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| Xue Li |
By Xue Li
It has been six years since the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), regarded as a "Century Project," was proposed in 2013. BRI is now exerting an increasingly significant effect on the world while influencing China itself greatly. Overall, positive opinions of the many from home and abroad coexist with some doubts of the few. The research done over the past six years offers the author the following judgments.
The top-level design for China's diplomacy
At first, BRI was mainly aimed at promoting cooperation with developing countries and then it gradually integrated cooperation with developed countries into its framework.
It is implemented by means of memorandums of understanding, third-party market cooperation, small multilateral mechanisms and resolutions of international organizations.
Building BRI jointly is both a means of deepening economic cooperation and an important way to improve the global development mode and reform the global governance system.
Internally, BRI provides support to realize the "Chinese Dream." Externally, it serves to build a "community with a shared future for mankind." It demonstrates China's foreign policy concept, such as non-alignment policy and partnership diplomacy. Meanwhile, it embodies China's independent foreign policy of peace it has pursued consistently.
BRI has been divided into different levels. First, it is the top-level designing for China's diplomacy under the Xi Jinping administration. Second, it is the guideline of China's diplomacy in Xi's period. Third, it is the way for China to carry out global governance. Fourth, it serves as the main platform for China to provide public good to the world.
Achievements beyond expectation
China has signed 195 documents with 136 countries and 30 international organizations under the BRI framework. A large number of international organizations, including the United Nations (U.N.), have passed resolutions to extend their endorsement of BRI. What's more, some countries consider it a great opportunity to promote self-development.
After gradually changing their attitudes to BRI, some developed countries finally participated in the construction of it by way of third-party market cooperation. While criticizing BRI, some developed countries also began to borrow ideas from BRI.
For China, BRI can achieve several goals in a way the host countries can accept, which is to strengthen their bilateral relations, to stretch China's national interests and to assume more responsibilities as a major power.
The BRI achievements are far beyond people's expectations. Meanwhile, BRI also needs to grow with constant adjustment and enrichment, and this is in accordance with China's concept and style of world governance. The accomplishments achieved by reform and opening-up prove that the strategy works well.
Emerging challenges
These challenges have three aspects. As a developing country and latecomer to the nation-state system, China still faces a series of challenges, namely, to further develop itself, to assume more responsibilities as a major power and to keep the sustainability of BRI construction.
In host countries, these challenges include their concerns over China's increasing influence, their political unrest, the common misunderstanding of some projects and the so-called debt trap fabricated by Western media.
Some developed countries and developing powers are worried that their interests and sphere of influence will be affected by China's rise and thus throw doubt on the intentions of BRI. What's worse, the sole superpower, the U.S., sees China as its strategic competitor and even balances and oppresses China with the Indo-Pacific Rebalance Strategy and a trade war.
Sustainability of BRI construction
As a Century Project mentioned by Xi, the success of BRI relies on its long-term effects rather than its short-term outcomes. Consequently, these challenges must be tackled well to achieve the sustainability of BRI. To ensure that goal, China needs to take the following measures, at least.
Firstly, strengthen the management of BRI. More priority should be assigned to the quality of projects than the quantity when choosing them. When cooperating with countries on some projects, China needs to slow down or even suspend them. Some of these high-risk projects can be done when conditions allow.
Secondly, reduce the doubts of host countries and gain further understanding and support. Thus, the cooperation pattern needs to be formed where the host countries take a major role and China, holding its veto power, plays a complementary one. China should show more respect for the host countries in terms of the way and speed of construction.
Thirdly, China should regard those developed countries that are willing to cooperate as important partners when promoting BRI. China also needs to strengthen the mechanism of bilateral cooperation and determine the region, the host countries and the projects for third-party market cooperation. For instance, China and South Korea may choose country A while China and Japan pick country B.
Some developed countries and developing powers express no willingness to support BRI openly. In this regard, China needs to be patient. Expanding the circle of friends in various ways is part of building BRI against the background that the competition between China and the U.S. is increasingly fierce and will be prolonged. China's concept of pursuing cooperation and mutual benefits with openness will gain acknowledgement from more and more countries.
China needs to realize it clearly that qualitatively, the essence of Sino-U.S. relations remains the same and the United States is China's competitor rather than its enemy. Therefore, "decoupling" and "comprehensive confrontation" are not within options. However, wrestling with it is a better alternative. That is to say, China should strengthen its relationship with Americans who are still willing to cooperate with China. By doing so, China may continue to use the comparative advantages in science and technology, capital, market, education and other aspects.
Briefly, with its impressive achievements, BRI is likely to become one of the foreign policy decisions that influence the world most since 1949. In the meantime, the challenges facing it are increasingly emerging. This is normal for a project lasting for about 100 years. To build BRI in a sustainable way, China needs to maintain concentration and keep patient when tackling challenges.
Xue Li, is director and senior fellow of the Department of International Strategy at the Institute of World Economics and Politics (IWEP), the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). He is also a professor in the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (UCASS). Liu He, a postgraduate student of the China Foreign Affairs University, helped with this article.
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