BRI public good for an interconnected world

There is little doubt in the international community about the existence of a "development deficit", and the constraints it puts on humanity's pursuit of fairness, peace, stability and prosperity.

Many of the global challenges facing humanity can be traced to the development gaps between countries and peoples. Yet until relatively recently more had been said than done to address this deficit.

The Belt and Road Initiative, as a Chinese answer to the long-standing questions surrounding global development concerns, has been welcomed and endorsed as a pragmatic public good promoting international connectivity and cooperation. Its potential as a means to spur global development has been widely recognized. If its Western critics viewed it objectively, they too would appreciate both its achievements and its potential.

Rather than vainly trying to hinder its impacts as a development driver, particularly for countries of the Global South, they should embrace it and act as multipliers for its effects. They should appreciate the initiative as an invaluable boon for the world, themselves included, instead of trying to distort it into something malevolent.

Beijing put forward the initiative 10 years ago, and the BRI has established a new framework for international cooperation, with more than 150 countries and over 30 international organizations having signed documents on Belt and Road cooperation based on the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits.

As the Chinese leadership continues to connect the dots of a community of shared future for humanity with the Global Development Initiative and the BRI, the attempts to smear the BRI only serve to shine a spotlight on the zero-sum mentality that is a vestige of the developed countries' colonial mentality.

Rather than being a means for extortion and bullying, the BRI revives the spirit of the ancient silk routes that facilitated exchanges among different peoples as well as the trade in goods. Those routes are remembered for fostering connectivity and communication between the East and the West.

Behind the Chinese enthusiasm for the BRI is a keen Chinese understanding of the importance of infrastructure and connectivity for development, as learned from its own rags-to-riches story.

There is no one-size-fits-all development path, the Belt and Road approach to international development, therefore, is also a process of evolution as its practitioners explore practical ways to manifest partnerships of cooperation.

Proposed by China, the new Silk Road is being built by the world.