BRI’s New Direction and Politics of Isolation and Alienation
Unfortunately, the world has now been dragged into dirty politics of isolation and systematic alienation. Sadly, the world has also been trapped into the politics of unilateral sanctions against Russia, one of the key members of Chinese One Belt & One Road Initiative (BRI). Western main and especially its social media outlets are indiscriminately propagating against Russia and China for its just support and refusal to impose any socio-economic, geopolitical or military sanction against Russia.
Most recently, the Economist, London claims that Russia is destroying what China is trying to build in the South Caucasus. As a matter of principle, the Chinese government has refused to condemn President Vladimir Putin’s striving hard against Ukraine and Beijing is allegedly alienating many eastern European countries where it is constructing trade, investment and technology relationships under its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative. It is totally untrue, false, fake and fictional. Even China freight train has reached Europe which vividly showed its commitment to speed up various projects of the BRI in Europe.
Undoubtedly, Ukraine is strategically positioned across rail, road and energy pipelines linking Russia to the rest of Europe. Since it joined President Xi Jinping’s signature infrastructure policy in 2017, Chinese companies have been upgrading the country’s ports and subways. Ukraine provides an attractive market for companies such as smartphone maker Xiaomi (1810.HK), and it is an important source of agricultural produce. China bought 30 percent of its corn imports from Ukraine in 2021.
According to many leading western media houses, the war between Russia and Ukraine is so-called galvanizing pan-European sentiment against China, which refuses to call Russia’s move an invasion. As the West and Moscow make it harder for private companies to transact the flow of goods along the “Iron Silk Road,” a rail system across which $75 billion of Chinese products travelled to Europe in 2021, is likely to slow. But it is not true and does not have substance.
In this connection, the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made various calls to leaders of the EU and advocated dominance of peace over the pace of conflicting and escalating war. He urged that give a chance to dialogue and diplomacy to deescalate the burning situation.
In this regard, on March 1 Chinese Foreign Minister Wang spoke with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. He told Kuleba that China has always advocated respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries but added that “regional security cannot be achieved by expanding military blocs,” a reference to Russia’s objections to Ukraine joining NATO.
BRI has over 150 countries and international organizations participating which will be built into a more open and innovative one. It was initiated nine years ago. Due to the current international landscape, composition, complexity and nature of geopolitics and geostrategic propositions, means of engagement has now greatly changed with both favorable and unfavorable factors popping up for cooperation on the BRI. Despite western propaganda more and more countries are now supporting and embracing the vision.
It is estimated that nearly 80 percent of the countries that have diplomatic relations with China have joined in. As of July 2021, 140 countries and 32 international organizations had become participants in the initiative, which has become truly global, spanning Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America.
At the same time, the global situation has also become more complex because of rapidly changing geopolitical and geostrategic scenarios. In addition, some Western forces have spared no effort to stigmatize the BRI, which has actually blocked the advancement of the initiative abroad to some extent as a result.
At the domestic level China has been introducing sweeping structural reforms as well. China has successfully eradicated absolute poverty and grown its economy despite the disruptions caused by the pandemic, western protection nationalism and the US sanctions. Now, it is switching to a new growth model where domestic consumption is the main driving force of the economy while the GDP growth rate is being decelerated to make development stable and sustainable which is good omen even for BRI advancement.
Moreover, China has made a remarkable commitment to achieve carbon peaking by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060, and will not build any more coal-fired projects abroad, which means extensive modifications in policies. Thus green BRI is going to be a reality.
During the third symposium on the development of the BRI in Beijing on November 19, 2021, President Xi Jinping addressed the concerns about how to continue high-quality development of the BRI in the face of such changes at home and abroad, and outlined a new development vision based on deepening political mutual trust and policy dialogue.
It seems that the future development of the BRI will focus on pragmatic connectivity. A better connectivity network should be created, spanning land, sea and air transport as well as cyberspace. There should be cooperation in both traditional and new infrastructure, and rules and standards should be better aligned among participating countries.
President Xi emphasized the need for unimpeded trade, especially expanded trade with neighboring countries with liberalization and facilitation of investment. Cooperation in three-party or multiparty markets and on production capacity should be expanded. Multilateral development agencies and financial institutions from developed nations should also be encouraged to participate.
To conclude, greater concentrated efforts should be made to ensure stable industrial and supply chains and promote the diversification of sources internally and externally. Digital cooperation among member countries of the BRI routes needs to be strengthened and models should be developed for that.
There is an urgent need to further transform Silk Road e-commerce along with international cooperation in intellectual property rights protection. Moreover, Chinese multinational companies should be encouraged to take more social responsibilities in their host countries, contributing more to local development, while complying with local laws and regulations.
Despite the emerging challenges and imminent uncertainties, there are also new demands for international cooperation. There is a great need to unite in fighting the pandemic, in environmental protection, and in green and low-carbon development. Besides, with digital technologies more widely used in a post-epidemic world, international cooperation in this regard is becoming more urgent.
China has been supporting other developing nations to access COVID-19 vaccines and build up their healthcare systems even in all the member countries of the BRI. It is also assisting all the member countries of the BRI to transition to clean energy and green development, promoting capacity building in low-carbon development. It is also pressing for cooperation in climate governance to make it equitable.
Easy and smooth development of the BRI needs further strengthening risk prevention and control across the vast spectrum. Domestically, China must build an all-weather early warning and evaluation service platform that can detect potential risks for its overseas BRI programs on a regular basis and issue risk warning and evaluation.
The BRI was initiated to serve the people. Thus rigorous cultural diplomacy is the need of the hour to strengthen people-to-people links and form corridors of knowledge. It should also initiate more projects to improve the livelihoods of people living in member countries to make it more relevant and progressive.
