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Xi says to reject protectionism, open up Belt and Road
BEIJING, April 27, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Chinese President Xi Jinping urged
dozens of world leaders on Saturday to reject protectionism and invited more
countries to participate in his global infrastructure project after seeking
to ease concerns surrounding the programme.
Addressing 37 leaders from Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America, Xi made
a new pitch for his cherished Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as he kicked off
the last day of a three-day forum.
The world’s number two economy has been fighting a festering trade war
with the United States for months, and Xi has long sought to take the mantle
of the new world power open to multilateral cooperation and globalisation.
“We need to build an open world economy and reject protectionism,” Xi told
leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Italian Prime Minister
Giuseppe Conte and Pakistan’s Imran Khan seated around a large round table at
the idyllic Yanqi Lake retreat at the edge of Beijing.
A draft communique for the forum seen by AFP similarly pledges to “reject
protectionism” and “unilateralism” in an oblique swipe at President Donald
Trump’s “America first” presidency. US officials were not sent to the summit.
Xi’s signature foreign policy aims to reinvent the ancient Silk Road to
connect Asia to Europe and Africa through massive investments in maritime,
road and rail projects — with hundreds of billions of dollars in financing
from Chinese banks.
“We need to encourage the full participation of more countries and
companies, thus expanding the pie of common interests,” Xi said.
But critics say BRI is a plan to boost Beijing’s global influence, riddled
with opaque deals favouring Chinese companies and saddling nations with debt
and environmental damage.
The United States, India and some European nations have looked at the
project with suspicion.
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– Rising resistance –
So far Chinese companies and workers have emerged as the primary
beneficiaries as they are tapped to build the China-financed infrastructure
in other developing countries.
BRI projects have faced pushback in some countries. In Malaysia, Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohamad cancelled some planned works and renegotiated a
rail project cutting 30 percent off the price tag.
But Mohamad and other leaders attending the summit had fulsome praise for
BRI.
The draft communique says BRI will welcome developed countries and
international investors to participate in the projects.
Xi batted away some concerns at the opening ceremony Friday, saying the
BRI will have “zero tolerance” for corruption while vowing to ensure the
financial sustainability of projects and further open China’s economy.
“Faced with this rising resistance for the past year and a half and this
debt image … China is trying to reposition (BRI) and send a reassuring
message,” said Nadege Rolland, a senior fellow at the National Bureau of
Asian Research, a US-based think tank.
But “let’s see how it is put into practice,” she said.
China’s finance ministry released guidelines Thursday for assessing
financial risk and debt sustainability to apply to projects in BRI countries.
But the document notes that countries already facing payment problems or
in the process of restructuring payments “does not automatically mean that
debt is unsustainable in a forward-looking sense.”
During a state banquet Friday night, Xi called on attending world leaders
to band together in the face of setbacks.
“Certainly, while building the Belt and Road Initiative, we will face
difficulties and there will be twists and turns,” he said.
“No matter a smooth or challenging way, we need to continue the spirit of
partnership, not forget our initial intention of cooperation and move forward
unwaveringly,” he said.
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