The Belt and Road Initiative responds to the shared desire of people of all countries to promote peace and pursue development, and lights up the bright starry sky of a future world of shared prosperity.
Spring blossoms and autumn fruits: five years of achievement. The Belt and Road Initiative, a public good provided by China to the world, has over the past five years won broad recognition and enthusiastic participation from the international community, and joint Belt and Road cooperation has produced remarkable results. On August 27, General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered an important speech at the symposium marking the fifth anniversary of advancing Belt and Road development. "Moving toward a stage of taking root and achieving lasting development," "focusing on key areas and refining the work with meticulous care"... The international community immediately grasped China's determination to work with all countries to jointly paint the "meticulous painting" of the Belt and Road, and its sincerity in advancing Belt and Road development in greater depth and in real earnest to benefit the people.
Over the past five years, more and more countries, international organizations and enterprises have benefited from the equality, openness and inclusiveness of Belt and Road cooperation, casting their "votes of confidence" and "votes of support" for Belt and Road development. The core concept underpinning the initiative of jointly building the Belt and Road and the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits has been written into the outcome documents of important international mechanisms such as the United Nations, and 103 countries and international organizations have signed 118 Belt and Road cooperation agreements with China. In 2017, the first Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation was successfully held in Beijing. Of the forum's 279 outcomes, 265 have so far been completed or turned into regular work, and the remaining 14 are being followed up and advanced, with an implementation rate of 95 percent. Many executives of multinational companies say that the Belt and Road Initiative means rare opportunities, especially in areas such as infrastructure where it has spawned a large number of new business opportunities.
Over the past five years, Belt and Road development, with strategic vision and a global perspective, has charted its course amid the profound changes unseen in a century in today's world, and has become an important pathway for improving the global development model and global governance and for promoting the sound development of economic globalization. In response to the current problem of insufficient momentum for world economic growth, Belt and Road development stands in sharp contrast to the unilateralism and protectionism pursued by some countries; it advocates further improving and perfecting global supply chains, value chains and industrial chains by strengthening connectivity among countries, so that countries in disadvantaged positions can better participate in the global division of labor and benefit more from global value chains; in the face of the challenges of peace deficits, development deficits and governance deficits, China has signed Belt and Road cooperation agreements with relevant United Nations agencies, using cooperation with the United Nations to better promote the alignment of the Belt and Road with the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, so that all countries can benefit from a more open, inclusive, balanced and win-win process of globalization. Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda once wrote that Belt and Road development enables all participating countries and the whole world to benefit from it and enhances the well-being of the people of all countries.
Over the past five years, Belt and Road development has carried forward the Chinese nation's ideal of great harmony under heaven, upheld the Chinese worldview of embracing distant peoples and bringing harmony to all nations, and responded to outside doubts and questions with solid actions, becoming a Chinese solution that occupies the moral high ground internationally. It was noted that the Belt and Road Initiative demonstrates China's thinking on new concepts of global governance, and that "for China, the Belt and Road is less a road than the most important category in Chinese philosophy—the Dao." The Chinese way highlights the awareness of a community with a shared future in which we help each other in times of difficulty and share rights and responsibilities, as well as the major-country responsibility of "seeking interests that serve the interests of all under heaven." In the view of Gyan Chandra Acharya, UN Under-Secretary-General and Acting Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, China does not restrict the scope of countries, does not create closed mechanisms, does not put on a one-man show, and even less does it practice one-voice dominance—this is precisely why the Belt and Road circle of friends keeps expanding.
Where roads are open, they lead to reach; where there is reach, it benefits all under heaven. Belt and Road development responds to the shared desire of people of all countries to promote peace and pursue development, and lights up the bright starry sky of a future world of shared prosperity. From the "freehand brushwork" of the overall layout to the "meticulous painting" refined with care, as long as we persist in advancing implementation step by step and achieving results bit by bit, we will surely create a better tomorrow of shared future for humanity.