Major events can promote global prosperity

Special: Two Sessions 2023

Experts say forums on BRI and other issues will promote stable and safe interaction.

A series of planned major events high on the schedule of China's diplomacy at home — especially one to celebrate the Belt and Road Initiative's 10th anniversary — will further convince the world of the country's sincerity and policy consistency in terms of opening-up to the outside world and bolstering global prosperity, veteran officials and scholars told China Daily.

These policy insiders are attending the annual two sessions in Beijing as members of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body.

In recent months, officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have confirmed that China will work with various parties to host a major diplomatic event this year — the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation.

They said China is willing to take the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative as an opportunity to look back and build on the BRI's achievements, draw up a blueprint and further advance its high-quality development with the attendees.

President Xi Jinping first proposed the two most important components of the Belt and Road Initiative — the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road — in 2013.

The first and second Belt and Road Forums for International Cooperation were held in Beijing in 2017 and 2019, respectively, bringing together dozens of foreign heads of state, government leaders and chiefs of key international organizations, such as the United Nations.

Some countries have already responded positively to news of this year's Belt and Road forum.

During a meeting last month, Emmanuel Bonne, diplomatic adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron, told Wang Yi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission, that France is willing to earnestly participate in the forum.

China has already signed more than 200 cooperation documents with 151 countries and 32 international organizations to build the BRI, doubled its trade in goods and increased its direct investment in countries along the initiative's routes by 80 percent.