China calls for greater connectivity, openness, inclusiveness to tackle global crises
By He Yin
China will work with
its partners to develop the Belt and Road into a model of cooperation for
meeting challenges through unity, Chinese President Xi Jinping recently said in
a written message to the High-level Video Conference on Belt and Road
International Cooperation.
The Belt and Road will
also be a model of health for protecting people's safety and well-being, a
model of recovery for restoring economic and social activity, and a model of
growth for unlocking development potential, Xi added.
The Chinese President's
message demonstrated the firm confidence of China and its Belt and Road
partners in promoting high-quality cooperation, and bolstered various
countries' confidence in defeating the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pandemic urged
countries to take effective countermeasures to tackle global crises and realize
long-term development.
All nations' destinies are
closely connected, and humanity is a community with a shared future.
"Be it in taming
the virus or in achieving economic recovery, humanity cannot succeed without
solidarity, cooperation and multilateralism. The right approach to tackling
global crises and realizing long-term development is through greater connectivity,
openness and inclusiveness," Xi said.
Since the Belt and Road
Initiative (BRI) was proposed nearly seven years ago, China and its BRI
partners have signed 200 government-to-government cooperation documents,
launched more than 2,000 projects, and created tens of thousands of jobs
created in the partner countries.
The family of BRI partners
has continued to expand, with more solid progress in trade and economic
exchanges, greater connectivity, and more solid foundation of public opinion,
which can inject positive energy into the
global COVID-19 response confidence into world economic recovery.
Rather than holding
back Belt and Road cooperation, COVID-19 has only highlighted its strong
resilience and vitality. In the face of the virus, BRI partners have extended a
helping hand to each other, and many of them lent valuable support to China.
China, on its part,
provided assistance to 122 BRI partners to support their response to the virus.
It also sent medical teams to 25 countries and shared its experience in
containment, diagnostics and therapeutics with all countries without reservation.
In the first five
months, the China-Europe Railway Express made 28 percent more trips and
transported 32 percent more freights from a year ago. To date, it has
transported 12,524 tons of medical supplies, serving as a key “cargo lifeline” and
“bond of solidarity” on
the Eurasian continent. It has made great contributions to the global fight
against COVID-19 and greatly mitigated the pandemic's impact on global
industrial and supply chains.
As former Egyptian
Prime Minister Essam Sharaf said, the world is facing unprecedented challenges
and must work together through the global cooperation mechanism, adding that
this is where the BRI can make a difference.
When the pandemic
weighs down the global growth, countries must promote common development
through greater cooperation, so as to improve
people's welfare. To turn the BRI, the largest platform for international
cooperation, into a model of recovery for restoring economic and
social activity conforms to the practical interests of people in all countries.
From January to May, China's
actual use of foreign direct investment from countries and regions
participating in the BRI rose 6 percent year on year, and the country's
non-financial outbound direct investment in these countries and regions also
saw a 16 percent growth from a year ago.
Projects including the
China-Laos railway and the Budapest-Belgrade railway are well underway, and a
number of projects suspended due to COVID-19 have also resumed work. Besides, China
established a "green channel" for transportation, customs clearance, as
well as Belt and Road economic and trade and people-to-people exchanges.
Belt and Road
cooperation, pressing ahead against all odds, is demonstrating participating
countries' firm determination to pursue common development.
The future of the BRI
lies in expanding the cooperation to new areas. President Xi called for joint
efforts to build a "Silk Road of health" in June 2016. After the outbreak
of COVID-19, countries have a surging demand for public health cooperation.
Pushing forward the
Belt and Road health cooperation and the development of a "Silk Road of
health" will add new substance to high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.
Besides, promoting the
building of the digital Silk Road and a "green Silk Road" will create
new engines of growth for the partner countries and new impetus for global
recovery.
The Belt and Road Initiative has the potential to
act as an accelerator for the achievement of universal health coverage and the
Sustainable Development Goals, said Director-General of the World Health
Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, adding that China’s recent emphasis on
the ‘Health Silk Road’ and the ‘Digital Silk Road’ points to the importance of
innovative forms of cooperation to deal with the challenges that human beings
collectively face.
The pandemic neither
changes the general trend of economic globalization nor hinders open and
cooperative development.
The broad consensus
reached at the High-level Video Conference Belt and Road International
Cooperation fully
demonstrates the BRI partners’ vision to make the Belt and Road a model of cooperation,
health, recovery and growth.
As long as the BRI
partners uphold the principle of wide consultation, joint contribution and
shared benefits, and continue to enhance synergy between strategies for
high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, they can surely help all countries
tackle global crises and realize long-term development, and make new important
contributions to building a community
with a shared future for mankind.
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