2 Principles of the Belt and Road Initiative

2.1 Basic principles of the Belt and Road Initiative: consultation, joint building, and sharing

In the Vision and Actions,the principles of consultation,joint building and sharing will be adhered to in implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative. President Xi Jinping once elaborated on that principles and said that “consultation” means drawing on collective wisdom and all concerned parties participating in how to implement the initiative, "joint building" means the concerned parties making the utmost efforts and bringing out all their advantages and potentials, and “sharing”means benefits brought by the initiative being shared by more people in a more equitable manner so that a community of common destiny and shared interest can be built. The basic principles of consultation, joint building and sharing reflects the core spirit of cooperation and win-win development of the Belt and Road Initiative and its distinct characteristic of openness and inclusiveness.

2.2 Chinese culture: the source of wisdom for the principles of the Belt and Road Initiative

The “Belt” can be traced back to the ancient Silk Road blazed by Zhang Qian, envoy of the emperor of the Western Han Dynasty in the second century B.C. visiting the western regions. The Silk Road traverses vast areas from the East to the West and connects Asia with Europe. The “Road” can be traced back to early 15th century, when Zheng He of Ming Dynasty led a fleet of ships to open a maritime route and arrived in many Southeast Asian countries and Kenya in the eastern coast of Africa. Activities along both routes in history reflect the spirit of exchange, communication, integration and credibility, which is in line with the principles of the Belt and Road Initiative—peaceful cooperation, openness and tolerance, mutual learning, and mutual benefit and win-win situation.

China's Confucian thought upholds such ideas as “seeking a world with great harmony,” “harmony without uniformity,” “we should not do onto others what we would not want others do to us” and “all living things are nourished without injuring one another and all roads run parallel without interfering with one another.” Those concepts have become Chinese people's spiritual pursuits in the past 2,000 years and today serve as the source of wisdom for the Belt and Road principles of consultation, joint building, and sharing.

2.3 Bilateral and multilateral mechanisms to guarantee materialization of the Belt and Road principles

Regarding bilateral mechanism, in the past three years after China put forward the Belt and Road Initiative, more than 50 countries have signed relevant cooperative agreements with China. China and Pakistan, for example, have signed a long-term plan on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, marking a major breakthrough in the construction of the corridor. It has agreed with Mongolia to connect the Silk Road program with the Grasslands Route strategy. It has also agreed with South Korea to connect the Belt and Road Initiative with the Eurasia Initiative. China and Indonesia have agreed to link the Belt and Road Initiative with the latter's Global Maritime Axis strategy. It also agreed with Kazakhstan to connect the Silk Road to the Bright Path new economic plan. The country has discussed with Vietnam and decided to explore cooperation between the frameworks of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Two Corridors and One Ring plan. In March, 2017, Premier Li Keqiang visited Australia and the two countries agreed to cooperate in the field of innovation strategy integration and connect the Belt and Road Initiative with Australia's plan to develop its northern region. China has also signed a memorandum with New Zealand on arrangements of cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative framework.

Regarding multilateral mechanism, China has actively connected the Belt and Road Initiative with regional development proposals, such as the Eurasia Economic Union (EEU), the ASEAN Connectivity 2025 plan, the Investment Plan for Europe, the African Infrastructure Construction Plan and the APEC Blueprint on Connectivity. In 2015, China and Russia signed a joint communiqué on synergizing the Belt and Road Initiative and the EEU, which has been warmly welcomed by EEU members. Under the “16+1” cooperation framework, China and Central and East European countries have agreed to cooperate in the port areas of the Baltic Sea, the Adriatic Sea and the Black Sea to accelerate connection of the road and maritime transportation between China and Europe. Meanwhile, there have been more economic corridor programs, with the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor and the China-Russia-Mongolia Economic Corridor faring well. In March 2017, the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) China Secretariat was formally launched, marking a new level of regional cooperation between China and Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam in the Mekong areas.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), proposed by China, has provided innovative multilateral financing channels for the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative. The AIIB members are mostly developing countries, although it has also attracted many developed countries. It has 57 founding members and about 30 economies are applying to joining the bank. As a new type of systematic international public goods, the AIIB has been accepted by more and more countries.