A two-day global gathering billed as China\u2019s \u201cmost important diplomatic event\u201d of the year wrapped up in the Chinese capital on Wednesday, with Beijing touting its outsized role in world development \u2013 and its alternative vision to that of the United States. <\/p>\n
Two dozen leaders and more than a hundred delegations, largely from the Global South, came together for a packed schedule of forums and bilateral meetings revolving around Chinese leader Xi Jinping\u2019s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) \u2013 the global infrastructure drive that has cemented China\u2019s place as a major international player since its launch a decade ago. <\/p>\n
The gathering \u2013 in which Vladimir Putin was the guest of honor \u2013 also provided a window into Xi\u2019s vision for a world absent of the norms and values promoted by liberal democracies, which have shunned the Russian leader following his brutal invasion of Ukraine. <\/p>\n
Also hanging over the event was the war in the Middle East, where Israel\u2019s fight with Hamas militants threatens to embroil the region in a broader conflict in which China, Russia and the US would all have a stake. <\/p>\n
Here are the main takeaways from China\u2019s Belt and Road Forum. <\/p>\n
The gathering left no question over who was the most important world leader in attendance in the eyes of China\u2019s Xi. <\/p>\n
At a lavish welcome banquet in Beijing\u2019s Great Hall of the People on Tuesday, golden doors opened to reveal Xi and Putin striding into the room side-by-side, with other leaders and their spouses trailing behind. <\/p>\n
Putin was the first among a handful of visiting leaders to deliver remarks at the forum\u2019s opening ceremony on Wednesday. There, and in three hours of bilateral meetings with Xi later that day, the Russian leader stressed his close alignment with China. <\/p>\n
The two countries shared \u201ccommon threats,\u201d which strengthened \u201cRussian-Chinese interaction,\u201d Putin told reporters before departing Beijing, after saying he and Xi had discussed the \u201csituation\u201d in both the Middle East and Ukraine \u201cin detail.\u201d <\/p>\n
China and Russia have both publicly called for a ceasefire in the spiraling crisis in Gaza and neither has explicitly condemned Hamas for its attack on Israel that sparked the conflict \u2013 cutting a stark contrast to the outpouring of support for Israel from leaders across Europe and the US. <\/p>\n
The Russian and Chinese leaders\u2019 meeting in Beijing coincided with US President Joe Biden\u2019s arrival in Israel, in a staunch show of support for the country and of American diplomatic muscle to expedite humanitarian aid. <\/p>\n
In his meeting with Putin, Xi hailed the China-Russia partnership as \u201ca long-term commitment,\u201d stressing \u201cever-lasting good neighborliness and mutually beneficial cooperation,\u201d and alluding to their shared 4,300-kilometer border and mutual aims. Both see the other as a critical partner in pushing back on what they perceive to be a US-led world order stacked against them. <\/p>\n
Xi\u2019s show of solidarity with Putin at the Belt and Road Forum also underscored the deepening division between the world\u2019s major powers. <\/p>\n
The event was attended by 24 leaders \u2013 far fewer than the 37 who traveled to the previous BRI forum four years ago. <\/p>\n
Among key missing dignitaries were those from European countries. In 2019, then-Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte attended, as did leaders from Greece, Austria, Portugal and the Czech Republic. <\/p>\n
Since then, skepticism about China\u2019s global ambitions has risen in Europe, in particular over Beijing\u2019s economic and diplomatic support for Moscow. Italy, the only G7 member to join the BRI, is considering exiting the project when its membership expires next year. <\/p>\n
Leaders who did attend included Hungary\u2019s Viktor Orban, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Indonesia\u2019s Joko Widodo, and others from Africa, Asia and Latin America. The Taliban \u2013 which is not widely recognized as Afghanistan\u2019s government \u2013 also sent a delegation. <\/p>\n
In their speeches, many leaders told the forum of their hopes to spur much-needed, sustainable development in their countries, while some also called for a more multilateral, cooperative world. <\/p>\n
While he did not mention the US by name, Xi made apparent jabs against what Beijing sees as America\u2019s efforts to keep itself on top and stifle China\u2019s rise. <\/p>\n
\u201cViewing others\u2019 development as a threat or taking economic interdependence as a risk will not make one\u2019s own life better or speed up one\u2019s development,\u201d he warned in his opening address. <\/p>\n
The war in the Middle East hung over the gathering, which began as news poured in of a devastating blast at a Gaza hospital that likely killed hundreds of displaced Palestinians sheltering from Israeli airstrikes. <\/p>\n
But mention of the situation was largely absent from the forum. None of the national leaders who spoke at the opening ceremony raised the conflict. <\/p>\n
United Nations Secretary General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres, however, said he couldn\u2019t not mention the situation during his opening ceremony address, in which he demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. <\/p>\n
Palestinian grievances after five decades of occupation, as serious as they may be, \u201ccannot justify the acts of terror against civilians committed by Hamas on October 7 (which) I immediately condemned,\u201d Guterres said. \u201cBut those events cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.\u201d <\/p>\n
On Thursday, Xi made his first public statement on the conflict since Hamas launched its October 7 attack. <\/p>\n
In a meeting with Egypt\u2019s representative to the forum, the Chinese leader called for a ceasefire and an end to the war \u201cas soon as possible,\u201d while backing a two-state solution that would establish an independent Palestinian state. <\/p>\n
Xi also said China is willing to strengthen coordination with Egypt and other Arab countries to \u201cpromote an early, comprehensive and lasting solution to the Palestine issue,\u201d according to a readout from state broadcaster CCTV. China has yet to name Hamas in its statements. <\/p>\n
Beijing on Sunday said it would dispatch its special envoy for the Middle East Zhai Jun to the region in the coming days. <\/p>\n
The forum also pointed to the next chapter of the Belt and Road Initiative, which enters its second decade as China\u2019s economic growth slows and borrowing costs have risen worldwide. <\/p>\n
The program, which Beijing says has mobilized as much $1 trillion in finance, has played a substantial role in helping developing nations to build roads, bridges, ports and railways \u2013 but has faced accusations of saddling countries with too much debt and having negative environmental impacts. <\/p>\n
Chinese officials hailed what they framed as efforts to move the initiative into a new phase of \u201chigh-quality\u201d development, and focused in separate forums on the digital economy and how to promote sustainable \u201cgreen development.\u201d <\/p>\n
There have also been questions about whether China would continue to liberally fund major infrastructure projects, as data also shows a significant decline in such funding in recent years. <\/p>\n
But when asked at a closing news conference about infrastructure-funding programs proposed by other nations like the US in recent years, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi appeared to suggest Beijing would continue to stake its claim in this space. <\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, competition should not mean working against each other but mutually improving each other,\u201d he said, while touting the quantity of China\u2019s global development projects. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhy don\u2019t we take a look at the international track record, in terms of who can build more roads, railways and bridges for developing countries, and who can build more schools, hospitals and stadiums for the people of developing countries,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the confidence and the capability.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
A two-day global gathering billed as China\u2019s \u201cmost important diplomatic event\u201d of the year wrapped up in the Chinese capital on Wednesday, with Beijing touting its outsized role in world development \u2013 and its alternative vision to that of the United States. Two dozen leaders and more than a hundred delegations, largely from the Global <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":10288,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}