Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed Wednesday to work with partners under Beijing's Belt and Road initiative to promote high-quality, green development projects at an international forum marking the global infrastructure scheme's 10th anniversary.
In a keynote speech delivered at the forum, which brought together representatives from over 150 countries including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Xi noted the initiative has produced "fruitful outcomes" over the past decade, with cooperation extending from the Eurasian continent to Africa and Latin America.
The leader of the world's second-largest economy stressed the project, aimed at connecting nations along ancient Silk Road trade routes, has enhanced a global network across land, ocean, airspace and internet and boosted the flow of goods, capital, technologies and human resources.
Amid an intensifying rivalry between China and the United States, Xi said Belt and Road countries do not support ideological confrontation and geopolitical rivalry, expressing opposition to "unilateral sanctions, economic coercion and decoupling."
He also said viewing other countries' development as a "threat" and taking economic interdependence as a "risk" will "not make one's own life better or speed up one's development," in a thinly-veiled warning to Washington, which has imposed curbs on China-bound high-tech device exports.
Speaking after Xi at a ceremony of the forum held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Putin said he is glad to see China's success in implementing the Belt and Road initiative, which aims to form "a fairer, multipolar world."
Russia and China share the aspirations for "equal, mutually beneficial cooperation in order to reach comprehensive, sustainable and long-term economic progress," Putin added.
Following the ceremony, Xi and Putin held talks and affirmed deepening bilateral cooperation on the sidelines of the forum, with Russia's war on Ukraine and Middle East issues among the topics discussed.
China's top diplomat Wang Yi said at a press conference Wednesday evening to wrap up the two-day gathering that business contracts worth a total of $97.2 billion were signed at the forum, helping to create more jobs and growth for various countries.
Xi said in his speech at the forum that China will further support an open world economy, with its total trade in goods and services expected to exceed $32 trillion and $5 trillion, respectively, in the 2024-2028 period, while removing all restrictions on foreign investment access in the manufacturing sector.
The Chinese leader unveiled an eight-point policy to support high-quality Belt and Road cooperation including the promotion of green development as well as scientific and technological innovation.
Wang said the Belt and Road initiative has "entered a new stage of high-quality development." The fresh policy announced by Xi clarified "a new direction, opening up a new vision and injecting new impetus" into the scheme, the top diplomat told the news conference.
Xi made the proposals as some critics of the infrastructure initiative have pointed out that several projects under the scheme have caused environmental damage.
Those critical of Xi's mega infrastructure project also claim the scheme has drawn recipient nations into a Chinese debt trap, with developing countries saddled with huge debts that allow Beijing to leverage control over them.
For example, Sri Lanka granted China control of a major port on a 99-year lease after it failed to repay Chinese loans.
Italy, the only Group of Seven major industrial nation to be part of the project, reportedly intends to exit the scheme as it has not reaped the economic benefits it expected through joining. Rome kept a low profile at the forum, only sending its envoy in Beijing to the conference, according to diplomatic sources.
The meeting had virtually no high-level participation from major Western countries, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban reportedly being the only European Union leader attending the event.
China hosted similar meetings on the infrastructure initiative in 2017 and 2019. In the previous gathering, leaders from 38 countries participated, while the number fell to around 20 this time.
Neither Japan nor the United States sent any government representatives to the event, the diplomatic sources said.
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