Belt and Road Initiative a plan in the sunshine, says Xi

Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with incumbent and incoming members of the Board of Directors of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) in Boao, south China's Hainan Province, April 11, 2018. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

Chinese President Xi Jinping said Wednesday that the Belt and Road Initiative is not an intrigue of China, as alleged by someone overseas, but a plan in the sunshine.

China's development cannot be achieved without the world, and the world also needs China for its development. That is one of the important conclusions drawn from the past four decades of reform and opening-up in China, said Xi while meeting with incumbent and incoming members of the Board of Directors of the Boao Forum for Asia in the southern Chinese island province of Hainan.

China will continue to staunchly stay on the path of peaceful development, pursue a mutually beneficial strategy of opening-up, and forge a new type of international relations featuring mutual respect, fairness, justice and win-win cooperation, Xi said.

The country will promote coordination and cooperation with other major countries, develop good-neighborly relationship with its neighbors, take a more active part in global governance, and work with the rest of the world to deal with challenges more effectively, the president noted.

Xi pledged that China will closely connect its own future with that of the world people and strive for both the wellbeing of the Chinese people and human progress.

Efforts will be made to further expand cooperation with others and promote the building of a community with a shared future for humanity to build an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security and common prosperity, Xi said.

China will also promote the Belt and Road Initiative. "[The initiative] is neither the Marshall Plan after World War II nor an intrigue of China. It is, if anything, a plan in the sunshine," Xi said.

"What we uphold is seeking shared growth through discussion and collaboration," the president said.

The initiative is aimed at achieving policy, infrastructure, trade, financial and people-to-people connectivity, building a new platform for international cooperation, and creating new drivers of shared development to benefit more countries and people, Xi said.

(Xinhua)