Belt and Road harnessing mutual benefits

Shen Dingli

The second Belt and Road Forum for InternationalCooperation is held in Beijing from April 25-27. China hasgreatly advanced the initiative to improve infrastructure connectivitybetween Asia， especially China， and Europe and Africa by， amongother things， creating more public goods. That the BRI has expandedbeyond Eurasia shows China's efforts are yielding fruitful resultsacross more regions.

While the idea of promoting infrastructure connectivity iswelcome， it requires huge amounts of resources to do so. To build amodern airport or a high-speed railway， we need large amounts offunds， which could be sourced from the World Bank or the AsianDevelopment Bank. But since China has helped establish the AsianInfrastructure Investment Bank specifically for this purpose， it iseasier to seek the required funds from it to build such infrastructurefacilities.

It is equally important that those countries where suchfacilities are to be built contribute their share of the requiredresources， especially in large-scale projects. The East Coast RailLink in Malaysia is one such project. According to their extensiveconsultations and negotiations， Beijing and Kuala Lumpur agreedin 2016 to build a 688-kilometer high-speed railway along the eastcoast of Malaysia.

After work was stopped on the project in July last year， KualaLumpur and Beijing have been re-negotiating in order to revisit theproject to make it more affordable for Malaysia in the short term.

Based on the principle of consultation， co-construction andsharing， China and Malaysia have held cordial talks to review theproject， including some detouring and shortening of length， andcutting some ofthe cost.

China has proposed the same principle to work in partnershipwith European countries. During Premier Li Keqiang's latest visitto Europe， China issued a joint statement with the European Union，and initiated investment agreements between the two sides. This is asignificant progress in seeking cooperation under the BRI frameworkthrough broadly defined partnerships.

During President Xi Jinping's recent visits to Italy， Monaco andFrance， Italy became the first G7 country to sign a memorandumof understanding on infrastructure construction with China underthe BRI framework. Although Rome expects Beijing to be moretransparent with its financing sustainability aspects， it has made itclear that such concerns will not prevent it from cooperating withBeijing.

Premier Li has further promoted China's cooperation with EUcountries based on mutual investment in order to usher in an erawhen the two huge markets would be more open to each other. Oncethat happens， both economies will benefit hugely， sending a strongmessage to the world that cooperation is the only way to increasemutual benefit. '