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By ikenna Emewu from Beijing
It’s just three years ago that the idea came to life, but it has already taken the centre stage of world discourse. That is a sign of the seriousness of the implementation by the government of China.
President Xi Jinping of China in September 2013 in Kazakhstan mooted the idea of reviving the ancient maritime silk road and elevating it to a new world platform for galvanizing integration in multi facets. Just few months later, he re-emphasized the issue that is today established policy in Indonesia. With time, he worked it out and in May presented it to the entire world as rallying platform for global integration in economy, infrastructure, culture, people-to-people and other exchanges, according to him, for world peace.
In his opening speech that Sunday morning at the gathering of about 69 countries, he had traced the history of the ancient Silk Road and noted how it linked almost all continents of the world and built peace, unity and prosperity. He was also quick to add that whereas peace catalyzed the ancient Silk Road, crises and wars destroyed it. He therefore persuaded the world to embrace peace and rebuild the ancient economic tracks and today reap the benefits of world peace and harmony.
In the world of the old, such integrations benefited from the infrastructure of the time and today, the infrastructure is more vast, faster and more integrated. He urged the world to leverage on the ICT world, faster transport system and a more technologically advanced facilities to tap more benefits from the One Belt One Road initiative at the behest of China for the entire world.
World platform
The audience was made of 29 heads of governments or presidents drawn from all continents of the world, 10 heads of international organizations including the Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres, presidents of the World Bank and the IMF, WTO and many more.
Also in attendance were 26 ministerial delegates including those of the G8 nations such as the US, France, UK, South Korea and many others.
It was an assemblage of the world with the awareness of the benefits of a new and robust global economic platform that benefits all.
Xi speaks
President Xi had said in his speech that: “In terms of reality, we find ourselves in a world fraught with challenges. Global growth requires new drivers, development needs to be more inclusive and balanced, and the gap between the rich and the poor needs to be narrowed. Hotspots in some regions are causing instability and terrorism is rampant. Deficit in peace, development and governance poses a daunting challenge to mankind. This is the issue that has always been on my mind.
In the autumn of 2013, respectively in Kazakhstan and Indonesia, I proposed the building of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, which I call the Belt and Road Initiative. Four years on, over 100 countries and international organizations have supported and got involved in this initiative. Important resolutions passed by the UN General Assembly and Security Council contain reference to it. Thanks to our efforts, the vision of the Belt and Road Initiative is becoming a reality and bearing rich fruit.
We have enhanced coordination with the policy initiatives of relevant countries, such as the Eurasian Economic Union of Russia, the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity, the Bright Road initiative of Kazakhstan, the Middle Corridor initiative of Turkey, the Development Road initiative of Mongolia, the Two Corridors, One Economic Circle initiative of Vietnam, the Northern Powerhouse initiative of the UK and the Amber Road initiative of Poland. We are also promoting complementarity between China’s development plan and those of Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Hungary and other countries. China has signed cooperation agreements with over 40 countries and international organizations and carried out framework cooperation on production capacity with more than 30 countries.
Inclusive agenda
The BRF as proposed by the Chinese government that attracted the large audience is designed to be an all inclusive project that takes into account economic, infrastructure, cultural, people-to-people and other exchanges as enumerated in President Xi’s opening speech and the communiqué read at the end as resolutions arrived at by the world leaders after two days of deliberations.
Xi said: “Infrastructure connectivity is the foundation of development through cooperation. We should promote land, maritime, air and cyberspace connectivity, concentrate our efforts on key passageways, cities and projects and connect networks of highways, railways and sea ports. The goal of building six major economic corridors under the Belt and Road Initiative has been set, and we should endeavor to meet it. We need to seize opportunities presented by the new round of change in energy mix and the revolution in energy technologies to develop global energy interconnection and achieve green and low-carbon development. We should improve trans-regional logistics network and promote connectivity of policies, rules and standards so as to provide institutional safeguards for enhancing connectivity. Third, we should build the Belt and Road into a road of opening up. Opening up brings progress while isolation results in backwardness. For a country, opening up is like the struggle of a chrysalis breaking free from its cocoon. There will be short-term pains, but such pains will create a new life. The Belt and Road Initiative should be an open one that will achieve both economic growth and balanced development. We should build an open platform of cooperation and uphold and grow an open world economy. We should jointly create an environment that will facilitate opening up and development, establish a fair, equitable and transparent system of international trade and investment rules and boost the orderly flow of production factors, efficient resources allocation and full market integration.”
This was a continuation of Xi’s open global economic agenda he spoke on at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January, which was at variance with the enclosed system advocated by US President Donald Trump. Xi never pretended about the position of his country against protectionism and for continued globalization which he preaches favours positive world economic growth and the fight against poverty.
At the media centre of the event, it was a large pool of the world press of more than 2500 media practitioners that reported the event and also created interactions among themselves.
The event was China’s second large gathering of the world in two years after the G20 Summit hosted in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province in September 2016. Later this year, China would also host the BRICS Summit in the port city of Xiamen, Fujian Province in the South East region of the country.
The country has lately become a champion of sort in hosting or taking part in international economic parleys such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) that holds in Astana, but a brainchild of China. Also, on the Hainan Island, China hosts the Boao Summit for Asia which is dubbed the Davos of Asia. It holds in March every year to foster Asian economic cooperation.
