1 Vision of the Belt and Road Initiative

The world faces a major challenge of weak growth and unbalanced development. The Belt and Road Initiative is aimed at breaking the bottleneck of weak growth and unbalanced development to achieve common development and benefit people of all concerned countries.

1.1 Promotion of development

The world economy has suffered from weak recovery and lack of growth momentum in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. Worse, international trade has remained sluggish and protectionism and anti-globalization sentiment have intensified, leading to increasing uncertainties that have cast shadows on the prospects of global economic growth. China has become a major growth engine supporting global economic growth. Statistics show that in the post-crisis era, China's contribution to global economic growth exceeded 30% on average.

According to data released by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, China is expected to import goods worth $8 trillion in the upcoming five years and attract $600 billion of foreign investment; its outbound investment will total $750 billion and the number of Chinese tourists going abroad will reach 700 million. The country is changing from a “world factory” into a “world market” and an important source of international investment, which will provide a strong boost for the continually sluggish global investment and trade and bring new opportunities for promoting development of other countries.

From its own history and that of the world, China has realized that openingup and cooperation are an important prerequisite and inventive for promoting development. President Xi Jinping has pointed out that “China's development benefits from the international community and is willing to provide more public goods for the international community.” “I put forward the Belt and Road Initiative with a view to allowing countries along the routes of the initiative to share China's development opportunities and achieve common prosperity,” he said. The Belt and Road Initiative involves more than 60 countries and regions, covering a population of 4.4 billion, accounting for 63% of the global total; the total GDP of those countries and regions amounts to $23 trillion yuan, accounting for 29% of the global total. The program can not only promote trade and investment of countries along the routes of the initiative and raise their growth rates, but also produce a spill-over effect to promote economic growth of other countries. The implementation of the program is of strategic importance in achieving a sustainable and balanced global economic growth.

In the document, titled Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road(hereinafter referred to as Vision and Actions),which was released by the Chinese Government in March, 2015, China says that in carrying out the Belt and Road Initiative, it sticks to the principle of open regional cooperation and is committed to safeguarding a free global trade regime and open world economy; the aim of the program,the document says, is to promote orderly and free flow of production factors, efficient allocation of resources and thorough integration of markets to achieve more widespread, higher-level and deeper regional cooperation and provide new boost for the peaceful development of the world.

1.2 Improvement of governance

Development imbalance is another major challenge facing the current world economy. To solve the problem, it is important to promote development, but it is more important to improve mode of governance. Currently, the emerging and developing countries have contributed 80% of global economic growth;however, lacking representativeness and inclusiveness, the global governance regime has failed to adapt to the changing situation to reflect the new changes in the global economic landscape.

Most countries along the routes of the Belt and Road Initiative are emerging and development economies. The Belt and Road Initiative helps to push infrastructure construction, promote industrial development, accelerate economic growth of concerned countries, and narrow the gaps between the North and the South of the globe. The improving economic strength of the developing and emerging economies will help raise their voices and representation in global governance, make international rules become fairer and more equitable, and provide more effective solutions to the world's problem of unbalanced development.

1.3 Jointly building community of common destiny

In January 2017, President Xi Jinping delivered a speech at the UN office in Geneva and put forward the idea of “building a community of shared future for mankind and achieving shared and win-win development.” He elaborated on the concrete methods to build such a community from perspectives of partnership, security situation, economic development, exchanges of civilizations and ecological construction.

Xi said: “I put forward the Belt and Road Initiative just to achieve shared and win-win development.” With building of community of common destiny for mankind as its long-term target, the Belt and Road Initiative promotes effective integration of resources and efficient use of resource through interconnectivity to create more wealth and opportunities and focuses on achievement of winwin cooperation for all countries and sharing of development benefits among all members of the international community.