Belt and Road Initiative injects new impetus into globalization: Chinese ambassador

The Belt and Road Initiative promotes interconnections among the developed countries, developing countries and emerging countries most widely, and injects new impetus into globalization, a Chinese diplomat said on Mar. 9.

The initiative is an international public product provided by China to the international community, rather than the "globalization with Chinese characteristics", China's ambassador Shi Mingde said in a signed article published in the German newspaper Handelsblatt.

Noting many discussions about the initiative recently in Germany, Shi said that some practical proposals have been put forward for promoting the initiative, while there have also been some questions, misunderstandings and even warnings.

The China-proposed initiative is a supplement to global economic governance system, Shi said, adding that China has never and will not seek to establish a rule of "one-country dominance" through it.

"The initiative provides a platform of pragmatic cooperation with its core concept of common development and mutual benefit," Shi said.

About five years after the initiative was proposed, China has successfully cooperated with more than 20 countries, generating 1.1 billion U.S. dollars in taxes and 180,000 jobs for them, he said.

Among them, the cooperation between China and the countries in Central and Eastern Europe, in line with the reality and long-term interests of both sides, is also conducive to narrowing the development gap between these countries and the developed ones in Western Europe, he said.

It helps the European integration process, he added.

The ambassador also believed that by planning cooperation along the Belt and Road between China and Europe, China and Germany can not only achieve economic win-win results, but also promote the economic development and improvement of people's living standards, thus improve the internal and external security environment in Europe.

Referring to the China-Germany cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, Shi said that many remarkable results have been achieved.

For example, 3,673 China Railway Express trains had been operating in 2017, of which 48 percent were destined for Germany, he said.

Germany is the largest shareholder outside the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and provides strong support for the financial cooperation on Belt and Road, he said. Deutsche Bank has become one of the first overseas financing parties for the initiative.

Shi called on all parties in Germany to view the Belt and Road Initiative in an objective and fair manner, hoping that the two sides will actively carry out more cooperation and the new German government will work with the Chinese government to open a new page for bilateral relations.