The Belt and Road construction promotes innovative development cooperation

　　Currently, the construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road (hereinafter referred to as the Belt and Road), an initiative proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, is paid high attention and actively responded by the international community. On one hand, this is because the new cooperative development concept complies with the world people’s will. On the other hand, it is because the Belt and Road construction has shown obvious effects. The Belt and Road Initiative is not only a call for regional cooperation, but also a new concept and platform guiding international cooperation for mutual development. It plays a positive and profound role in promoting construction of new regional and international order for win-win development as well as facilitating global economic recovery.

　　The Belt and Road Initiative sets innovative objectives. The Silk Road Economic Belt serves as a land network linking China with Central Asia, West Asia, Russia and Europe, and also with Southeast Asia and South Asia. The Maritime Silk Road serves as a maritime network connecting China with Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, Africa, Europe and also with the Oceania. In addition to promoting higher-level opening-up of China, the Belt and Road construction aims to help the developing countries pursue a better development as well as provide new impulse and opportunities for economic growth in the surrounding countries and regions, and even that all over the world. The Belt and Road construction is based on cooperative development, aimed at breaking the bottleneck faced by the developing countries due to infrastructure shortage and bringing new win-win opportunities by improving cross-border land infrastructure network among coastal countries and regions, building industrials parks and modern ports, developing port-centered economy and constructing maritime logistics network. With rich management experience as well as advanced equipment and technologies, China can make a great contribution to the infrastructure construction under the Belt and Road Initiative. The Chinese enterprises seeking for a development in related countries can cooperate with local governments and enterprises in developing new industries, which will boost local economic development and industrial upgrading. Therefore, the cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative is a kind of innovative cooperation that will bring new driving forces for global economic development.

　　The Belt and Road Initiative enriches meaning of cooperative development. It provides the new idea to drive development through innovation. The innovation under the Belt and Road Initiative refers to innovation of cooperation mode, but not technological innovation. It means to learn experience from each other and share resources and benefits to create a new environment for comprehensive development, incubate new driving forces for economic growth, and realize a sustainable development featuring inclusiveness and balance. The Belt and Road construction gives priority to guaranteeing infrastructure connectivity, focusing on establishing modern transportation networks. Trade and investment cooperation play a key role in the Belt and Road construction, aimed at eliminating barriers, promoting structural upgrading through trade and investment facilitation as well as creating new space for further development. Financial cooperation provides crucial support for the Belt and Road construction. It covers a wide range of fields, including monetary stability, financing, investment, bilateral currency swap and settlement, bond market and bonds in RMB. For this, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, BRICS Development Bank and Silk Road Fund play an important role. The people’s common will provides public support for the Belt and Road construction. The itinerary of the Belt and Road Initiative does not only include economic development, but also include talent exchange, tourism and sports programs, epidemic information sharing, exchange of disease prevention and treatment technologies, medical staff trainings, cooperation in science and technology development, NGO activities as well as cooperation between cities. This allows the initiative to win wide support.

　　The Belt and Road Initiative adopts an innovative cooperation mode for mutual development. Currently, the world is experiencing an adjustment aimed at solving a number of problems, such as the expanding income gap, more unbalanced development, slowdown of trade and investment increase, and prevalence of trade protectionism. The Belt and Road Initiative calls for opening-up, cooperation and development. The participators are equal partners, who jointly participate in the implementation of the initiative, make plans, commit themselves to the construction and share the outcomes. The Belt and Road Initiative embraces open regionalism instead of regional hegemonism. All the countries along the Belt and Road can participate in it, while other countries in the world can also participate in it. The Belt and Road construction will raise the countries’ awareness on cooperation and common destiny as well as propel regional and global peace and prosperity.

　　As the initiator of the Belt and Road construction, China should focus on avoiding risks that may take place during the innovative cooperation and balancing the interests of various parties to explore and extend successful cooperation modes. The Belt and Road construction needs the efforts of all related countries. It is no simple task. It needs effective cooperation and coordination mechanisms, sustainable strategies and determination, step-by-step implementation and long-term devotion to guarantee a win-win result.

　                                                                                                　(The author: CPPCC.)