BRI kickstarts global growth efforts
China’s initiative inspires others to launch similar economic globalization frameworks
After 10 years of operation, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has acquired the status of the ancient Silk Road, raised its brand status, and become one of the biggest protagonists and practitioners of economic globalization.
The evolution of this Chinese initiative has taught the international community several lessons. Among them, two are inspiring as well as revealing. First, the BRI has prompted several global power contenders to take parallel steps to build on similar ideas. Second, the initiative has not only been developing and extending its reach; it has also pioneered a leading cooperation mechanism.
The BRI has prompted other economies to launch similar initiatives to advance economic development both regionally and globally. For instance, the G7 member states launched the “Build Back Better
World” initiative in 2021 and the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment in 2022 to mobilize $600 billion for global infrastructure investments by 2027, and the European Union proposed the “Global Gateway” in 2021 to boost smart, clean and secure links in digital, energy and transport sectors and strengthen education, healthcare, and research systems across the world.
These initiatives are in different stages of development and have different levels of global engagement, in some cases with very limited success, but they all share a common thread: promoting values on a global scale and pushing for globalization.
The latest example of such an initiative is the “India-Middle EastEurope Economic Corridor”, which was launched by France, Germany, India, Italy, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the US, and the European Commission at the G20 Summit in New Delhi last year to link Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
More importantly, the BRI is challenging the monopoly of the West in the postwar world order, as it represents a framework of collaborative practices to present quasi-global solutions to common global problems. At the opening ceremony of the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, China’s top leader emphasized that BRI cooperation has developed from physical connectivity to institutional connectivity.
China has laid down the important guiding principles for highquality BRI cooperation, which include the principle of “planning together, building together, and benefiting together”, the philosophy of open, green, and clean cooperation, and the pursuit of “high-standard, people-centered, and sustainable cooperation”.
All these initiatives are aimed at connecting markets and production centers around the world to ensure the unimpeded flow of goods as well as to raise social capital. What differentiates the BRI from non-Chinese driven global initiatives is the fact that the former has been adapting to new challenges by, for example, promoting digitalization, raising product and service quality, transferring technologies, enhancing industrial efficiency, better protecting the environment, safeguarding energy security, and improving governance while also promoting supplementary initiatives such as the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative.
Moreover, the BRI does not present itself as the only model for realizing modernization and globalization to be copied by the current and potential partners. It rather presents a conglomerate of intertwined viewpoints, seeking joint efforts, promoting people-to-people exchanges, investing in development projects, and making more efforts to create a fairer and equitable global economic order by ending the US dollar’s hegemony in global trade.
The BRI is a framework initiative, which in conjunction with several others and with an innovative global vision seeks market access with consent and promotes globalization as an alternative to the US-led monopolized economic and trade order. The BRI has not only prompted other economies to launch similar trade and development initiatives but also captured the imagination of the majority of the countries, as it advances a framework for cooperation.
The BRI is a leading global initiative and a framework for global cooperation, encouraging other global powers to launch similar initiatives and promote modernization and global economic development based on a shared vision.