【Editor's Note: In order to comprehensively introduce the connotation and practice of building a community with a shared future for mankind, help people understand this initiative by President Xi Jinping, gather broad consensus, and join hands in building a community with a shared future, from April, the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Perth will publish an article each week on the theme of “A Shared Future, A Better World”.】
Promoting high-quality Belt and Road cooperation
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a vivid example of building a global community of shared future, and a global public good and cooperation platform provided by China to the world. Since introducing the BRI ten years ago, based on extensive consultation and joint contribution for shared benefits, China has pursued open, green, clean, and high-standard cooperation to promote sustainable development and improve people’s lives, and advanced high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. It has laid the groundwork and set up the frameworks of BRI cooperation, delivering tangible results and achieving sustainable progress. Together, participants in the initiative have jointly advanced “hard connectivity”, “soft connectivity” and “people-to-people connectivity”, setting up an important platform that has enabled wide participation, built international consensus and pooled the strengths of all parties.
Panel 1 The Greek Port of Piraeus Getting a New Life |
Located strategically at the “Southern Gate” of Europe, Piraeus, the largest port in Greece, has played an important role since its opening in around 400 BC. More than a decade ago, the port was in crisis, suffering huge losses. In 2010, China COSCO Shipping Corporation Limited officially became involved in the operation of the port, injecting new vitality to it. The annual handling capacity of the port has now reached 7.2 million TEUs, and its global ranking has jumped from No. 93 in 2010 to No. 33 in 2022. It has created more than 3,000 direct jobs and more than 10,000 indirect jobs locally, resulting in direct social contributions of more than 1.4 billion euros to the area. |
Panel 2 Chinese Juncao Is Our “Grass of Happiness” |
Juncao technology, which uses grass instead of wood to cultivate edible fungi, has solved a significant challenge –that the production of edible fungi had to rely on felling trees. Over the past 20 years, China has held 270 international training sessions on Juncao technology that trained over 10,000 people from 106 countries. It has set up demonstration centers or bases in 16 countries, creating hundreds of thousands of green jobs. In Fiji, Juncao technology is seen as a new hope of agriculture for island states; in Lesotho, farmers call Juncao “the grass of prosperity” because it makes quick returns; in Rwanda, more than 3,800 poor households have seen their annual incom-es double orquadruple after they began Juncao production. |
Policy connectivity continues to deepen. By July 2023, more than three-quarters of countries in the world and over 30 international organizations had signed agreements on Belt and Road cooperation with China. China has successfully hosted the first Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in 2017 and the second in 2019, and will host the third this year, maximizing synergy for advancing high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. Infrastructure connectivity continues to strengthen. A general connectivity framework consisting of six corridors, six routes, and multiple countries and ports is in place. The overall layout of land, sea, air and cyberspace connectivity continues to improve, centered on economic corridors such as the New Eurasian Land Bridge, supported by routes like the China-Europe Railway Express and the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor and the information expressway, and underpinned by major railways, ports, and pipelines. Trade connectivity continues to increase. According to Belt and Road Economics, a report released by the World Bank, the BRI, when fully implemented, will increase intra-BRI trade by 4.1 percent. By 2030, the BRI will generate US$1.6 trillion in annual global revenues. Financial connectivity continues to expand. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Silk Road Fund have been set up, providing financing support for hundreds of projects. People-to-people connectivity continues to strengthen. Roads, bridges and development belts that lead to a happier and better life are constantly emerging in participating countries, and solid progress is being achieved in Juncao, wells, hybrid rice and other small projects that work faster in improving people’s lives, giving local people of BRI countries a stronger sense of gain and fulfillment.
The BRI originated in China, but the opportunities and achievements it creates belong to the whole world. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, since its launch ten years ago, has lent strong impetus to the economic and social development of Pakistan. The China-Laos Railway has realized the long-cherished wish of the Lao people to convert Laos from a landlocked country to a land-linked hub. The Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Railway has become the first railway in Southeast Asia to reach a speed of 350 kilometers an hour. The Mombasa-Nairobi Railway has added more than two percentage points to local economic growth. Malawi’s 600 wells built with Chinese assistance have become “wells of happiness” serving 150,000 local people. The China-Europe Railway Express serves as a “steel camel fleet” between China and Europe. Luban workshops help young people in Tajikistan and other countries acquire vocational skills. Cooperation in the fields of health, green development, digital economy, and innovation is thriving.
Panel 3 China-Laos Railway and Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway |
The China-Laos Railway began operation on December 3, 2021, with 167 tunnels and 301 bridges built in 11 years along its total length of 1,035 kilometers. The railway construction created more than 110,000 local jobs, and helped build about 2,000 km of roads and canals for villages along the railway, bringing many visible and tangible benefits to local people. As of January 31, 2023, the China-Laos Railway had run 20,000 passenger train journeys and handled 10.3 million passenger trips. The Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Railway, with a maximum designed speed of 350 kilometers per hour, is the first high-speed rail service in Southeast Asia. Now that the railway is in service, the commute time from Jakarta to Bandung has been reduced from more than three hours to just 40 minutes. |
The BRI is an initiative for economic cooperation, not for geopolitical or military alliances. It is an open and inclusive process that neither targets nor excludes any party. Rather than forming exclusionary cliques or a “China club”, it aims to help China and the rest of the world to seize opportunities and pursue common development. Rather than a private route for any one party, it is a broad path that can be joined by all interested countries to work together for shared benefits.
The international community speaks highly of the BRI, praising it not simply as some random road or economic belt, but as an initiative to achieve common progress for humanity, an initiative that has opened up new paths for the common development of all countries. The BRI has facilitated the modernization drive of developing countries, leading the world into a new era of transcontinental cooperation.
Panel 4 900 Days of Hard Work Leading to a 900-Second Miracle |
The Qamchiq Tunnel on the Angren-Pap Railway line is the first ever railway tunnel built in Uzbekistan, and one of the most important cooperation projects between China and Uzbekistan under the BRI framework. Construction started on September 5,2013, and was completed on February 25, 2016. Chinese builders spent 900 days creating the miracle of a train passing through the mountains in only 900 seconds. The locals were astonished: “In the global bidding for the project,the European and American companies offered a construction period of five years. But the Chinese company did it in 900 days. How did you make it?” |