Stepping Back, Moving Forward

How should AIIB function to buoy the Belt and Road Initiative? By Zheng Xinye & Huang Yanghua

The events of the preceding two years have restructured the traditional systems of global governance which have dominated the international order since 1945. With a wave of anti-globalization sweeping the developed nations, some are beginning to look to China—the world’s second largest economy and one which is demonstrably committed to the concepts of openness and free trade. In light of the country’s own economic success over the past 40 years, there is an optimism amongst the world’s developing countries that there remains, in China, a potential leadership which is ready and willing to take the reins and usher in an era of inclusive and connected development worldwide.

In 2013, the introduction of the Chinaproposed Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative, collectively known as the Belt and Road Initiative, outlined China’s plans for the future of global cooperation. Through the construction of infrastructure projects funded by the newly established Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the proposal seeks to build or rebuild ports, roads and railway networks which can together resurrect the historical trading routes which once engendered a golden age of economic and cultural