Substance or Show? The Belt and Road Forum

The 2017 forum in beijing attracted many world leaders. but it not yet clear if it can be a new venue for chinese influence.

As a demonstration of China’s growing influence on the international stage, the Belt and Road Forum held in Beijing in May 2017 was impressive, attracting numerous heads of state and leaders of international organizations to a showcase for China’s ambitious infrastructure plan to link much of Asia with large parts of Europe and Africa. But if this was Chinese President Xi Jinping’s grand diplomatic event of the year, it also highlighted continuing concerns in some quarters about Beijing’s motives and methods. It remains to be seen if the Belt and Road Forum becomes a venue for Chinese leadership in regional governance, write Jiang Jiying and Shi Weiyi. SINCE THE creation of the Forum on chinaafrica co-operation in 2000 and the Shanghai co-operation organization in 2001, china has played a growing leadership role in regional governance. The belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — launched in 2013 — is far more ambitious than china’s previous regional initiatives in both geopolitical reach and resource commitment. not only does it have wide-ranging implications for international trade and investment, the initiative also stands to cement china as a leader in the regional and even global economic order.

Unlike the asian Infrastructure Investment bank, the BRI is largely managed by china, negotiating bilaterally with its partners. In 2017, however, china held the first belt and Road Forum in beijing. It was china’s major diplomatic event of 2017 and the largest and highest-level public relations event on the BRI since its introduction. The summit was attended by the leaders of 29 countries, heads of 10 international organizations, and official government representatives from at least 30 more countries, resulting in the issuance of a joint communiqué.

The forum may seem like an insignificant appendage to the grand overall initiative, but, given participation at the heads-of-state level, it raises interesting questions about summitry. Why did china hold it? What exactly did it accomplish?

bri AND the belt AND road forum

led by china, the BRI is an ambitious effort to improve regional co-operation and connectivity on a trans-continental scale. as of July 2018, more than 100 countries and international organ-