On April 18, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a news briefing on the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing. In addition to 28 heads of state, officials, scholars, entrepreneurs, financial institutions and media from 110 countries will attend. They will be joined at the forum by 89 representatives from 61 international organizations. In total, more than 1,200 people are expected to attend the forum. The event will not only elevate the “Belt and Road” to a new level, but will also create a new paradigm for international summits and more pragmatic international cooperation.

The forum will not merely be a meeting where theory is discussed, but instead aims to set up an efficient platform for international cooperation. Attendees will carry out in-depth discussions on the direction of cooperative efforts as they also seek feasible paths for implementing strategic docking, connectivity, trade and economy, investment and financing, people-to-people exchanges and the operation of think tanks.

The forum will establish a new model of global governance for world development. Representatives will come from all continents, while the attending leaders will come mainly from Europe and Asia, but all regions of the world will be represented—especially developing countries. Thus, the forum will be more focused on the real concerns of emerging economies and later-developing countries, and will address the very real struggles of these places. The consensus and experience on cooperation provided by the Belt and Road Initiative will change the negative state of international development, one that currently stresses “rich countries becoming richer and poor countries staying poor.”

For cross-border relations, the forum will create a new model of international interaction and win-win cooperative efforts. The forum advocates a cooperation model for achieving common development and shared growth through joint consultation. It will strive for win-win arrangements, seek to replace the dominance of one country with friendly multilateral consultations, and work to convert political consensus into specific projects in a down-to-earth manner. 

 (The author is the executive dean and a professor of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China. The article has been abridged for publication here.)