Editor's note: The Belt and Road Initiative has opened up enormous development opportunities for countries involved in the initiative. Following the principle of achieving shared growth through consultation and collaboration, the BRI has been improving infrastructure to boost economic development. Three experts share their views on the issue with China Daily.
MA XUEJING/CHINA DAILY
CPEC fully proves its real worth
In a speech at the Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan, President Xi Jinping launched what has become the 21st century's most significant development initiative. By June 2023, China has signed agreements with 152 countries and 32 international organizations on Belt and Road cooperation. Comprising the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, the Belt and Road Initiative has helped improve infrastructure and connectivity between and within countries.
We in Pakistan, neighbor and strategic partner of China, are fortunate to have the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor as part of the Belt and Road Initiative. The CPEC has helped build an enabling economic environment in Pakistan with energy, education and the economy being among its key pillars. China has invested nearly $26 billion in direct projects in Pakistan, creating 236,000 jobs, generating 8,000 megawatts of electricity, and building 510 kilometers of highways and 886 km of the national electricity grid. Also, about 28,000 Pakistani students are studying in China and more than 20,000 Pakistanis are learning Chinese.
The CPEC is not just about bricks and mortar. It is also about people-to-people exchanges, which are at the core of the strategic bond between the two "iron brothers", Pakistan and China. The CPEC was launched when Pakistan was facing immense challenge from terror groups. It was also facing instability and conflict due to the US' "war on terror" in neighboring Afghanistan. By launching the CPEC, China gave a vote of confidence to Pakistan and its people, and raised Pakistani people's hope for a better future.
The CPEC's successful completion of "early harvest projects" on schedule, with no job cuts even during the COVID-19 pandemic, speaks volumes about the dedication and commitment of both sides to complete these projects.
The Belt and Road Initiative demonstrates resilience and continuity of a world that is facing turbulence and transformation. The past 10 years has seen the investment of $1 trillion in about 3,000 Belt and Road projects, which have created 420,000 jobs and helped lift 40 million people out of poverty.
As it celebrates its 10th anniversary, the Belt and Road Initiative faces a barrage of propaganda from its detractors in the West who largely view it through a geopolitical lens because they seek to contain China by igniting a new Cold War.
As an English saying goes, imitation is the highest form of flattery. To counter the Belt and Road Initiative, the West, especially the United States, has come up with similar development initiatives only to fail in delivering any of its promises. For example, in 2018, the US Congress passed the BUILD Act (Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development Act), with an institutional back-up in the form of the International Development Finance Corporation, and having a financial outlay of $60 billion for infrastructure projects. But nothing materialized.
In 2021, at the G7 Summit in Cornwall, the United Kingdom, US President Joe Biden announced the "Build Back Better World" (B3W) initiative with much fanfare. A year later, after Biden failed to launch any project, the G7 rebranded B3W as the "Partnership for Growth in Infrastructure and Investment". Concurrently, the European Union launched its copycat version, "Golden Gateway", to "compete" with the Belt and Road Initiative. None has shown any concrete outcomes in terms of projects launched.
And at the G20 Summit in New Delhi in September, the US, together with the EU and some other countries, launched yet another "historic" initiative to "counter" the Belt and Road Initiative: the "India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor".
What critics of the Belt and Road Initiative fail to realize is that the China-proposed initiative is not just about building projects; it is about a different mindset, a mindset that promotes values and delivers on promises at a time when the global center of gravity is shifting from the West to the East.
The Belt and Road Initiative, together with the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, is helping establish a global order based on equality, diversity and inclusivity, build bridges (the China-brokered rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran is a fine example), and promote modernization and connectivity. Conversely, born again Cold Warriors in the West are building barriers (sanctions, tariffs and protectionism), militarizing international relations (QUAD, AUKUS, eastern expansion of NATO) and sparking confrontations and conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region. This is their tried and tested but failed formula to contain China. For instance, the launch of Mate 60 Pro smartphones by Huawei is a slap on the face of the proponents of sanctions.
As for people in Pakistan and the majority of the Global South, they support the Belt and Road Initiative and participate in and benefit from it due to its people-centric development and "win-win cooperation" approach. The Global South, as the backbone of Belt and Road Initiative, is on the right side of history, working together to build a better tomorrow with no overlords and underdogs.
Only BRI truly meets infrastructure needs
The 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative marks its coming of age amid rising geopolitical tensions. The ambitious global endeavour of an unprecedented scale has weathered through its first decade with much vigor despite the immense challenges.
The multitude of orchestrated disinformation designed to discredit it with such malicious labels as "debt trap" has failed to hamper the Belt and Road Initiative's momentum. The incessant insidious vilification of the initiative by the West has failed to slow its progress in infrastructure development. As of June 2023, China has signed more than 200 agreements with 152 countries and 32 international organizations, including the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, under the Belt and Road framework.
As the Belt and Road Initiative makes new inroads in Latin America, once dubbed the "backyard of the US", the post-pandemic Southeast Asia is now on the threshold of economic recovery with an escalating demand for infrastructure development. The latter's rail links are projected to grow by 20 percent with an extension of more than 1,350 kilometers by the end of 2024 as compared with that on January 2023, according to a Nikkei analysis of projects in countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.
While the BRI skeptics in the West continue to cast aspersions on the BRI infrastructure projects, little did they anticipate China-ASEAN goods trade volume in 2022 — the year when the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement came into force — has posted an impressive increase of 15 percent year-on-year.
Alongside a respective increase of 26.7 percent and 15.5 percent in both the sea-borne and air-cargo logistics involved in the China-ASEAN trade, the whopping increase of 197.6 percent in rail logistics stands out to be the most remarkable. In this context, the China-Laos railway service inaugurated in December 2021 has its fair share of contribution to the quantum leap in the rail logistics.
These RCEP statistics mirror the compounding impacts of the RCEP implementation alongside the logistical connectivity provided by the BRI. The trillion dollar worth mega-endeavour is truly a game-changer in its own right as it seeks to transform the landscape of regional, if not, global connectivity in all respects.
A case in point is the China-Laos rail link. At one time, it was deemed a near insurmountable challenge in the pan-Asian railway project. Now it has emerged as the forerunner in setting the pan-Asian railway into momentum. Its immediate impact is that it has transformed Laos, a land-locked ASEAN member state, into a land-linked country, thus enhancing the economic competitiveness of the nation.
When the world is still reeling from the pandemic-induced floundering economy, the US-led West set their sights more on the number of new BRI projects rolled out and were quick in drawing the conclusion that the Global Development Initiative, among others, was rolled out at the expense of the BRI. The latter was said to be left at the back burner with fewer projects hogging the international limelight.
Yet, the truth lies in that the GDI serves as an enabling platform to make the BRI outreach multi-dimensional. The complementarity of both the BRI and GDI simply evades the radar screen of the critics as seen in the case of how the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership delivers the economic dividends by riding on the BRI's logistical connectivity.
When the endeavour goes global, cultural differences rooted in the existing civilizational disparity between China and the rest of the world have to be bridged in the interest of confidence building. Effective communication to promote mutual understanding remains central to the successful implementation of the BRI.
In this regard, intensified vilification against the BRI by the doomsayers is certainly not the least anticipated. Though the venomous "debt trap" conspiracy theory has been pronounced unfounded, it is still being resurrected repeatedly to satisfy the insatiable greed for egoistic pride among the "sore losers". The unnecessary disdain displayed is simply "sour grape" at work.
Be that as it may, new "mini-lateral" groupings, ostensibly sponsored by the US, are now entering the ring of infrastructure development, purportedly to help bridge the gap of global infrastructure finance which requires an additional $3.2 trillion or 2 percent of the global GDP annually to realize the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
The new kid on the block is the "India-Middle-East-Europe Economic Corridor", which was launched at the recent G20 Summit in New Delhi. It has been projected as a transnational rail and shipping route spreading across Asia, the Middle East countries and Europe.
Prior to this, the kick-off of the BRI in 2013 has sparked off a litany of fresh initiatives for infrastructure development that are touted as viable alternatives. The low- and medium-income countries in dire need for infrastructure development seem to have made an ideal ground for showering hopes and promises.
The "Expanded Partnership for Quality Infrastructure" promised by Japan in 2015, followed by the launching of the "Asia-Africa Growth Corridor" by India in 2017 were both remembered to have slid into another promise of harmonizing their initiatives with their QUAD partners, namely the US and Australia in 2020 on the platform of Blue Dot Network. This was further eclipsed by the "Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment" rolled out by the US and its allies in G7 in 2022.
Prior to this, the European Union was joining the fray when it launched the "Global Gateway" program in 2021 with a commitment to deliver a "values-driven, high-standard and transparent" infrastructure partnership to meet the global infrastructure development needs.
All these initiatives shared the same purpose of funding infrastructure projects in the Global South. But none has yet had anything substantive to showcase the promised model of high-quality infrastructure on the horizon.
From the global perspective, no party should ever be paranoid of healthy competition in the interest of humanity. The BRI has proven its prowess by delivery of projects on-schedule. After all, proof of the pudding is in the eating. Amid the rising politics of infrastructure, no amount of empty hubris and rhetoric could ever reshape the global infrastructure connectivity, but sincere commitment certainly does.
Railway can drive Central Asia's development faster
The Belt and Road Initiative has built remarkably efficient railways connecting China and Europe via Central Asia. These rail routes did not exist even a decade ago. Within a short period, they have boosted local and national economies thanks to their solid infrastructure, smooth operation and socioeconomic impacts.
Between January and August in 2023 alone freight trains made 11,638 trips and transported 1.26 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of cargo between Asia and Europe. The trains have an average speed of 120 kilometers an hour, and connect 86 routes that cover 217 cities in 25 European countries and more than 100 cities in 11 countries and regions in Asia.
Over the past 10 years, China-Europe freight trains have made a total of 77,000 trips, carrying 7.31 million TEUs of goods worth more than $340 billion.
At present, most cargo between China and Europe is transported along the so-called northern route that passes through Central Asia, Russia and Belarus. However, the shortest and most efficient southern route from Central Asia to China, and then through the South Caucasus to Europe, is gaining more attention. In this regard, the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan section will be a promising inclusion to these routes.
In September 2022, an agreement was signed at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, to promote construction of a railway connecting China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Additional documents were signed during the China-Central Asia Summit in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, in May this year to conduct a feasibility study and work out a financing model.
The Kyrgyz section of the railway will start from the Torugart Pass, from where the railway line will extend northwest through Arpa and Makmal to Jalal-Abad, where it will connect with Uzbekistan's railway network. To facilitate that, the railway gauge will be changed from the standard gauge (1.43 meters) used in China and Europe to the standard gauge (1.52 m) found in Central Asia, probably in Makmal, which is home to a gold processing plant.
The Kyrgyz section of the railway will span 280 km, crossing rugged mountainous terrain and require the construction of at least 90 tunnels. The total cost of the project is estimated to be between $3 billion and $5 billion. Also, China will need to build about 160 km of access roads within its territory to connect to the new railway line.
After the completion of this section, the railway can be extended to the West, passing through Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, the South Caucasian countries and Turkiye to ultimately reach Europe. This extension is expected to reduce the distance from China to Turkiye by about 900 km.
As for the return on the investment, the parties can recover their amount by collecting road toll, primarily for cargo being transported from China to Europe — estimated at 5 million tons of freight per year.
Central Asia is set to become a critical transport hub for the whole of Eurasia. The East-West transport corridor in this region will soon connect with the North-South corridor, linking the northern countries through Iran and Afghanistan with South Asian countries and the ports around the Indian Ocean. This will make Central Asia a vital transportation hub in the foreseeable future.
Some experts initially had doubts about the feasibility of building a railway in the challenging terrain of the Kyrgyz mountains. However, these doubts disappeared, considering the features of the newly built China-Laos railway. The China-Laos railway covers 1,035 km from Kunming in Southwest China's Yunnan province to the Laotian capital of Vientiane. The railway runs through high mountainous terrain with complex geology, high seismic risk and high geo-stress.
Moreover, the China-Laos railway crosses 218 faults and fractures as well as the Mekong River, with an altitude difference of 2,900 m. Despite these challenges, the railway has been built and newly features 301 bridges and 167 tunnels.
That China has paid special attention to the environment and the fragile ecology of the mountains during the construction of the railroad goes without saying. The railway bypasses multiple national nature reserve forests, including Xishuangbanna and Luang Prabang, as well as tourist attractions and national forest parks. The project was, therefore, designed to blend harmoniously with the environment along the route. The China-Laos railway has already started bearing economic fruit, especially for the tourist spots along the way.
Similarly, the railway connecting Asia and Europe through Central Asia will be a prime example of transportation infrastructure having a positive impact on the economy, promoting development in a region, and bringing different countries closer. With the latest transportation technologies, trade will be simplified and expedited, distances will be reduced, and people and cultures will come closer, leading to increased exchanges of knowledge and experiences.
The caravans of the ancient Silk Road facilitated intercultural and intellectual dialogue between people from different countries, shaping modern civilizations and promoting development.
In the same way, every train passing through Eurasia will bring economic prosperity through partnership and strengthen trust between peoples. The railway, when completed, has the potential of transforming Central Asia from a land-locked region to a land-connected hub for the whole of Eurasia. By channeling collective energy toward revitalizing new routes, the Belt and Road Initiative has been reviving the great spirit of the ancient Silk Road as a trade corridor and opening-up passages connecting people, cultures and civilizations.
