By Wu Lejun, Zhao Cheng, Liu Rui, People’s Daily

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The Belt and Road Initiative Leads to a Common Prosperity

By Wu Lejun, Zhao Cheng, Liu Rui, People’s Daily

In November 2016 at the 71st Session of the UN General Assembly, 193 members unanimously agreed to include the Belt and Road Initiative into the UN General Assembly resolutions, calling on the international community to provide security assured environment for construction of the Belt and Road, which again confirms the joint discussion, joint construction, and joint sharing principle upheld by the Belt and Road Initiative, and receives the positive response and universal identity of the international community.

In 2016, countries along the Belt and Road were focusing on the policy communication, facilities interoperability, trade interconnection, capital circulation, and peoples inter-linkage, financial cooperation pulled by Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and Silk Road Fund became continuously deepened, a number of influential milestone projects gradually broke the ground, from single points to broad extension the Belt and Road construction progress and achievements are beyond expectation. It is like a high-speed train, carrying countries along the routes to a bright future; it is like a broad avenue, attracting countries along the routes to wok for common prosperity.

Policy communication

Policy communication is the important guarantee for the construction of the Belt and Road. Following President Xi Jinping's footprints in 2016 visits, we can see China with more and more countries and regions along the Belt and Road strengthen the national development strategy docking, through deepening the integrating interests to promote political mutual trust, and has reached a new consensus on cooperation.

In January, President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and visited the headquarters of the Arab league. China signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Jointly Building the Belt and Road with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Iran respectively, China and Saudi Arabia also signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Strengthening the Online Silk Road Construction Cooperation.

In March, President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to Czech, China and Czech signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation Outline to Carry out the Belt and Road Construction, agreed to build full interoperability with direct flights between the two countries opened as an opportunity, to promote capacity cooperation based on manufacturing, to strengthen peoples inter-linkage by promoting Chinese medicine, and to plan and carry out bilateral in-depth cooperation.

In June, President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to Serbia, Poland, Uzbekistan, and reached unanimous agreements with the 3 countries leaders to strengthen the national development strategy docking through the "16+1 cooperation", and to turn the Central and Eastern Europe into important connecting zone for the Belt and Road Initiative to get integrated with the European Economic Circle.

In October, President Xi Jinping paid a state visit to Cambodia and Bangladesh. China and Cambodia signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Jointly Making the Cooperation Plan for Promoting Construction of the Belt and Road, China and Bangladesh signed cooperation documents to build the Belt and Road as well as cooperation documents on production capacity, energy, information and communication, investment, Ocean, disaster prevention and mitigation, humanity and other areas.

In November, the informal meeting of APEC leaders held in Lima of Peru, the Belt and Road core concept of jointly consulting, jointly building and jointly sharing is for the first time included in its Leaders Declaration.

Over the past year, in bilateral and multilateral activities of President Xi Jinping, the phrase of the Belt and Road appears frequently. Swiss Confederation President Schneider-Ammann is willing to actively participate in the construction of the Belt and Road and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Belarus's President Lukashenka is willing to build the China-Belarus Industrial Park -- a Belt and Road landmark project, the Belgian Prime Minister Michel is willing to expand cooperation with China in justice, investment, innovation, aerospace, new energy, digital economy, infrastructure and cooperation under the Belt and Road framework ...... During the G-20 Summit in Hangzhou, Russian, Australian, Italian, Turkish, Laos, Singapore, Saudi Arabian leaders and others expressed a strong desire to dock cooperation.

Through bilateral and multilateral cooperation mechanisms at various levels, the Belt and Road Initiative has achieved docking with development strategies of many countries and regions along the routes: having attained docking with the European investment plan; opened "three port cooperation" with Central and Eastern European countries along the Adriatic Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea coast, and accelerated the land-sea transport express construction in Central Europe; signed with Russia the joint statement on docking cooperation between the Belt construction and the construction of the Eurasian Economic Union; had docking cooperation with Kazakhstan Bright Road; accelerated consultations with Vietnam concerning cooperation between the Belt and Road Initiative and the Two Corridors and One Circle cooperation. In addition, the strategic docking of the Belt and Road with the Saudi Vision 2030, the British North Revitalization Plan, the Turkish Middle Corridor Plan, the South Korean Eurasian Cooperation Initiative, the Australian Northern Development Plan, Laos turning itself into land-connected country. China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project has started, The building of the Bangladesh-China-India- Myanmar economic corridor and China-Russia-Mongolia Economic Corridor is going on steadily.

The policy communication and strategic docking is not a simple physical process, but to find the common denominator of cooperation by actively building multi-level macroeconomic policy coordination and deepening integration of interests between governments along the routes. Just as President Xi Jinping said: The Belt and Road construction advocates different ethnic groups and different cultures to "intersect to get smooth pass", but "not to get jammed", to tear down walls instead of making walls, to take dialogue as the' golden rule ', may all countries become good neighbors to each other.

Facilities interconnection and Interoperability

In November, the Hungary-Serbia railway project jointly built by China, Hungary and Serbia is under construction. This 350 km long railway from Budapest of Hungary to Belgrade of Serbia is designed with maximum speed of 200 km/h. After the project is opened to traffic between Budapest and Belgrade, the travel time will be cut to 3 hours from the current 8 hours.

In June, the unified brand of China-Europe special expresses from Chongqing, Chengdu, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Changsha, Suzhou, Dongguan, Yiwu and other places run to Poland and other countries in Europe. As of now, China-European trains express lines are numbered 39 with 16 terminal cities in China and 12 terminal cities in Europe, and with accumulation of more than 1800 runs of passenger trains.

"To get prosperous, beginning with building roads" as China’s experience tells. Facilities interconnection and interoperability is the priority areas of constructing the Belt and Road, and also the "blood vessels" for building the Belt and Road. Infrastructure building plays a leading role in the process of the Belt and Road construction and development, the interconnection and interoperability can not only make important economic contributions to countries along the routes, but also provide strong fundamental support for policy communication, trade accessibility, financing smoothness and people inter-linkage.

The Vision and Action on Jointly Building the Silk Road Economic Belt and Maritime Silk Road in 21st Century has made planning for cross-border and cross-regional cooperation on transportation, energy and communications infrastructure. In 2016, under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, a large number of multinational infrastructure projects have either broken ground or put into operation. The China-Laos railway, China-Thailand railway, Hungary- Serbia railway, Addis Ababa -Djibouti railway, Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail, Colombo-Nangang container wharf in Sri Lanka, China-Pakistan Karakoram Highway second phase, Gwadar Port expressway, Burma gas pipeline, China and Central Asia natural gas pipeline C and D ... The current infrastructure projects under construction under the Belt and Road framework have covered 44 countries.

Meanwhile, China further speeds up energy infrastructure construction rhythms with countries and regions along the Belt and Road. From October 2013 to June 30th, 2016, the Chinese state-owned enterprises in overseas signed and were constructing about 40 major energy projects such as power plants, transmission stations and oil and gas facilities, etc., involving a total of 19 countries along the Belt and Road. In March 2016, China launched the Global Energy Internet Development Cooperation Organization in Beijing, which has established cooperative relations with institutions such as UNESCAP, the International Energy Agency, the International Electrotechnical Commission, the U.S. Argonne National Laboratory, Stanford University, etc. is pushing the Northeast Asian electric power interconnection network project, and China-Mongolia-ROK-Japan electric power interconnection network project. Yale University experts predicted that in 2016 China's contribution to world economic growth might reach 39%. In the major backdrop of the world economic weak recovery, China's economy maintains fairly high growth rate, and plays the role of the global economic "stabilizer" and "engine". Meantime, China welcomes various countries to take a ride with China's development "express", highlighting the concept of China's openness and inclusiveness, mutual benefits and win-win outcomes. Ou Xiaosi of the National Development and Reform Commission said that China is the only country in world that has all industrial categories classified by the United Nations, and after years of development, has accumulated a large number of advantageous industries and surplus production capacity. Most countries along the Belt and Road routes are in the primary stage of industrialization, their industrial foundation is weak, require to introduce foreign investments to achieve industrialization. China proposes the Belt and Road Initiative, an important objective of which is, through investment cooperation, international production capacity and equipments manufacturing cooperation, to combine China industrialized advantages with industrialization needs of counties along the routes together, to promote the industrialization progress of those countries, to give impetus to European Economic Recovery, and ultimately to promote the recovery of world economy. A world famous strategist, and Brookings Institution researcher Khanna in his ebookpoints out that humankind’s infrastructure to be built in the next 40 years to come will exceed the total in the previous 4000 years. The construction of railways, highways, tunnels, power grids and cables will bring greater benefits to all countries. Global interconnection and interoperability revolution has started, while China's Silk Road Economic Belts is the world's largest infrastructure investment initiative in history.

With the accelerating construction of facilities interconnection in countries along the routes, the Belt and Road construction is ensuring peoples of various countries to enjoy the tangible results, and also build up broad prospects for the Belt and Road construction.

Trade Smoothness

Three years ago, there were almost no LED lights in the Egyptian market. Over the past two years, China-made lamps are popular in Egyptian markets. Currently, most of street lamps in Cairo are now produced in China. Speaking of the changes the Belt and Road construction brought to Egypt, merchants engaged in China-Egyptian trade for 10 years show their pride. With the diversified economic and trade exchanges between China and Egypt, the market share of China-made products such as home appliances, cars and other goods in the Egypt continue to rise. Meanwhile, Egyptian specialty such as cotton products is getting popular in China.

With the background of weak growth of the world economy, China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative emphasizes interconnection and interoperability, and achieves interacted development, is the "golden key", "think tank", and "compass" to promote the development of global trade.

On August 17th, President Xi Jinping at the Work Forum to Promote the Belt and Road Construction raised 8 ideas, including pushing practical implementation of the plans, focusing on the construction of economic and trade cooperation zones. In September, the G-20 Summit in Hangzhou institutionalized for first time the Meeting of Minister of Trade, and Trade and Investment Working Group mechanisms, and adopted the first global multilateral investment rules framework -- the G-20 Global Investment Guiding Principles-- China wisdom further clarifies the direction to promote trade liberalization and investment facilitation along the Belt and Road.

A group of economic data can directly reflect the mutually beneficial and prosperous trade growth among countries along the Belt and Road. From January to October 2016, China’s trade volume with the countries along the Belt and Road reached US $763.43 billion, accounted for 25.7% of China's total foreign trade for the same period. China's direct investment in those countries amounted to US$12.07 billion, the newly signed contracted projects worth US$84.39 billion in those countries. In the corresponding period, these countries invest to have established 2777 enterprises inside China, an increase of 30%. Up to now, Chinese enterprises have established 56 Trade and Economic Cooperation Zones in 20 countries along the routes, having increased more than $1 billion tax revenue and created more than 160000 jobs for these countries.

A transport network connecting Asia, Africa and Europe continuously expands, becomes a powerful guarantee for trade among countries along the routes. In recent years, the number of trains between China and Europe witnesses an explosive growth, a total of 1524 runs, an increase of 107% from January to November 2016.

Goods transported by China-Europe trains have expanded from category of electronic products, computer and mobile phone at the beginning gradually to clothing, shoes, motor vehicles and parts, food grain, wine, coffee beans, wood, furniture, chemicals, machinery and equipment categories. With the e-parcels taken by the trains, China-Europe trains business will get more enriched.

While the traditional logistics flow is continuously upgraded, application of modern science and technology to improve the efficiency of economic and trade cooperation is also being explored. China-Europe Digital Association President Luigi Gambardella said in an interview that the Belt and Road Initiative provides a wider platform for economic cooperation between Europe and China. In addition to the airport, railway infrastructure construction, cooperation in the field of digital technology has a very broad prospect. Europe and China, through R&D of a new generation of 5G communication technology, build a Digital Silk Road connecting China and Europe, break up the traditional trade barriers, realize more efficient economic exchange and trade accessibility between China and Europe.

The Pyramid Times executive editor Mansoor Abner Azm said, by taking part in the Belt and Road media cooperation forum hosted the People's Daily, Egypt and other African countries learn how to guide the local enterprises to more efficiently carry out trade with China, participate in the Belt and Road construction and get benefited.

The countries concerned collectively build the Belt and Road, economic prosperity is the inevitable result of smooth trade, trade accessibility is an important condition for economic development. Hu Yu of Tsinghua University also believes that Chinese enterprise, with interoperability as the focus, actively participate in infrastructure construction of countries along the routes, build a multiple cooperation platform, facilitate the free flow of production factors, which have significant effects. Only production factors flow, can wealth be created, can cross-border cake of flowing economy get bigger.

Financing facilitation

In November, the Silk Road International Bank was officially launched in Djibouti, the first Chinese enterprise gets a banking license in Africa; in September, the Overseas Infrastructure Investment Corporation with total capital up to $500 million initiated and established by China-Africa Development Fund together with domestic large engineering enterprises is in official operation, will effectively help to solve Africa's infrastructure development bottlenecks, help enterprises to enter the high- end of industrial chain of the most valuable development projects in Africa ... In the year 2016, financing facilitation has become one of the bright spots for the Belt and Road construction to advance, and provide financial assurance for China and countries along the routes to achieve mutual benefit and win-win outcome in the principles of jointly consulting, jointly building and jointly sharing.

At the Work Forum to Promote the Belt and Road Construction held on August 17th , 2016, Xi Jinping stresses the need to effectively promote financial innovation, innovate internationalized financing, deepen financial cooperation, build multi-level financial platforms, establish a long-term, stable, sustainable, and risk-control financial assurance system that provides service to the Belt and Road construction.

According to the statistics by State Administration of Foreign Exchange, in 2015 China made investments in 49 out of 65 countries along the Belt and Road. By the end of July 2016, China’s investment in relevant countries along the Belt and Road totaled $51.1 billion. Liu Zhiqin, chief representative of Zurich Bank of Switzerland in Beijing, and senior researcher of Chongyang Financial Institute of People's University points out that financing facilitation is in the core, how to design the Belt and Road construction, what is its efficiency? These depend on the funding situation. He believes that at the institutional level, a financing platform for the Belt and Road construction is shaped; at application level, an ample supply of funds is available.

Yin Zhentao of Institute of Finance, CASS, said that strong and comprehensive financial support has the decisive significance for enterprises to "go overseas" and participate in the Belt and Road construction. Against the backdrop of the global economic downturn, the Belt and Road Initiative, with sufficient funds to support, is effective supplement and reinforcement to the existing international organizations and mechanisms such as the World Trade Organization.

On October 1st this year, the RMB is officially included in the International Monetary Fund SDR currency basket, the RMB yuan with the weight of 10.92% among the 5 currencies in the basket ranks third, which further accelerates the process of RMB internationalization. According to the People's Bank of China statistics, in the first 8 months of 2016, the actual cross-border RMB transaction with the countries and regions along the Belt and Road totaled $860 billion yuan, the People's Bank of China and the central banks of 21 countries and regions along the routes signed a bilateral currency swap agreement, totaling $1.45 trillion in scale.

Chinese International Economic Exchange Center Deputy Chief Economist Xu Hongcai believes that the RMB is widely used in the countries along the Belt and Road, can avoid the risk of exchange rate, is an approach matched with the Chinese economic status. Liu Zhiqin points out that the RMB accession to the SDR increases the reliability and feasibility of currency exchange along the Belt and Road. Currently, the U.S. dollar interest rate hike may cause the possibility of its flowing back, the dollar funds used for development of all countries showed a downward trend, the RMB can make up for the impact of absence of the dollar. In the long run, it is the trend for RMB in the regions and the world to play a leading role.

At the G-20 Summit in Hangzhou held in September 2016, development of "green finance" becomes the consensus of various countries. A dozen international financial institutions including the World Bank state to increase the global infrastructure construction investments. The Belt and Road Initiative is promoting global capital to flow more orderly, deepening interoperability between countries and regions, and is dedicated to achieving complementary advantages, mutual benefit and win-win outcome. As the Kuhn Foundation Chairman Robert Kuhn said that the Belt and Road Initiative is not only the correct behavior conforming to the interests of mankind, is an important conception of safeguarding world peace and stability; It will not only enable China to achieve coordinated, green and peaceful development, but also will provide favorable interests to the countries along the routes, and even plays a crucial role in rebalancing the world economy.

People-to-people communication

Dusseldorf, Germany is an important logistics center in Europe. In order to strengthen cultural exchange with the countries along the Belt and Road, the creative local people thought of containers. On November 21st, the first "Silk Road Blue Containers" was held in Dusseldorf city. Artists and scholars from countries along the routes, through books, paintings and other crafts, show cultural features of the countries along the routes. Guo Jian of German-China Art Design Association said that in next year 2017 these cultural containers will be shipped from there by train to the countries and regions along the Belt and Road for international cultural and economic exchange activities.

At the other end of the Eurasian continent, the first overseas campus of a Chinese university, Xiamen University, in Malaysia experienced a number of important moments -- in February 2016, the first group of students get enrolled; in August, 250 Malaysian undergraduate freshmen register for admission in the school, in September, another 500 freshmen from China and ASEAN countries register for admission. School President Wang Ruifang told reporters, this campus can provide an attractive choice for students in Malaysia and other countries, and help to train cross-culture international talents for countries along the Belt and Road.

Along with the Belt and Road construction advancing steadily, a cultural avenue is increasingly emerging, more and more people are living in a changing environment brought about by the Belt and Road cooperation. In 2016, in Yao Autonomous County of Guilin, Guangxi, one more English teacher shows up: 18 year old German boy Marx Kerr Gus (Kong Hao in Chinese name). Kong Hao first thought of coming to China in 2014. In March of that year, accompanying President Xi Jinping to visit Germany, Peng Liyuan toured Kong Hao’s Bole Senior Secondary School of Arts. Observing the Chinese class, a girl student asked Peng Liyuan what the Chinese dream is. She replied: my Chinese dream is to hope that all children in the world, especially all girls like you are able to receive a good education. Kong Hao was touched by this and determined to travel to the poor areas to support Chinese education. Now, Kong Hao, in the mountains of Guangxi, is busy setting up a "English Choir", so as to give the local children an opportunity to experience the charm of different language and culture in music. He told reporters that he is preparing to set up a "German-like" football team there.

The history of the world shows that, in the process of global governance, it is necessary to seek the identity of culture: reaching consensus on global governance, and explore ways of communication from the cultural tradition. Therefore, the Belt and Road construction from blueprint design to concrete implementation, has always placed the peoples’ communication in a very important position. In the overall layout of a innovative new-type cooperation model of the Belt and Road construction, strengthening humanist and cultural cooperation is an important content.

In 2016, in order to promote people-to-people communication of countries along the Belt and Road, President Xi Jinping specially sends congratulatory messages to two humanist and cultural exchange activities, attracting attentions.

The first message is sent in July to the Belt and Road Media Cooperation Forum 2016 sponsored by the People's Daily, expecting media of various countries to help to promote development of relations between countries, communicate among peoples, deepen mutual understanding and trust, and play an active role in the Belt and Road construction.

The second message is sent in September to the First Silk Road International Cultural Expo.It says: Adhere to diversity coexistence, mutual learning and common advance, cooperating and sharing, strengthen cultural exchanges, promote cultural equality, protect cultural heritage, promote cultural innovation, strengthen cultural cooperation, may the mankind-created rich and colorful culture benefit more people and make the world more beautiful.

The Two Messages are just a microcosm of the Belt and Road Initiative pursuing mutual learning, and peoples communication. With experience of the Belt and Road Media Cooperation Forum, China-Thailand Journalists Association Chair Chava Vanni Wattana told reporters, this Forum helps to promote the cultural exchanges along the Belt and Road, there are shocking progress and contributions already made.

President Xi Jinping once points out: Anywhere the Belt and Road extends is the site of active cultural exchanges. People-to-people communication needs continuous efforts, will make progress in the long run. Today, the deepening people-to-people friendship among various countries is nurturing fertile soil for the Belt and Road construction to take roots and bear fruits.

(Excerpts of an article from www.people.com.cn)