BRI forum to enhance China's global role
More than 140 countries and 30 international organizations will participate in the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday, which vividly reflects the Belt and Road's socioeconomic, geopolitical and geostrategic importance.
Three high-level forums on connectivity, green development and the digital economy are scheduled, as well as thematic subforums on trade connectivity, people-to-people communication, think tank exchanges, a clean Silk Road, subnational cooperation and maritime cooperation. These clearly demonstrate the Belt and Road Initiative's dynamics, diversification and development orientation in the march forward on socioeconomic integration, digitalization, artificial intelligence, e-commerce, eradication of poverty, qualitative industrialization and, last but not least, the joint fight against global warming.
Premier Li Qiang emphasized China's readiness to bolster Belt and Road cooperation with all participating countries, which also upholds the Chinese spirit of inclusive development, further consolidation of the developing Global South, and further strengthening across the world of the Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative and Global Civilization Initiative proposed by President Xi Jinping.
Over the past decade, the BRI has generated nearly $1 trillion in investment, established more than 3,000 cooperation projects, created 420,000 jobs, and helped lift almost 40 million people out of poverty.
The immense success of the BRI shows that it has promoted the spirit of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, which has disseminated the true colors of open, green and clean cooperation, and pursued the goal of high-standard, people-centered and sustainable development among participating countries.
According to a report by the World Bank, the BRI has increased the trade of participating parties by 4.1 percent, attracted 5 percent more foreign investment, and increased the GDP of low-income countries by 3.4 percent. Thus, it has served as a new model of global development that is productive and prosperous.
Additionally, the BRI has had an impact on participating countries in the five priority dimensions of policy, infrastructure, trade, finance and people-to-people ties. According to official Chinese data, over the past 10 years, China has become the largest trading partner of 25 countries, and has signed seven free-trade agreements with 13 countries.
A connectivity framework involving six corridors, six types of routes, multiple countries and multiple ports has been shaped, significantly promoting the connectivity with the world of inland countries such as Laos, Nepal, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan by building roads and railways.
Moreover, in the first eight months of this year, China's trade in food products with countries participating in the BRI reached 553.82 billion yuan ($76 billion), a 10.4 percent increase compared with the same period last year and a 162 percent increase compared with 2013.
The China-Europe Freight Train opened a new channel for Asia-Europe land transportation, becoming an effective instrument of stability for global supply chains. It promoted integrated financial integration through the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Silk Road Fund and the New Development Bank.
The BRI has enhanced the role of developing countries and emerging economies in regional and global economic governance and strengthened the concept of the Global South.
Interestingly, on the sidelines of the recent G20 summit, a new trans-regional corridor, the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, was announced. Evidently, the timing of its announcement was significant, because United States President Joe Biden has tried hard in the G20 to pitch Washington as an alternative partner and investor for developing countries.
On the other hand, the BRI has already become an ideal platform connecting more than 150 countries around the world, leading the global drive for infrastructure development, trans-regional connectivity, and the building of ports, railways and integrated economic corridors through openness, inclusiveness, modernization and qualitative industrialization.
The certainty is that the upcoming third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation will further brighten the scope of trans-regional connectivity, energy and food cooperation, green transition and transformation, infrastructure development, digitalization, e-commerce, disaster management, climate change and, last but not least, modernization.
The success of the third BRI forum will further enhance China's role in global development and governance, international trade, industrial output and innovation.
It also will further develop an alternative model of global development amid Western sanctions and punitive measures against China and other developing countries.
The author is executive director of the Center for South& International Studies in Islamabad, Pakistan. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
