay attention to building regional economic cooperation mechanisms based on market and enterprises as the mainstay, extensive mobilizing all types of enterprises to participate in and guiding more social forces to make input into the Belt and Road construction, vigorously build a cooperation mode with government, market and society organically integrated, so as to create a three-dimensional pattern of government leadership, enterprise participation and people-to-people promotion.

On June 22, 2016, comrade Xi Jinping, in his important speech at the Uzbekistan highest legislature, proposed to build the Belt and Road mutually beneficial cooperation network, to jointly create a new-type cooperation mode for the Belt and Road, to build the Belt and Road multiple cooperation platforms, to push forward the Belt and Road key-areas projects, and to advance the Belt and Road construction to a higher level and in a broader space. On August 17, 2016, comrade Xi Jinping pointed out at the Work Forum to Advance the Belt and Road Construction, “we should steadily promote overall co-ordination, maintain land-sea co-ordination, and internal and external co-ordination, strengthen government and enterprises co-ordination, encourage domestic enterprises to make investment and engage in operation in those countries along the routes and also welcome these countries’ enterprises to invest in China, strengthen the national strategy docking of the Belt and Road construction with the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinate development and the Yangtze River economic belt development, combine the Belt and Road construction with development of the western region, revival of northeastern region, rising central region, and eastern region-led development and border regions opening up and development so as to create a situation of all-dimensional open-up and eastern-central-western regions chained development.” We should focus on policy connectivity, infrastructure connectivity, trade connectivity, capital connectivity, people-to-people connectivity, focus on construction of mutually beneficial cooperation network, a new-type cooperation mode, and multiple cooperation platforms, focus on work together to build a green silk road, a healthy silk road, a smart intelligent silk road, and a peaceful silk road, and grasp the work in the nail spirit, push forward the Belt and Road construction step by step, and assure the Belt and Road construction for the benefit of peoples of all countries along the routes .

The significance of the Belt and Road construction

The Belt and Road construction is the top-level design for a new system of open economy in China, is an important measure to realize the Chinese dream of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, is a program full of Oriental wisdom provided by China for the world to achieve common prosperity, and is a great exploration and practice to build a mankind community of shared future.

. After nearly 40-year reform and opening-up to the world, China's economy is undergoing a major shift from introducing to China to laying equal emphasis on introducing from overseas and going overseas, there has emerged a new situation of market, resources and investment deeply integrated with that of outside. To promote the Belt and Road construction is not only conducive to realizing the domestic and international interacted cooperation, and mutual promotion between opening up to inside and opening up to outside, making the best use of the two markets and two resources internationally and domestically, further promoting China's economic transformation and upgrading, but also coordinate regional development. The western region of China is a short board in the development, and is also the key region and difficult region to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects. The Belt and Road construction, through expanding westward opening-up, turn the vast western region from weak opening-up into the opening-up front. To promote the development with opening up can accelerate the pace of western region to develop, and boost the eastern, central and western regions to achieve the linked development.

China has 14 neighboring countries on land, and 6 countries across the sea. Whether from geographical location, natural environment or mutual relations, the neighbors and China share geographical adjacency, humanist affection, and cultural connection, thus, strengthening cooperation is of great significance to each other. The Belt and Road Initiative attaches importance to the development strategy and planning docking, policy coordination, infrastructure interoperability and interconnectivity, humanistic exchanges and interaction between those countries along the routes with China, strengthens the interests linkages of them, and furthers cooperation in education, culture, tourism, sports, health, science and technology and other areas. The Belt and Road construction can assure China’s development to more benefit the neighboring countries, achieve common development, and enhance China's impact on participation in international cooperation and create a peaceful and stable surrounding environment for domestic development.

. The Belt and Road construction upholds Asian countries as the key-links, the onshore and offshore economic cooperation corridors as the foundation throughout Eurasian continents, connects the Asia-Pacific Economic Circle in the East, and European Economic Circle in the West, involves 4.4 billion people in more than 60 countries, witnesses the GDP scale more than US$21 trillion, and is the emerging economic belt covering the largest span and the most extensive areas in the world.

In recent years, due to the impacts of the international financial crisis, the world economy continues to remain slump, showing a situation of slow growth and slow international trade flows. Although China's economic growth has slowed down, yet still maintains a rather high growth rate, leading among the world's major economies, and becoming an important engine to pull world economic growth. In the year 2016, contribution rate of China's economic growth to the world economic growth reached 33.2%. To take the Belt and Road construction as an opportunity to carry out cross-border interoperability and interconnectivity, elevate trade and investment cooperation level, promote cooperation of international production capacity and equipment manufacturing, the essence of which is to stimulate new demand by increasing effective supply, is conducive to the stability of the world economy, and rebalance of the world economy. Especially the Belt and Road construction emphasizes the interconnection of economic and trade rules, advocates considering the propositions and demands of all countries with open and inclusive attitudes, is conducive to the improvement of the world market mechanism, reduction of transaction costs, improvement of the world market efficiency, and pull of economic growth of relevant countries.

The Belt and Road is a path to promote common development and achieve win-win cooperation and common prosperity, is a path to strengthen mutual understanding and trust, strengthen all-round communication of peace and friendship. The Belt and Road Initiative is neither a challenge nor an alternative to the existing international cooperation mechanisms, but mutual help and mutual complement to each other, targeted at the bottlenecks and constraints of international cooperation provides China program with an open, cooperative and win-win concept to inject positive energy into the world economy. The Belt and Road Initiative, focusing on construction of the "five connectivity", combining the developing countries along the routes with China’s development, and the Chinese dream with the world dream together, promotes the joint development of countries along the routes and deepens economic integration. In this process countries will form a community of interests for rising together or falling together, so as to lay the foundation for creating a mankind community of shared future.

The Belt and Road construction has won extensive attention and response of the international community

Over the past 3 years, the Belt and Road Initiative has received extensive welcome and wide-raging response from various sides. Governments, international organizations and experts speak highly of the Belt and Road Initiative, and believe that it is conducive to promoting economic prosperity of those countries along the routes and regional economic cooperation. The United Nations hopes to connect the Belt and Road construction with the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to better promote the orderly development of the Belt and Road construction. UN Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohamed said that as the world multilateralism is challenged, the Belt and Road Initiative emerges just in time. Italy's President Mattarella said that China- proposed Belt and Road Initiative is a whole world new development opportunity, and those countries and regions along the routes will benefit from it. Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd pointed out that the Belt and Road Initiative is the new Long March for the Chinese going overseas, on the one hand, helps to bring the Eurasian continents back to the center of the world, on the other hand helps the economic development of China’s peripheral areas, and solves the imbalance in China’s domestic regional developments and in Eurasian regional developments. The Finance Research Institute of Russian Ministry chief researcher Chemensky believes that now peoples of the world have seen the Belt and Road construction is an open, fair and pragmatic platform, which ensures countries along the routes to enjoy the welfare of development. Nobel Laureate and WB former Vice President and chief economist Joseph Stiglitz said that the Belt and Road Initiative has made a very important contribution to promoting economic globalization, many countries, especially some poor countries and neglected countries are included, helping them achieve their integration with the world economy and a good way to promote economic globalization.

Foreign media pays extensive attention to the Belt and Road Initiative. Australia on-line on September 16, 2013 published an article pointing out that in the long run, the Silk Road Initiative and Economic Belt initiative will not only benefit the Central Asian region, but will inevitably change the world economy pattern. The Silk Road Economic Belt is China's strategic, innovative and diplomatic layout, reflecting the political wisdom and diplomatic new thinking of the new China's top leadership. The Spanish ABC News reports on November 25, 2014, the New Silk Road helps lay the foundation for the international new role of China. Pakistan and Russia and other countries public opinion view that, as one of the world's best global development models, the Belt and Road Initiative is very important to their foreign economic cooperation.

The Belt and Road construction yields positive results

At present, the Belt and Road construction has completed preliminary planning and layout, and is stepping toward taking roots, doing refine work and maintaining lasting development. As Comrade Xi Jinping said on January 17, 2017 in his speech at the opening ceremony of the World Economic Forum Annual Meting in Davos that the Belt and Road Initiative comes from China, but the outcome is benefiting the world. The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation will benefit peoples and countries along the Belt and Road and those in the whole world at large.

. With continuous advance of the Belt and Road construction, more and more countries began docking their development strategies with the Belt and Road construction, such as Laos Turning the Land-locked Country into a Land-linked One strategy, Kazakhstan’s Bright Road Plan, South Korea’s Eurasian Initiative, Russia’s Eurasian Economic Union, Indonesia’s Global Marine Fulcrum Plan, Australia’s Northern Development Plan, UK’s Revitalization Program of Northern England, etc. so that more and more countries realize their complementary advantages, and mutual benefit. Over the past 3 years, there are more than 100 countries and international organizations having responded supportively and 40 countries and international organizations have signed cooperation agreements with China. Production capacity cooperation between China and those countries along the Belt and Road gets deepened, China have signed capacity cooperation agreements with more than 20 countries, and jointly set up 46 cooperation zones with 17 countries.

. China and countries along the Belt and Road carry out extensive cooperation in areas of harbors, airports, railways and other infrastructure areas, having effectively enhanced their infrastructure levels, and yielded results far beyond the expectation. For example, as the flagship project of the Belt and Road construction, many projects of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor have achieved significant progress, the second phase of Karakoram Highway and Karachi highway have been under construction, the Lahore metro Orange line has completed the financing, and Chashma and Karachi nuclear power projects are progressing smoothly. Again, construction of China - Central Asia - West Asia Economic Corridor is comprehensively advancing, China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway project is progressing rapidly, with some sections in operation. China-South China Sea Peninsula Economic Corridor is speeding up the construction. Moscow - Kazan high speed railway, China-Laos railway, China-Thailand railway, China-Burma Kyaukpyu port and other projects are advancing orderly, China-Belarus industrial park has broken ground. For African countries, infrastructure connectivity is especially significant. From the railway in operation to the ones to be completed, still to the planned railway network in Eastern Africa, a large number of infrastructure projects in Africa by China will strongly promote the continental economic integration process in Africa.

With joint efforts of all sides, those countries along the Belt and Road strengthen financial cooperation, the financial security system in service to the Belt and Road construction is taking shape. According to statistics, the current bilateral and multilateral capacity cooperation funds total more than US$100 billion is established. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is in operation and China's US$40 billion Silk Road Fund gets involved in financing some projects. All the above provide investment and financing support for interconnectivity-related projects such as infrastructure, resources development, industry cooperation and others in countries along the Belt and Road.

Facts have proved and will continue to prove that the Belt and Road initiative is a great conception, and the Belt and Road construction is a great undertaking. To carry out Comrade Xi Jinping's important thought on the Belt and Road construction should, based on fully absorbing and drawing lessons from historical experience, with innovative thinking and unremitting efforts, continuously advance and deepen the Belt and Road construction for early harvest, to better serve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese the nation, and benefit more countries and peoples along the routes and those of the world at large.