Zheng Yongnian column
The implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative has been the fifth anniversary.In these five years, China has achieved huge achievements, but there are also shortcomings, and there are more places that can be improved better.Not to mention the areas that have been touched by the Belt and Road Initiative and the full -ended projects, the Belt and Road has almost become the keywords of international relations and foreign affairs in various countries today, and the study of policy research.
In diplomacy, it is said that China can almost talk about the Belt and Road.Regardless of support or opposition, it is difficult for people to avoid the profound impacts brought by the Belt and Road Initiative, whether it is a real impact or conceptual influence.
A huge change is the changes in Western's awareness and attitude towards the Belt and Road Initiative.Although the United States and Japan have doubted and opposed this since the beginning, European countries, especially Germany and France, are more positive.However, five years later, with the rise of trade protectionism and economic nationalism, the Cold War thinking also returned in Western countries. Some Western countries therefore believed that China ’s Belt and Road was expanded.
The United States, Germany and other countries have been publicly opposed to the Belt and Road Initiative, and many new words have been called, including the new imperialism of the New Empires, the new colonial debt imperialism, and so on.Of course, some countries have become reality. For example, Chinese neighbors Japan, from earlier public doubts and even opposition, shifted to recent pursuit of cooperation.
In reality, this attitude in the West will not change greatly in the future.On the Belt and Road Initiative, the main characters in the West have fewer criticism and condemnation, and most of them are obstructed and damaged.However, no matter how western cognition, the Belt and Road Initiative will be carried out as usual.Western capital (especially large capital) is not interested in the real economy of the majority of developing countries. The Belt and Road belongs to the real economy, and Western capital will not have great interest.
Today, the world can basically be divided into three major economic areas, namely the real economy, financial economy, and the Internet economy.The real economy is important for any country because it solves the problem of employment and social stability.Since the power of US President Trump, the United States has also worked hard to make the United States the real economy again, but Wall Street Capital is not interested in the real economy, because the real economy has not been able to make big money and make fast money today.
The Belt and Road focuses on infrastructure construction is the basis for the development of the real economy.Can the Belt and Road Initiative make money?How much can I make?When can I make money?All of this is uncertain.In today's world, only countries such as China have developed to this stage can they have conditions and motivation to do this.There is no great motivation in the West, and developing countries such as India are still in the early stage of economic development, and they do not have the conditions to invest in infrastructure construction on large -scale overseas.
Actively look at the Belt and Road to attract competition
For China, criticism from the West is not only expected, but it must not be ignored, because it affects the international public opinion environment in the Belt and Road, thereby affecting the social environment of countries along the Belt and Road.Whether in Myanmar, Sri Lanka or the current Malaysia, many projects in China are vulnerable to local politics, but local politics is related to the Western criticism discourse to varying degrees.
It should be pointed out that even though many countries in the West have now proposed various strategies to deal with China's Belt and Road, and compete with China. People should regard this competition as a positive, which is China's success, not failure.From the global strategic perspective, competition between large powers (including between China and the United States) can be said to be inevitable. It is not that all competition between big powers is not good. This depends on what areas of competition., Politics, ideology, or economy.
According to experience, many cooperation between the great powers initially showed competition.However, for China, the worst is China and other large countries, especially the United States, which have fallen into military competition in regions and even global.In the end, this will inevitably lead to the Cold War of the United States and the Soviet Union, which is not good for itself, is not good for regional, and is not good for world order.
If you can lead the West, especially the United States and China in the economic field, and are mainly limited to the economic field, it can be regarded as the victory of China.The reason is simple. Military competition must be zero -sum game in the end, and economic competition is more win -win.In the 1990s, when China and Asians began a free trade negotiations, Japan and South Korea competed immediately, so there were three ten plus and one mechanism.From today's point of view, these three ten plus and one mechanism are beneficial to anyone, because on this basis, the ten plus and three regional mechanisms have been formed.
Today, in the Belt and Road In terms of, the United States, Japan, India, Europe, etc. have come to compete with China, and propose their own version of the Belt and Road Initiative, and the spearheads are aimed at China.However, this phenomenon does not need to worry too much, because economic competition will eventually have a similar situation.In terms of economic essence, in the era of globalization, it is difficult for economies of various countries to separate, at least it is difficult to separate like military.In this sense, China can calmly face and welcomes competition from other countries.
China must also decompose the positive and negative components in Western and local national criticism, goodwill and malicious ingredients.In response to some problems that occur during the implementation process, people should not avoid direct faces and should be improved as soon as possible.In the Belt and Road, what the West does and does not do anything, China must pay attention and respond, but for China, the most important thing is to review the experience and lessons accumulated in these five years.
Reduce the Belt and Road Initiative
The comprehensive assessment of five years needs to be launched, but the development of the following aspects cannot be ignored anyway.
The concept of the Belt and Road Initiative is too broad and lacks the border.When it was proposed all the way all the way, there was still a geographical scope, and the content was specified; but it has developed huge changes to the present. It seems that as long as China has done, everything belongs to the Belt and Road.This not only causes the difficulty of China's external explanation, but also makes it difficult for other countries to understand.Most countries will ask whether they belong to the Belt and Road category.Therefore, further definition and explanation must be re -defined.Because it is already broad, it is impossible to return to the original definition.
In this regard, China can consider combining the open policy of the Belt and Road and China in the new era. One Belt and Road is a new open international economic development platform.At the same time, we must try to reduce or even remove strategic content, and emphasize that this is China's economy going global, and it is an international public product that China has given the world economic community.
At the policy level, the limitations of China should be seen.The Belt and Road Initiative is based on national capital (state -owned enterprises) as the lead, and two phenomena are easy to occur.For state -owned enterprises, in the process of going out, it is easier to ignore economic principles and attach importance to political principles.Although Chinese state -owned enterprises are also enterprises, not government, because the Belt and Road Initiative is often regarded as an opportunity part of Chinese diplomacy or used as diplomatic channels, enterprises often consider political needs and insufficient economic factors.In the country, it is often mistaken for Chinese national behavior, not corporate behavior.For some countries, it is difficult for them to distinguish between state and state -owned enterprises.
For China, this one can be improved and the problem is not difficult to solve.It is necessary to explain to the country that China ’s national behavior and corporate behavior are two different things.State foreign aid is a state behavior, and the Belt and Road enterprise investment (even a state -owned enterprise) is an enterprise behavior.Earlier, there was no clear separation of the two and confusing some countries, and some countries had no restrictions on preferential conditions.With the newly established international development department, the border between the state and enterprises should be established.National assistance must consider political factors and can be handed over to the international development department for processing, and enterprises must go out to business.
Insufficient consideration of geopolitical factors.Although the core of the Belt and Road Initiative is economic development, it inevitably affects geopolitics.And this consideration is insufficient.The relationship between China and Central and Eastern Europe, that is, 16+1 is a typical example.Because of the insufficient consideration of geopolitical factors, the reaction of 16+1 in Europe is too large.Economic benefits are not strong.
Because many countries in the 16th countries of Central and Eastern Europe are members of the European Union, this has led to concerns about the European Union's core countries Germany and France.Europe was originally worried about the influence of Russia in Eastern Europe. The geopolitical disputes in Eastern Europe have been the key points of Russia and the West for many years.Now China has come to Eastern Europe again, and China and Russia have a good relationship.These are all places in Europe.
However, for China, the trade volume with Eastern European countries has not been 10%of China and Asians.China has no geopolitical interests in Central and Eastern Europe. In fact, the economic and trade relations between China and Central and Eastern European countries are almost bilateral, and there are no multi -sided trade arrangements.In order to discuss the convenience, China has established a 16+1 multilateral discussion platform with Central and Eastern European countries.In other words, multi -sides are virtual, bilateral is real.The same is true of China and Central Asia.It is also a dispute between geopolitics and Russia's relationship with Russia.
The problems that have occurred in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Myanmar, Malaysia and other countries all the way are also geopolitical logic (this is mainly concerned by India and the West).The existence of geopolitics does not mean that all these places cannot go, but to say that China must design a more fine way to go out.For example, some people have overdo the multilateral relationship over the years, and they have to be multi -sided.
However, if the multilateral is not good, it will be regarded as a group by multi -sides, challenging other countries.In fact, as far as economic development and trade are concerned, bilaterals are often more effective and fair than multi -sides, and the impact of bilateral politics has greatly reduced.
Infrastructure Building and the people of the local society
Large -scale issues.The Belt and Road is the main body of state -owned enterprises, and the infrastructure projects engaged in are often too large.The scale is too huge, and it has national security considerations for the country.So far, once politics in many countries changes, China's project has been forced to stop working.Although most of these countries have stopped work for environmental protection reasons, they are actually considered national security considerations.Other countries (Vietnam are typical) will definitely not allow China's large projects to enter, but also for national security considerations.
This is not only the national security issue of these countries itself, but also the national security issue of its neighbors, that is, geopolitical issues, such as India's concerns about China in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, even more than Sri Lanka and Pakistan itself.
The issue of scale has also caused many economic problems.For example, the amount of funds is too large but not sustainable.The uncertainty of the project increases as the scale increases.Once some large projects start, it will soon evolve into a bottomless hole, and because of various reasons, the country cannot calculate the cost as private enterprises, which will inevitably cause infinite financial burden on the country.Even after the project is completed, how to maintain such a large project operation is a problem.This will not only cause economic problems, but also political problems.For another example, the relationship between state -owned enterprises and private enterprises, the relationship between Chinese enterprises and foreign enterprises.
The huge state -owned enterprise is a relatively closed entity, and it is not much related to other entities. State -owned enterprises are not open to other types of enterprises, and it is difficult for other types of enterprises to participate in state -owned enterprise investment.Chinese private enterprises are difficult to benefit from state -owned enterprises, and for local countries, the existence of these state -owned enterprises has some kind of threat, at least not understanding.
The disconnection of infrastructure engineering and people's livelihood economy.From China's own experience, large -scale infrastructure and people's livelihood economy must be combined in order to induce economic activities and drive local economic development.With the development of industrial parks and manufacturing, local people will have employment and local governments will have taxes.But this did not happen on the Belt and Road, at least it was not enough.What will the local people feel like even the local government?The people saw that the land was requisitioned, and the environment was affected or even destroyed, but what did they get?Local governments also have a similar feeling.
The Belt and Road Initiative is mainly related to the local central government and Chinese state -owned enterprises, not the connection between Chinese state -owned enterprises and local governments and society.This makes the local society and local governments feel that they are the interests of these projects.If they feel that they are damaged without obtaining, not obtained, or unsuccessful, they will have a negative view and attitude towards the Belt and Road.In this case, their emotions are more vulnerable to the influence of external forces (mainly the West or local unreasonable forces).
One Belt and Road is a long -term project. In this process, there is no free lunch. It is impossible for China to pay some tuition.When you encounter some difficulties, you lose confidence or even self -blame, or you are self -explanatory and self -expanding when you see some achievements.Only by constantly summing up experience and lessons can we do lasting and better.
The author is the director of the East Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore
The article only represents personal point of view
The Belt and Road is the main body of state -owned enterprises, and the infrastructure projects engaged in are often too large.The scale is too huge, and it has national security considerations for the country.So far, once politics in many countries changes, China's project has been forced to stop working.Although most of these countries have stopped work for environmental protection reasons, they are actually considered national security considerations.Other countries (Vietnam are typical) will definitely not allow China's large projects to enter, but also for national security considerations.
