PH role in Xi Jinping’s brainchild vital – scholar
THE Philippines’ role in the China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is just as important as those of other countries for globalization, a Chinese scholar said on Tuesday.
“Faced with similar risks, the Philippines should continue to exchange insights to aid in the expanding perspectives on the BRI, including its impact on other partner countries,” said Chinese scholar Wang Yi Wei, who gave a university lecture in Quezon City.
According to Wang, also an international relations professor at Rengmin University in China, the 65-nation initiative, a 2013 brainchild of President Xi Jinping, “promotes
This initiative was derived from China’s Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road and made possible by connecting Asia, Europe and Africa through various projects focusing on infrastructure.
“The BRI is a network open to all players and embracing everyone instead of being an exclusive one,” Wang said.
“China signed memorandums on facilitating Belt and Road projects with the assistance of the United Nations Development Program and the World Health Organization. This grand initiative, fortunately, received unequivocal support from the UN, which in a resolution last year urged all member states to join it and protect its overseas operation,” he added.
Wang said that with such ties, developing economies “can pursue the development path that suits them best,” hence, rectifying the direction of globalization.
In December 2017, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto Pernia told reporters that at least eight infrastructure projects under President Rodrigo Duterte’s “Build, Build, Build” program have been lined up for possible funding by Beijing alone.
“These have been prioritized as a result of a high-level meeting between the Philippine government and the Chinese government last September 27, 2017,” he previously said.
Some priority projects underway include the Subic-Clark Railway Project, Panay-Guimaras-Negros Island Bridges, Safe Philippines Project, Davao-Samal Island Bridges Project, Davao International Airport Development, Agus-6 Unit Major Rehabilitation Project, Agus-3 Hydroelectric Plant and Ilocos Norte Irrigation Project Phase 2.
Duterte himself had admitted in his previous speeches that China is an “important ingredient” in his Build, Build, Build program.
“China is a very important ingredient here... Every day the cost of money goes up. That is the problem. We will have pricing today far different from last week. I would say I need China more than anybody else at this time,” he said in a speech in April.
“China is dedicated in its responsibility as a rising major power to hear the countries out and help. This is so that we can all commit to that shared destiny of economic recovery and connectivity together,” Wang said.