Germaine Colette Menyeng does not have to worry anymore.[Special coverage]
With the arrival of solar-powered lights, the 51-year-old headmaster of a primary school in Ngang village, western Cameroon, no longer needs to grade her students' homework in dusky oil lamps, which had seriously harmed her eyesight.
Rural areas like Ngang in the western African nation used to be without electricity because of the high cost of connecting to the national power grid. A solar panel plant, sponsored by Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei, has not only ended the dark days there, but also brought fundamental changes to the day-to-day life of the local population.
PUBLIC GOODS PROVIDER
Huawei's efforts to boost sustainable development in Africa finds its roots in China's Belt and Road Initiative, which pursues global cooperation by building or improving infrastructure to raise living standards in the countries along its routes.
A new report released by the Asian Development Bank in late February shows that Asia alone needs some 26 trillion U.S. dollars between 2016 and 2030 to meet its infrastructure needs, not to mention the huge funding gap for the rest of the world.
Coupled with the establishment of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to make up for the financing, China's modern-day land and maritime Silk Road initiative, first proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, has now become one of China's most important public goods offered to the world, and a key vehicle for Beijing to improve global governance.
So far, China has invested more than 50 billion dollars into the program. It has won support from over 100 countries and international bodies, and more than 40 of them have signed cooperation agreements with China.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently told the China Development Forum in Beijing that unbalanced development is the root cause of many of the world's major problems, adding that Beijing proposes that all nations should pursue their interests through common development.
Pieter P. Bottelier, a China scholar at Johns Hopkins University, said the initiative illustrates China's vision of collaborating with countries not only in its neighborhood, but in Europe, Latin America and Africa as a way that bolsters the global economy and meets China's long-term interests.
GUARDIAN OF PEACE
For Bai Shuo, a young Chinese sailor, her job to steer the giant navy ship Honghu, a new 23,000-ton offshore supply ship, in an expansive and rough sea is challenging. Yet she knows that her mission represents China's steadfast commitment to helping shape a more peaceful world.
The 24-year-old helmswoman, along with her other more than 700 comrade-in-arms, belongs to the 25th convoy fleet of the Chinese navy. They have been carrying out escort missions in the Gulf of Aden to protect passing ships against pirate attacks and maintain the freedom of navigation along the waterway, which passes nearly 30 percent of the world's crude oil and 12 percent of global maritime trade.
