In 2013, the Chairman of the Supreme Leader proposed to jointly build the Belt and Road Initiative. In the past 10 years, building the "Belt and Road" has become a common road of opportunity and prosperity for all countries. Report to the 20th CPC National Congress, the Communist Party of China, proposed that building the "Belt and Road" has become a popular platform for international public goods and international cooperation. In this issue, experts are invited to discuss related issues.
Truly embody global equality and reciprocity.
What are the general characteristics of international public goods? What are the uniqueness of building the "Belt and Road"?
Wang Wen (Executive Dean, Chongyang Financial Research Institute, Renmin University of China): International public goods refer to public goods that benefit people in different countries or regions on the basis of certain principles. According to the differences in standards, there are also differences in the classification of international public goods. For example, by nature, there are pure international public goods such as ozone layer protection and cutting-edge knowledge, and quasi-international public goods such as free trade zones; According to the problem orientation, there are international public goods with global conditions such as cross-border disaster relief, natural public goods such as climate change, and artificial international public goods such as financial stability.
All international public goods have a common feature, that is, the non-exclusiveness of benefits and the non-competitiveness of consumption. According to this feature, some global powers claim to provide international public goods to other countries in the world, but they are not so pure in fact. These so-called public goods set some exclusivity for some specific competitors, and then produce the limitations of beneficiaries. Compared with the so-called international public goods led by the West, such as the North American Free Trade Area, NATO, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or the Marshall Plan of the United States and the Black Word Return Plan of Japan in history, the Belt and Road Initiative can really be called an international public product.
For the beneficiaries, the "Belt and Road Initiative" is not exclusive. Anyone who wants to join can join, and it is not competitive in consumption. There will be no zero-sum phenomenon of "you gain, we lose". More importantly, the "Belt and Road Initiative" also has the characteristics of globality, equality and reciprocity that other international public goods do not have. From the perspective of the evolution of global civilization, it has shaped a new rising path of mutual benefit and win-win between a new global power and other countries.
Globality means that in the 10 years since the "Belt and Road Initiative" was put forward, more than 200 co-construction and cooperation documents have been signed with more than 150 countries and more than 30 international organizations, covering six continents. The "Belt and Road Initiative" covers more than 75% of the countries and regions in the world. It is the most signed and popular transnational cooperation initiative proposed by all major countries in the history of the world, and it is also the most talked about transnational cooperation initiative in public documents of international organizations in recent years.
Equality means that participants in the Belt and Road Initiative treat each other equally, regardless of whether they are big or small, or economically strong or weak. Whether it is a big country with a land area of tens of millions of square kilometers and a population of hundreds of millions like Russia and Indonesia, or a pocket country with an area of more than 10,000 square kilometers and a population of hundreds of thousands like Fiji and Vanuatu, the "Belt and Road Initiative" is promoted on the principle of mutual respect and equal cooperation between countries. The "Belt and Road Initiative" is not the so-called "center" in the western tradition — Edge "axis system, but advocates a new concept of international relations with win-win cooperation as the core, and ultimately promotes the construction of a community of human destiny.
Reciprocity means that the "Belt and Road Initiative" benefits all parties to the contract. From infrastructure construction including ports, bridges, airports, highways and railways to bilateral trade, investment, people-to-people exchanges and policy communication, the public products provided by the Belt and Road Initiative not only help China enterprises and individuals to "go global", but also promote employment and social development of signatory countries. According to statistics, China’s industrial investment in countries building the Belt and Road Initiative covers infrastructure, energy, transportation, agriculture, high technology and finance, and the two-way investment totals more than US$ 270 billion. According to the "Belt and Road" database of Luft, a world-renowned financial data provider, by the first quarter of 2020, there were 3,164 "Belt and Road" projects planned or under construction, with a total amount of 4 trillion US dollars. Counting the new projects in the past three years, it is estimated that the total amount of the "Belt and Road" projects in 10 years will reach at least 5 trillion US dollars.
Through globalization, equality and reciprocity, the "Belt and Road Initiative" has created a brand-new model of the rise of great powers. China did not repeat the old road of "national power must dominate" and "national power must fight", and did not bring war, famine, death, crisis and bullying to any country, but brought peace, prosperity, trade, universal benefit, equality and hope. In the face of changes in the world and the times, China has acted positively, holding high the banner of peace, development, cooperation and win-win, adhering to the foreign policy purpose of safeguarding world peace and promoting common development, unswervingly developing friendly cooperation with other countries on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and promoting the construction of a new type of international relations featuring mutual respect, fairness, justice and win-win cooperation.
In a word, the Belt and Road Initiative embodies the core content of China’s diplomacy as a big country with characteristics, namely, serving the national rejuvenation, promoting human progress, promoting the construction of new international relations and building a community of human destiny. From the global response and actual project operation, the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" has also become the world’s largest international public product with the most innovative and mutually beneficial concept of a big country and the most far-reaching process of civilization promotion.
All-round interconnection has basically taken shape.
In terms of interconnection, what public goods does the "Belt and Road" provide for building a country together?
Zhai Dongsheng (Director of the "Belt and Road" Construction Promotion Center of the National Development and Reform Commission): Interconnection is a priority area and distinctive feature of building the "Belt and Road". In the past 10 years, China has taken the construction of "hard connectivity" of infrastructure as the guide, and at the same time promoted the "soft connectivity" of national strategic planning, trade and investment regulations and commodity quality and technical standards, as well as the "heart connectivity" of people-to-people exchanges and mutual learning, basically forming an all-round interconnection situation, greatly expanding and upgrading the level of world connectivity, effectively promoting the deepening of economic globalization, and playing a significant role in improving the production and living conditions of co-construction countries.
First of all, infrastructure "hard connectivity" projects are spread all over the world. The large investment scale, high technical requirements and long construction period in infrastructure construction are beyond the reach of many developing countries, and this is the comparative advantage of China. In the past 10 years, China enterprises have built a large number of infrastructure projects in transportation, communication, energy, water conservancy and municipal administration all over the world, and achieved good results. For example, China-Laos Railway is a landmark project to jointly build the Belt and Road Initiative. As of August, 2023, it has been 20 months since the opening of China-Laos Railway. During this period, the quality of passenger and cargo transportation has increased, and the whole line has sent more than 19 million passengers and more than 23 million tons of goods. It has become a safe and efficient international golden corridor connecting the inside and outside, radiating the surrounding areas, and helping Laos realize its century-old dream of changing from a "land lock country" to a "land link country". During the construction period of China-Laos Railway, it directly promoted the industries such as engineering construction and building materials supply along the line. After the completion and opening to traffic, it significantly promoted the rapid development of foreign trade processing and manufacturing, logistics, tourism and other industries, creating a large number of employment opportunities for people along the line. Another example is that Nepal’s domestic network could only be connected to the world through India. After the opening of the Sino-Nepal optical cable built by China to cross the Himalayas, a direct network route was established between the two countries, which greatly reduced the network delay of Nepal to Asia-Pacific and Europe and improved the network operation quality and security of the country. China-Europe trains have developed rapidly,From 2013, the annual shipment of 80 trains rose to 16,000 trains in 2022. The World Bank study found that the "Belt and Road Initiative" shortened the average transportation time of trade among economies along the route by 4% and reduced the trade cost by 3.5%. At present, the "Belt and Road" infrastructure construction is mainly invested, financed and constructed in China, which has fully released the financing ability of financial institutions in China and the construction and operation ability of construction enterprises, and not only achieved good economic benefits, but also improved the level of international operation.
Secondly, the standard of planning rules "soft connectivity" is getting better and better. Strategic docking with relevant countries is conducive to building consensus and making cooperation more in line with the development needs of the target countries. Most of the cooperation documents signed by China and relevant countries have strategic planning docking contents, for example, special cooperation plans have been jointly formulated and issued with Kazakhstan and other countries. China actively advocates the exchange of customs information, mutual recognition of supervision and mutual assistance in law enforcement with co-established countries, and has achieved mutual recognition of "certified operators" with 48 countries (regions), which has reduced the inspection rate of customs clearance goods by 60% to 80%, and reduced customs clearance time and cost by more than 50%. By April, 2020, China had signed 107 agreements to avoid double taxation, which reduced the tax burden of transnational operations of enterprises. Actively promote the docking of commodity certification and inspection and quarantine standards, and reduce the entry threshold for product inspection and quarantine. "Soft Unicom" has an important impact on China’s continuous improvement of the space, level and level of opening to the outside world, which is closely related to institutional opening, and needs to be further promoted in the future.
Thirdly, the "heart-to-heart communication" of humanities exchanges has been comprehensively and deeply promoted. With the progress of human civilization and the in-depth development of economic globalization, international exchanges and cooperation in tourism, culture, art, education, health, science and technology are becoming more and more important, and their influence on economic, trade and investment cooperation is also increasing, bringing benefits to the people who have jointly built the country. In the past 10 years, under the framework of jointly building the "Belt and Road", China has put forward the road of building peace, civilization, health and innovation, making the "Belt and Road" an important practical cooperation platform for building a community of human destiny. China has specially set up the Silk Road China Government Scholarship Program, which aims to train industry leaders and outstanding skilled personnel for building the Belt and Road countries together. At present, more than 200,000 students from co-construction countries study in China every year. China has established more than 20 Luban workshops in 19 countries, trained more than 600 local teachers and trained more than 10,000 students. By the end of 2021, 45 overseas China cultural centers have been built, and the Silk Road (Dunhuang) International Cultural Expo and the Silk Road International Art Festival are held every year.
Building a Multi-inclusive and Sustainable Investment and Financing System
What financial support and services has China provided to jointly build the Belt and Road Initiative?
Zhang Monan (Deputy Director and Researcher, US-Europe Research Department, China Center for International Economic Exchanges): In the process of promoting the "Belt and Road Initiative", finance is an indispensable fulcrum and link to incite and connect the construction of various countries, and it is also the basic condition and catalyst to promote the connectivity of facilities and the smooth flow of trade. In the past 10 years, the "Belt and Road" and its related countries have continuously deepened financial cooperation, greatly improved the level of financing and financial interconnection of the "Belt and Road", and initially established a diversified, inclusive and sustainable "Belt and Road" investment and financing system.
First, multilateral financial cooperation and interconnection networks have accelerated their development in depth. Through many bilateral cooperation platforms, China encourages multilateral development institutions to carry out joint financing with the countries that have jointly built the Belt and Road Initiative and build an institutional cooperation framework. In April, 2019, China issued the Debt Sustainability Analysis Framework of the Belt and Road Initiative. Based on the debt sustainability analysis framework of low-income countries of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the debt sustainability analysis tool was developed in combination with the actual situation of countries building the Belt and Road Initiative, and national financial institutions and international institutions were encouraged to use it on a voluntary basis. With the deepening of the "Belt and Road" cooperation, "UnionPay" has become a multi-field and diversified financing cooperation model suitable for regional characteristics. China — ASEAN UnionPay, SCO UnionPay, China — Bilateral and multilateral financial cooperation mechanisms such as Central and Eastern Europe UnionPay have been steadily promoted, providing financing support and financial services for related cooperation projects. By participating in bilateral, multilateral and regional cooperation mechanisms, we have strengthened information exchange and communication with relevant countries and promoted regional economic and financial development. In July 2020, China’s Ministry of Finance and eight institutions, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (hereinafter referred to as "AIIB"), the Asian Development Bank and the Latin American Development Bank, jointly established the Multilateral Development and Financing Cooperation Center.As a multilateral cooperation and coordination mechanism for infrastructure development and financing, we will coordinate multilateral and bilateral development institutions to cooperate in infrastructure interconnection and other fields, including the "Belt and Road" construction, and support high-quality project preparation and capacity building. By the end of 2020, six countries, including China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have jointly pledged to donate a total of $180.2 million to the fund.
Second, the multi-dimensional and multi-level financial market system and system construction have been accelerated. As an important financing channel for enterprises in participating countries, the "Belt and Road" theme bonds provide stable financial support for project construction. By the end of February, 2023, a total of 167 institutional investors in the countries jointly built by the Belt and Road Initiative had entered China’s inter-bank bond market, with a debt holding scale of about 1.54 trillion yuan, accounting for nearly half of the total debt holding scale of overseas institutions. Accelerate the integration and docking of financial products and financial service standards. China formulated and issued the "Action Plan for Building the Belt and Road by Standard Unicom" (2018— 2020), promote standardized cooperation in the financial field and serve to build a stable and fair international financial system. Focusing on the key areas that consumers pay attention to, such as bank product and service description specifications and third-party payment, we will deepen and jointly build national financial standardization cooperation and jointly formulate international financial standards. The financial supervision cooperation between monetary authorities of various countries is deepening day by day, and China has led or participated in a number of multilateral cooperation frameworks aimed at maintaining regional financial stability and economic development. For example, the People’s Bank of China assists the macroeconomic research offices of ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea, and is committed to promoting the Chiang Mai Initiative, so as to enhance the stability of regional finance by promoting currency swap and strengthening the monitoring of regional macroeconomic risks.
Third, the diversified development level of all kinds of financial services is improving day by day. Integrate financial service entities such as policy finance, development finance, commercial financial resources and sovereign wealth funds, and actively build a diversified cooperation platform where development finance and commercial finance coexist. In the past 10 years, two multilateral development financial institutions — — The AIIB and the BRICS New Development Bank provide investment and financing support for co-building countries and regions, and have contributed important public financial products to the Belt and Road Initiative. The AIIB has been granted permanent observer status in the United Nations General Assembly. At present, there are 109 members of the AIIB, covering 81% of the world’s population and 65% of the global GDP. In the past 10 years, the "Belt and Road" has attracted more international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation and the Asian Development Bank for joint financing. At the same time, various new types of multi-bilateral fund cooperation have become more active, including Silk Road Fund, RMB Overseas Fund and China-Kazakhstan Capacity Cooperation Fund.
Fourth, green finance and digital finance have activated new kinetic energy for the development of the "Belt and Road" financial cooperation. As an international public product, the green financial framework will help all parties in the world to construct their own transitional financial policies, promote the connection of standards, products and markets related to transitional finance, and facilitate the low-carbon transition of capital services in the international market. In November 2018, the China Green Gold Committee and the City of London led a number of institutions to issue the "One Belt, One Road" Green Investment Principles, which proposed seven principles, including incorporating sustainability into corporate governance, fully understanding environmental, social and governance risks, fully disclosing environmental information, making full use of green financial tools, adopting green supply chain management, and building capacity through multi-party cooperation. At present, 39 institutions have signed the Principles, and their influence and market participation are expanding. China is the second largest source of green bond issuance in the world, and actively explores the provision of public products for the "Belt and Road" green transformation. The funds raised by these bonds are used for "One Belt, One Road" green projects such as renewable energy, low-carbon and low-emission transportation projects, energy-saving projects and sustainable water resources management and wastewater treatment projects. Digital finance is another emerging field of "One Belt, One Road" financial cooperation. By connecting financial services with cross-border electronic commerce and digital trade, more countries will jointly build the "Belt and Road" and share the economic growth dividend.
