New Silk Road spreads benefits to all

President Xi Jinping's proposal to build a new Silk Road Economic Belt is in line with the trend of economic globalization, leading to a truly multipolar world and "information revolution". The project envisages China cooperating with Eurasian countries to build a stable, peaceful and developed region. If the Silk Road plan's aims are achieved, it could well be the project of the century.

The international community has responded to the Silk Road Economic Belt plan both with appreciation and concern. Some think the economic belt will be only a transportation corridor, or an economic aid program to achieve China's goals, while others think China will use its economic strength to change the geopolitical pattern of Eurasia. This makes it necessary to clarify the plan's main contents and functions.

The Silk Road Economic Belt will help overcome the aftershocks of the global financial crisis and make global governance more efficient. The world economy has not yet recovered from the global financial crisis which started in the United States in 2008 and which exposed the institutional weaknesses of the global governance system. Emerging market economies have a strong need to make the global governance system fairer and more representative, especially because it is becoming increasingly difficult to coordinate the interests of the developed and developing countries under the current system.

No country can develop in isolation. Regional development and governance, based on cooperation and negotiation, can better solve the external risks. In this context, the Silk Road Economic Belt will ensure that civilizational diversity is respected, multilateralism promoted, and extremism and trade protectionism are excluded. Since the economic belt covers Eurasia, it can deepen mutual respect, dependence and win-win cooperation in the region. This is China's plan to tackle the severe aftermath of the global financial crisis, as well as translate the harmonious co-existence concept into reality.

The Silk Road Economic Belt conforms to China's peaceful development, and cooperative and win-win diplomatic concepts. China will always respect other nations' and peoples' freedom to choose their own development path, and devise their own external and internal policies, because it is not interested in seeking dominance or creating its own sphere of influence in any region, or intervening in other countries' internal affairs.

China's unswerving adherence to a peaceful development path will be reflected in the development of the Silk Road Economic Belt and, ultimately, spread to the rest of the world.

Building the economic belt is a task for all the countries along the ancient Silk Road because this is a project of mutual benefit, with no threat of discrimination. China's vision is to see the Silk Road Economic Belt improving inter-connectivity in the region with favorable policies, better roads, stronger trade, and more exchanges of currencies and peoples. China has already worked out three networks for deepened cooperation with countries of the region: China-Central Asia-West Asia, China-Trans-Caucasus-Europe and China-Mongolia-Russia. Toward this end, it is actively cooperating with the countries in infrastructure construction, for example, of railways, roads, harbors, airports and telecom networks. These projects will facilitate transportation, trade and people-to-people exchanges in the fields of education, sports, tourism, science and technology, and media.

China has signed agreements with some East European countries to help them improve their infrastructure, and earmarked $10 billion as special loans for the projects. Also, China, Russia and Mongolia have agreed to a trans-Eurasia railway that will pass through the three countries, and China and Germany have reached a series of agreements to promote land trade and building the Silk Road Economic Belt.

Moreover, the Silk Road Economic Belt can promote the development of other regional cooperative organizations because it is an open platform, and does not conflict with the functions of the European Union, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Free Trade Area of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Eurasian Economic Union.

Given the benefits that the Silk Road Economic Belt will create, China hopes to strengthen communication, enhance mutual trust and remove misgivings with other countries to make the plan a success.