The Belt and Road Initiative opens a new model of benign interaction between China and the world.
Author: Wang Haiyan, Deputy Director of saias Center for Central Asian Studies
Since it was put forward in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative has become the most popular global public product and the largest international cooperation platform in the world. "One Belt, One Road" concentrates on China’s wisdom, gathers strength for world development, opens a new model of benign interaction between China and the world, and makes the world economy more stable.
"One Belt, One Road" innovates the global governance concept of benign interaction between China and the world.
In just six years, the "Belt and Road Initiative" has gone through an incubation period and an early harvest stage, attracting more and more countries in the world to participate. From the China Initiative to the global consensus, it has achieved fruitful results that have attracted worldwide attention. At the second "One Belt, One Road" international cooperation summit forum, which ended in April, 40 heads of state, government and other leaders and heads of international organizations gathered together, and more than 6,000 foreign guests from 150 countries and 92 international organizations participated in the grand event. Governments, localities and enterprises of various countries reached a series of cooperation results, which were condensed into a list of forum results covering 6 categories and 283 items. At the 19th meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the 5th Summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Measures in Asia, which just ended in June, all parties reiterated their support for the Belt and Road Initiative.
In the past six years, on the basis of the Silk Road security concept of ensuring common security, comprehensive security, cooperative security and sustainable security, the Belt and Road Initiative has adhered to the Silk Road spirit of peaceful cooperation, openness, tolerance, mutual learning and mutual benefit, and advocated a global governance concept of joint construction and sharing. Taking firm steps to build an open world economy with practical actions has outlined a new vision for building a more just and reasonable global governance system.
Co-construction and sharing is the only way to promote the construction of the "Belt and Road". Through deepening cooperation, we will continuously strengthen the multilateral trading system based on the rules of the World Trade Organization, create transparent, predictable and stable conditions for economic, trade and investment cooperation, and oppose the fragmentation of international trade and any form of trade protectionism. Its essence is to practice multilateralism, emphasizing that everyone’s affairs should be discussed and handled, and each person should give full play to his strengths and do his best, so as to make a tower out of sand and little drops of water make an ocean. The most fundamental point is to seek common development through equal consultation, promote economic growth through constructive cooperation, promote the sharing of achievements through mutual benefit and win-win, meet the common interests of all parties, meet the common needs of all parties, make cooperation more intrinsic and sustainable, make the Belt and Road a common road of opportunity and prosperity, and make the global economy more high-quality, healthier, more promising and vibrant.
Mechanism cooperation to build a platform for frequent exchanges between China and the world.
The "One Belt, One Road" co-creation mechanism provides strong support and builds various channels for benign interaction and dialogue between China and the world.
First of all, the summit forum is the highest-standard cooperation platform under the framework of "Belt and Road". At the summit forum, all parties involved jointly enrich the cooperation concept, jointly plan the cooperation priorities, form a number of agreements for joint cooperation, jointly create cooperation results, and clearly define the goals and blueprints for the high-quality development of "Belt and Road".
Secondly, the bilateral and multilateral meeting mechanism between China and heads of state has played an important top-level design and substantive promotion role. In the past six years, the Chairman of the Supreme Leader has visited many countries in the world and received many heads of state to visit China, which has effectively promoted China and the countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative to give full play to their strengths and benefit all parties.
Finally, existing international organizations and regional organizations have played an important role in coordination and promotion. Various regional and sub-regional cooperation mechanisms and multilateral dialogue and cooperation platforms in many professional fields established and formed between China and different parts of the world have promoted the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative. In the past six years, the "One Belt, One Road" initiative has been linked with the development and cooperation plans of international and regional organizations such as the United Nations, ASEAN, AU, EU and Eurasian Economic Union, and more than 150 countries and international organizations have signed a "One Belt, One Road" cooperation agreement with China. China also hosted the Silk Road International Expo and the East-West Cooperation, Investment and Trade Fair in China, China — ASEAN Expo, China — Asia-Europe Expo, China — Arab Expo, China — South Asia Expo, China — Large-scale exhibitions such as Northeast Asia Expo, China West International Expo and China International Import Expo have all become important platforms for China to discuss and cooperate with countries along the route.
After six years of joint efforts, the international cooperation in building the "Belt and Road" has formed a basic framework led by the summit forum and supported by multi-bilateral cooperation in various fields, providing an effective mechanism guarantee for the long-term development of the "Belt and Road" construction. Building the "Belt and Road" not only provides new opportunities for the development of all countries in the world, but also opens up a new world for China’s open development, so that all countries can benefit from it and achieve common development and prosperity.
Trade and investment cooperation promote the benign interactive economic development and people’s livelihood stability between China and other countries in the world.
Trade and investment cooperation promote the sound development of China and the world economy, and safeguard the global free trade and multilateral trading system with practical actions.
In the field of trade, from 2013 to 2018, the total import and export volume of goods trade between China and countries along the route exceeded US$ 6 trillion, with an average annual growth rate higher than that of China’s foreign trade in the same period, accounting for 27.4% of China’s total goods trade, which has become an important engine for stimulating world economic growth. The World Bank research team analyzed the trade impact of the "One Belt, One Road" initiative on 71 potential participating countries, and found that the "One Belt, One Road" initiative will increase the trade between participating countries by 4.1%.
In the field of investment, according to statistics, from 2013 to 2018, China enterprises directly invested more than 90 billion US dollars in countries along the route, with an average annual growth rate of 5.2%. The turnover of foreign contracted projects completed in countries along the route exceeds 400 billion US dollars, and the direct investment in China by countries along the route also exceeds 40 billion US dollars. This ensures commercial and financial sustainability, solves the employment problem for thousands of local people, and achieves good results from the beginning to the end. China and the Belt and Road countries have jointly established 82 overseas cooperation parks, and paid more than 2 billion US dollars in taxes and fees to the host country, which has driven nearly 300,000 local jobs and brought more convenient living conditions, better business environment and more diversified development opportunities to people of all countries.
In the field of promoting trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, China is committed to achieving high standards, benefiting people’s livelihood and sustainable goals together with countries participating in the "Belt and Road" construction, introducing rules and standards generally supported by all parties, respecting laws and regulations of various countries, and promoting enterprises to follow generally accepted international rules and standards in project construction, operation, procurement and bidding. China launched the Initiative to Promote Smooth Trade Cooperation along the Belt and Road, with 83 countries and international organizations actively participating. China and the countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative have continuously deepened customs inspection and quarantine cooperation, signed more than 100 cooperation documents, achieved food quarantine access for more than 50 kinds of agricultural products, and actively promoted the construction of a "green channel" for rapid clearance of agricultural products with countries along the Belt and Road Initiative, such as Central Asia. In the past six years, China has strengthened cooperation with the countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative in such functional fields as customs, inspection and quarantine, border inspection, taxation, standard connectivity, finance, etc., and has signed a number of national cooperation agreements in basic areas of quality and technology such as standards, metrology, certification and accreditation, which has greatly improved the level of trade and investment facilitation between China and the countries participating in the Belt and Road Initiative and promoted the smooth flow of logistics.
China has further relaxed the field of foreign investment access, created a high-standard international business environment, set up 12 free trade pilot zones open to the world, and explored the construction of free trade ports to attract countries along the route to invest in China; The average tariff level of China has dropped from 15.3% when it joined the World Trade Organization to 7.5% at present, and the network system of free trade zones between China and countries along the route has gradually taken shape.
Interconnection has become an effective carrier to promote the benign interaction between China and the world.
Hard Unicom and Soft Unicom promote effective interaction between China and countries along the Belt and Road.
In terms of hard connectivity, China and countries along the "Belt and Road" jointly promote the construction of high-quality, sustainable, risk-resistant, affordable and accessible infrastructure. In the past six years, with the joint efforts of all countries, the all-round, multi-level and composite infrastructure network with railways, highways, shipping, aviation, pipelines, optical fiber cables and logistics bases as the core is accelerating. A "six corridors, six roads, multi-countries and multi-ports" interconnection network is built, which is guided by six major economic corridors such as the new Eurasian Continental Bridge, with large passages such as the China-Europe train and the new land and sea passage and information superhighway as the skeleton, and relying on railways, ports and pipe networks.
In terms of soft connectivity, China has taken a series of major new reform and opening-up measures according to the world situation and its national conditions, including expanding foreign capital market access in a wider range, strengthening international cooperation in intellectual property protection, increasing imports of goods and services on a larger scale, more effectively coordinating international macroeconomic policies, and paying more attention to the implementation of opening-up policies. To build a comprehensive spatial information network, China will continue to promote scientific and technological innovation, improve informatization and digitalization, promote cooperation in the information field, including electronic ports, and form a pattern of "great customs clearance, great logistics and great economy and trade"; Work together to build a complete industrial chain of e-commerce, jointly build the legal basis and working standards in this field, improve the service level, and jointly build an information integration platform. We will carry out in-depth humanities cooperation in education, science, culture, sports, tourism, health, archaeology and other fields, strengthen exchanges between parliaments, political parties, think tanks and non-governmental organizations, and close exchanges between women, youth, disabled people and other groups to form a multi-interactive humanities exchange pattern.
The future "Belt and Road" construction will further strengthen the interconnection network system between China and the world, and realize the linkage development from point to face, from face to face, and from piece to piece. The interconnection network will greatly reduce the transaction costs of goods, capital, information and technology between regions, promote countries to give full play to their resource endowments, better integrate into global supply chains, industrial chains and value chains, improve the overall development level, effectively promote the orderly flow and optimal allocation of cross-regional resource elements, realize the smoother flow of goods, capital, technology and personnel, and provide more powerful impetus, more stable development and broader space for economic growth of all parties involved.
"Rivers and seas do not choose small streams, so they can be deep." The "Belt and Road" advocated by China is in line with the trend of multi-polarization and economic globalization in the world, and interacts with all participants in the world to jointly promote the sustainable development of the world economy in a more open, inclusive, inclusive, balanced and win-win direction.
[This paper is the research result of the general project of the National Social Science Fund "Research on Regional Economic Integration between China and Central Asia" (project number: 12BGJ015)]