For the past seven decades, the world has been moulded by a strong, transatlantic relationship with the US and EU underwriting the terms of peace, stability and economic prosperity.
It will be awesome and terrifying if the train is replaced by high speed train. The whole supply chain and logistics between Europe and China will be revolutionised!
The last thing that a troubled global economy now needs is a full-blown currency war where all countries try to gain a competitive advantage through policies aimed at cheapening their currencies. Yet in the age of Trump, it is difficult to see how the world will avoid such a war.
Concurrently, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) seems to include everything that China touches and nothing at all, but this doesn’t mean that the initiative is all smoke and mirrors. It’s really happening — in the meeting rooms and conference halls of governments and state-owned enterprises around the world, on the ground in logistically strategic locations, in the nascent special economic zones of dozens of countries, it’s happening -- regardless if the U.S. Defense Secretary seems to feel that it’s little more than a pompous dictate.
The BRI is not the only comprehensive initiative of this sort emerging in the 21st century, however. Industry 4.0 initiatives from Germany and cloud-based platforms from the United States may eventually interface with it, compete with it, or both. But the ambition and scope of the BRI are even greater than those of its international counterparts. That’s why it is such an important — and complex — strategic opportunity for global enterprises. China has invited companies from other countries to do business with the BRI by investing their financing, technology, or other forms of capital.
More than 7,600 freight trains have set off from 43 Chinese cities bound for 41 European destinations using the network. The total number of services reached 1,000 in the first quarter, up 75 percent year-on-year, data from the network operator showed.
"A single tree cannot block the chilly wind," goes a European saying. Similarly, a Chinese proverb says: "Many hands make light work." It is becoming a global consensus to build a community of shared future for humankind based on openness and win-win cooperation.
The BRI is not about physical routes in Eurasia. It is a global strategy. But the Belt and Road Initiative has been plagued by misconceptions ever since its unveiling. Most foreign observes have failed to grasp the complexity of the BRI, but the Chinese government also bears part of the blame, having failed to articulate a clear strategy from the beginning and building it up along the way.
For the near future, the Chinese economy would have to follow one of two main vectors. Beijing might choose to open its economy mostly to US multinational corporations; a strategy privileging the West. That would be China’s Plan B. Or, roughly throughout the next seven years, Beijing may stage yet another breakthrough, solidifying itself as a high-tech Mecca. That’s China’s Plan A.
In Washington, Republicans and Democrats generally look at China as a new imperial power in Africa: bad news for Africans. But is this really the case?
Trade friction between China and the United States has been brewing for some time. But with the Trump administration’s announcement of unilateral tariffs on imports, targeted at China, the specter of a trade war has never been clearer.
President Donald Trump renewed fears of a global trade war after he vowed to slap steep tariffs on foreign aluminum and steel. The tariffs haven’t even been formally proposed, yet other countries are already threatening countermeasures. The European Union, for example, promised to impose tariffs on iconic American products like Harley-Davidsons, Kentucky bourbon and blue jeans, while China, Australia and Canada all promised a response.
The Pentagon is confused, and that is dangerous
China's tectonic shift toward IoT adoption, innovation and R&D has seemingly happened overnight. Inspired by the successes of internet giants such as Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba, numerous IoT startups, together with large service and technology providers, exhibited a new entrepreneurial zeal I didn’t see during my visit three years ago.
The world has indeed lost count on how many times Western pundits have incorrectly predicted China’s economic and political collapse since Deng Xiaoping took the country on to a reform path. Their wrong if not ridiculous assessments are largely based on wild speculations derived from the forecasters’ own values or ideological biases. Attempts to provide a positive picture on China are dismissed as propaganda or worse.
At the onset, China’s aid policy was premised on equality between partners, mutual benefit, respect for sovereignty, respect for obligations and enhancing the self-reliance of Chinese aid recipients.
China’s Belt and Road Will Change the World While the United States blunders. For at least 60 other countries spanning across most of the world, however, the initiative is a tremendous opportunity to grow and develop their economies under a new global order — one that may not have the same strings attached to it as the U.S.-led system in power today.
China's diplomatic answer to ease the tensions was the "New model of relations between major countries", or growing the economy while sharing the payoff. It's a model about partnership, not competition. It's sad, that on December 18, 2017 the American President announced: "America will use all of the tools of statecraft in a new era of strategic COMPETITION"
Participants of the Davos World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting, which closed Friday, have turned to the Belt and Road Initiative for cures for the fractured world and to create a shared future. They expected the initiative to tie together the destiny of people living in different countries and regions through further specific actions to promote connectivity, improve living standards, boost free trade, among others.
When China released its official economic data for 2017, many commentators quibbled about the data's reliability. But what they should have been talking about is China's undeniable importance to the global economy, which is becoming increasingly reliant on China's transition from industrial production to domestic consumption.