NOT content with both purifying the Chinese Communist Party which he heads and with reforming his country, China’s president, Xi Jinping, also wants to reshape the economic and political order in Asia. With the flair that Chinese leaders share for pithy but rather bewildering encapsulations, his vision for the continent is summed up in official jargon as “One Belt, One Road”. As Mr Xi describes it, most recently last month at the Boao Forum, China’s tropical-beach imitation of Davos’s ski slopes, the belt-road concept will “answer the call of our time for regional and global co-operation”. Not everybody is convinced. Some see it as no more than an empty slogan; others as a thinly disguised Chinese plot to supplant America as Asia’s predominant power. Both criticisms seem misplaced. Mr Xi is serious about the idea. And it is less a “plot” than a public manifesto.
Mr Xi first floated the idea in 2013, in Kazakhstan. He mooted a “a Silk Road economic belt” of improved infrastructure along the main strands of what, centuries ago, was the network of overland routes used by silk traders and others to carry merchandise to and from China through Central Asia and Russia to northern Europe and Venice on the Adriatic. In Indonesia, Mr Xi proposed “a 21st-century maritime Silk Road”, reaching Europe by sea from cities on China’s south-eastern seaboard via Vietnam, Indonesia itself, India, Sri Lanka, east Africa and the Suez Canal. At the time, the proposals sounded rather fluffy—the sort of thing travelling leaders often trot out, harking back to a distant past of supposedly harmonious exchanges.
The article’s full-text is available on the website of The Economist
Global Preventive Diplomacy Initiative Launched in New York Ahead of UNGA 80
New York, NY — The Global Preventive Diplomacy Initiative (GPDI) was launched at an exclusive event organized by the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development (CIRSD) on the top floor of New York’s iconic MetLife Building, bringing together diplomats, philanthropists, business leaders, academics, and thought leaders for a conversation on the future of conflict prevention and international cooperation. The launch came just days before the opening of the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, which annually brings together heads of state and government for the High-Level General Debate — making New York the world’s diplomatic capital.
Read more
Eighty years after its founding, the UN finds itself at a critical juncture. Its purpose is on trial, and its mission urgently requires recalibration. The world it inherited from the scorches of the Second World War no longer exists, yet many of the organisation’s practices remain rooted in a bygone era – out of sync with today’s realities and detached from those it was created to serve.
Read more
CIRSD President Vuk Jeremić to SINA Finance: Multilateralism Will Evolve, Not Disappear
Below is the full text of the interview:
Read more