Photo taken on 11 January shows the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters built with Chinese assistance in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia (XINHUA)

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Over the past decade, visions have become realities. Even though we have a million reasons to celebrate on such a memorable occasion, I suggest we take time to reflect. 

What should we think about? The BRI and its decade-long practice have given us much space to think. The main questions I have been pondering over are: What has the BRI done right? Why has it received the support and participation of so many countries and international organisations? What aspects of the BRI has not been done very well, causing some countries and people in the world to misunderstand, or even deliberately distort, attack, confront and suppress it? 

Taking stock  

First of all, we can see the fruits of the BRI during the past 10 years from the following figures.  

As of 6 January, China had signed more than 200 agreements with 152 countries and 32 international organisations for cooperation under the BRI. A batch of infrastructure projects had been implemented, a considerable number of which had been completed and put into operation, including the China-Laos Railway, Mombasa-Nairobi Railway, Addis Ababa-Djibouti Railway, Karakoram Highway, Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville Expressway, Maputo Katembe Bridge, China-Maldives Friendship Bridge, Peljesac Bridge, Padma Bridge, Gwadar Port, Hambantota International Port, and Kyaukpyu Port. 

A number of energy projects, especially new energy ones, have also been completed and put into operation. They include Karachi Nuclear Power Plant, Karot Hydropower Station, the Nam Ou cascade hydropower project, De Aar wind power project, Al Dhafra PV2 solar power plant, and Morocco’s Noor Tafilalt 120 mw solar project. 

As international cooperation on production capacity deepens, many industrial parks have been built in developing countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. Examples are the China-Belarus industrial park, Thai-Chinese Rayong Industrial Park, Eastern Industry Park in Ethiopia, and Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone. More and more Chinese enterprises and businesses from across the world are building presence in these industrial parks. 

Besides, China and BRI participating countries have also jointly built a number of laboratories to carry out scientific and technological cooperation and research in desert control, modern agriculture, health, marine biology, and new energy among other fields. The introduction of China’s hybrid rice into the African continent involved in the BRI is greatly improving the grain yield in African countries. Chinese juncao mushrooms helped people of the South Pacific island countries to shake off poverty and become rich. The China-Europe freight trains have been injecting new momentum to efforts in building stable supply and industrial chains in the Eurasian continent. China’s Western Land-Sea Corridor now connects the country’s western region with more than 300 ports in over 100 countries. 

Over the past decade, Chinese enterprises have invested about $1 trillion in BRI projects. The investment has directly or indirectly benefitted a group of countries whose population accounts for 65 percent of the world total, as it rapidly improved basic infrastructure, such as water, electricity, and gas, as well as education and healthcare in these countries. As a result, local transportation costs have been lowered, the industrialisation process has been greatly advanced, and new job opportunities have been created. All these achievements are directly conducive to the economic development of those countries and contribute to their efforts to alleviate poverty. 

At the same time, we also see that Chinese enterprises have expanded their overseas investment market through the joint construction of the BRI. The construction of major projects can also, to a certain extent, promote trade cooperation between China and its partner countries. It is fair to say that the joint construction of the BRI has promoted common development of China and its partner countries. 

Lao students visiting China via China- Laos Railway pose for a group photo at Kunming Station in Yunnan Province of southwest China on 25 May (VCG)

Doing the right thing 

Based on my personal observation, the BRI has done at least three things quite right over the last 10 years. 

First of all, it established a correct theme of promoting development. Building the BRI is about promoting development through various ways, including developing infrastructure, energy industry, trade, industrialisation, urbanisation, agriculture, and the rural areas. It is also about development on the national, regional and global levels. 

Economic development, both the foundation and focus of the BRI, helps world countries including China to accelerate their modernisation process. The BRI also promotes people’s all-round development and the development of society. All of this contribute to efforts to realise the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. 

Second, it chose the correct implementation path of starting with infrastructure construction. The BRI aims to build a better regional and global connectivity network, allowing various production factors to flow more freely. This helps to reduce business costs, and achieve more efficient interconnected regional and global growth.  

Third, a correct institutional system has been established. The system defines BRI’s ultimate goal, which is to build a community with a shared future for mankind. It also manifests the characteristics of the BRI of being open and inclusive, follows the basic principles of extensive consultation, joint construction, and shared benefits, and adopts a cooperation approach featuring government guidance, market orientation, enterprise playing the leading role, pragmatic cooperation, and compliance with international standards. 

Voices against the initiative  

Since the BRI is right in these key aspects, why is it that some countries and people still oppose it? 

First, there are some misunderstandings. For example, as for the theme of jointly building the BRI, which is to promote development, some countries and people mistakenly believe that China wants to seek hegemony through it. For another example, we mentioned that the focus of effort in implementing the BRI is infrastructure construction, which will facilitate free flow of production factors, and in turn, global common development. However, there are some people who mistakenly believe that China is practicing “debt-trap” diplomacy and neocolonialism with the aim of controlling other countries politically and plundering them economically.  

Since the BRI is only 10 years old, China hasn’t done enough in the study of international cooperation under the BRI and corresponding international communication. Some misunderstandings are understandable, but it requires China to put more effort in these areas and help the international community to know a true BRI. 

Second, some said that some BRI projects were not well implemented. For example, some claimed that there is a lack of information transparency in the implementation, and some others accused businesses carrying out BRI projects of destructing the ecology or polluting the environment. There are also voices criticising the BRI, saying its projects haven’t hired enough local workers or female workers, or did poorly in labour protection.  

I went on field trips to more than 20 BRI projects. I saw how they have helped participating countries to  improve local transportation conditions, increased power supply, promoted trade development and industrialisation, ensured food security, created new employment opportunities, reduced poverty, added export earnings, and improved education and health services in these countries. 

These are basic facts. Many BRI projects have been completed and are currently operating smoothly, continuing to generate a positive impact on the aspects we have mentioned. At the same time, I did find some problems during my field research as well. 

For example, I found that some projects could hardly make ends meet after being put into operation, creating significant financial pressure. For some industrial parks, after they were completed, investment and construction of supporting facilities were not able to be carried out as anticipated. 

Besides this, there were some environmental issues that existed in some of the early BRI projects, which caused opposition from local villagers. Political instability and frequent policy changes in some countries also forced several BRI projects to halt, resulting in economic losses. Some projects were adversely affected by changes in international geopolitics. 

Third, some foreign countries also oppose the BRI in the interest of their own strategic goals, or even deliberately distort, attack, confront and suppress it.  

A Chinese worker (centre) and two local workers communicate at a construction site of the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway in Bandung, Indonesia, on 1 July (VCG)

The road ahead 

In the end, we must make an objective judgment on the construction of the BRI. We can improve the joint construction of the BRI from the following two aspects. 

On the one hand, the Chinese government and enterprises should strengthen cooperation with the host government and local enterprises. While continuing to promote the economic development of the host country with BRI projects, they should pay more attention to promoting social development in the future. 

In particular, the implementation of BRI projects should help to advance human rights protection in host countries, including improving local people’s rights to employment, education, and security, their environmental rights, digital rights, as well as the rights of women and children.  

On the other hand, infrastructure projects usually need large investment and long construction cycle, but generate low investment return, and are usually vulnerable to geopolitics and macroeconomic policies. Therefore, Chinese investors need to enhance their risk prevention awareness and take precautions. 

Chinese enterprises should guard against risks in political, economic, social, cultural, legal and other fields, so as to ensure the safety of their investment in BRI projects and their financial sustainability. In this way, the BRI can be translated into tangible benefits in a sustainable and high-quality manner.  

In conclusion, China and the participating countries and enterprises in the BRI should further strengthen cooperation. Drawing on experience and lessons from the past decade, they need to prove to the world by practical actions that the joint construction of the BRI has indeed promoted global common development, enhanced the livelihoods and wellbeing of people around the world, brought tangible benefits to all participants, improved the human rights of the people of various countries, and played a positive role in building a community with a shared future for mankind.  

The author is the Executive Dean and Professor of Economics of Belt and Road School of Beijing Normal University