A China-Europe freight train departs from Yiwu, East China's Zhejiang Province, heading to Budapest, on November 21, 2023. Photo: VCG

Editor's Note:

The year of 2024 marks the beginning of the second decade of the development of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a global cooperation platform China proposed in 2013 to support and add vitality to economic globalization and help resolve global development challenges and improve global governance system. How will the "the global project of the century" navigate in the next 10 years? And how should it adapt to cope with the ever-changing global geopolitical landscape? The Global Times (GT) invited a number of Chinese and foreign scholars to share their perspectives. 

BRI's next 10 years development characterized by high quality, people-centered and sustainable approach

By Maya Majueran

Maya Majueran, director of Belt & Road Initiative Sri Lanka (BRISL) Photo: Courtesy of Maya Majueran

BRI's next 10 years development will be characterized by high quality, people-centered, and sustainable approach, this is to ensure that the development best serves the common interests of all countries and benefits of cooperation reach all individuals. 

The West is so jealous of the BRI and has maliciously accused China of engaging in so-called "debt trap diplomacy" to discredit the BRI. That was a complete failure propaganda.

In the next decade, just to avoid any negative view about the BRI, all the BRI investments and collaborations must be transparent and characterized by high quality, people-centered, and sustainable approach. As already people are seeing the tangible benefits, the best way to stop the negative propaganda is to further turn the people of partner countries into more ambassadors.

The BRI also will progress toward new models of growth and development in new fields such as green development, digital cooperation, technology innovation, international cooperation in healthcare. The initiative's next decade goal will be to build a global community with a shared future. This is what many developing nations like Sri Lanka are dreaming of, as some of the Western nations are trying to restrict the development as privilege for them only.

A number of countries including Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, and Ethiopia in recent days have been officially invited to join the BRICS. Over the next decade, the BRI will further synergize with BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which all represent the Global South that is emerging as a key player in international relations and is demanding a change in the current unfair and Western-centric international world order.

The further development of the BRI will extend its global influence and strengthen trade ties with a wide range of emerging market economies. It will create new economic architecture and find alternative pathways for common currency and payment systems which cannot be weaponized by the US and its Western allies.

I also suggest India join the BRI in the future. This will be a game-changer not only for India and South Asia, but also can benefit the Global South. India will also surely benefit from China's capital and technology know-how. 

The author is the director of Belt & Road Initiative Sri Lanka (BRISL)


BRI keeps shining on diverse global stage despite 'hideous media campaigns, Western-led development approach'

By Yasir Habib Khan

Yasir Habib Khan, president of Institute of International Relations and Media Research in Pakistan Photo: Courtesy of Yasir Habib Khan

Propelled by in-built features of resilience and sustainability, the new year of 2024 will keep on catalyzing the BRI to spur green growth in all shades of developments.  

Overseas BRI projects will inch toward being greener, with a broader and more transformative focus on environmental sustainability. It emphasized the firm commitment of China, as a responsible international stakeholder, to encourage a low-carbon global economy. 

As a partner country of the BRI, Pakistan will continue to be a beneficiary of a greener BRI vision. With the help of more Chinese companies, it is highly likely that Pakistan's solar energy market size is expected to grow from 1.3 gigawatts to 9.77 gigawatts in coming years. Chinese companies individually and in collaboration with Pakistan's local enterprises have already launched numerous EVs projects in the country, facilitating its greener transformation. 

With regards to challenges, the hideous media campaigns to dwarf the role of BRI on global stage are a major challenge in the next decade. Meanwhile, BRI will continue to face Western-led development approach that encourages protectionism, zero-sum game, de-risking phenomenon, bloc politics and cold-war mentality. 

It is important to note that BRI is not a vehicle of China's economic growth alone, but provides a pathway to shared global prosperity.

The BRI, as an engine of international developmental growth, has immense potential to keep shining across a diverse global stage. It has many dimensions and vibrancies. Across the spectrum of its engagements, the BRI will continue fostering collaboration in an array of domains, spanning economics, culture and ecology. In the past decade, with focus on land-based roads, sea routes, airways and soft connectivity, the BRI has enhanced rules and standards as well as people-to-people connectivity in various arenas like education, culture, sports, tourism, and archeology.

As per my perspective, the BRI and other initiatives proposed by China, such as the Global Development Initiative and Global Security Initiative, will chart out a new course of common global development and build a global community of shared future characterized by multilateralism, co-existence, rule-based world order, mutual respect, peace and harmony.

The opinion is based on an interview with Yasir Habib Khan, president of Institute of International Relations and Media Research in Pakistan.



With strengthened BRI cooperation, Chinese yuan likely to become the third largest global currency in the next decade

By Liang Haiming

Liang Haiming, President of Belt and Road Research Institute of Hainan University Photo: Courtesy of Liang Haiming

There are five focal areas of BRI development looking ahead to the coming decade, including education, new digital basic infrastructure, finance, agriculture and healthcare, some of which are "small yet smart" projects that will significantly improve the livelihood of people in BRI partner countries, especially to the developing countries. The emphasis also echoes with the goal of BRI to build a global community with a shared future. 

Take finance as an example. Some BRI partner countries lack modern financial systems and financial trading markets, a key in financing and the expansion of the private sector. On the other hand, China has mature financial markets, as exemplified by the various stock exchanges in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen as well as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Under the BRI, not only will China help the developing countries to build modern financial system, but also in newly emerging fields such as fintech and green financing.  

In the next decade, the global geopolitical landscape will become more complex and present greater uncertainty. It is likely that the US could further abuse dollar hegemony and weaponize the dollar to impose unilateral sanctions that endangers global financial order. Against the backdrop, it is important that BRI partner countries sign more local currency swap deals with China, expand the use of Chinese currency yuan in trade, payment, and global settlement. And the joint building of a global yuan payment system could then provide a shield against arbitrary hegemony practices that could weight on a country's development prospects.  

I believe that with strengthened BRI economic cooperation, the yuan is poised to become the third largest global currency after the dollar and euro in the next decade. The Chinese yuan is currently the world's fifth most traded currency after the dollar, the euro, the UK pound and Japanese yen. Overtaking the Japanese yen could take place in the next three to five years.

The opinion is based on an interview with Liang Haiming, President of Belt and Road Research Institute of Hainan University