A Route to Prosperity
The Belt and Road Initiative has made remarkable achievements in the past decade
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Over the past decade, visions have become realities. Even though we have a million reasons to celebrate on such a memorable occasion, I suggest we take time to reflect. What should we think about? The BRI and its decadelong practice have given us much space to think. The main questions I have been pondering over are: What has the BRI done right? Why has it received the support and participation of so many countries and international organisations? What aspects of the BRI has not been done very well, causing some countries and people in the world to misunderstand, or even deliberately distort, attack, confront and suppress it?
Taking stock
First of all, we can see the fruits of the BRI during the past 10 years from the following figures.
As of 6 January, China had signed more than 200 agreements with 152 countries and 32 international organisations for cooperation under the BRI. A batch of infrastructure projects had been implemented, a considerable number of which had been completed and put into operation, including the China-Laos Railway, Mombasa-Nairobi Railway, Addis AbabaDjibouti Railway, Karakoram Highway, Phnom PenhSihanoukville Expressway, Maputo Katembe Bridge, China-Maldives Friendship Bridge, Peljesac Bridge, Padma Bridge, Gwadar Port, Hambantota International Port, and Kyaukpyu Port.
A number of energy projects, especially new energy ones, have also been completed and put into operation. They include Karachi Nuclear Power Plant, Karot Hydropower Station, the Nam Ou cascade hydropower project, De Aar wind power project, Al Dhafra PV2 solar power plant, and Morocco’s Noor Tafilalt 120 mw solar project.
As international cooperation on production capacity deepens, many industrial parks have been built in developing countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. Examples are the China-Belarus industrial park, Thai-Chinese Rayong Industrial Park, Eastern Industry Park in Ethiopia, and Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone. More and more Chinese enterprises and businesses from across the world are building presence in these industrial parks.
Besides, China and BRI participating countries have also jointly built a number of laboratories to carry out scientific and technological cooperation and research in desert control, modern agriculture, health, marine biology, and new energy among other fields. The introduction of China’s hybrid rice into the African continent involved in the BRI is greatly improving the grain yield in African countries. Chinese juncao mushrooms helped people of the South Pacific island countries to shake off poverty and become rich. The China-Europe freight trains have been injecting new momentum to efforts in building stable supply and industrial chains in the Eurasian continent. China’s Western Land-Sea Corridor now connects the country’s western region with more than 300 ports in over 100 countries.
Over the past decade, Chinese enterprises have invested about $1 trillion in BRI projects. The investment has directly or indirectly benefitted a group of countries whose population accounts for 65 percent