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Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the 2017 G20 summit held in Hamburg, Germany, where he encouraged the attending countries to make a joint effort to strive for a more inclusive and open world economy.
Xi’s address catered to the summit’s theme of “shaping an interconnected world,” which turned out to be especially pertinent given the difficulties the 20 countries faced in reaching an agreement with US President Donald Trump who advocates “an America First policy” and has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement.
Despite a more strained atmosphere than before, the attending countries welcomed China’s Belt and Road Initiative, thanks to Xi’s promotion – Xi talked about the initiative during all his meetings with the other countries’ leaders. For example, he told the Japanese Premier Shinzo Abe that the initiative serves as a lubricant to Sino-Japanese relations, and Russia agreed to promote China’s connection to the Eurasian economy, based on both Sino-Russian cooperation and on the Belt and Road Initiative.
“As a crucial international product China has launched, the Belt and Road Initiative has received widespread support and participation,” Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi told NewsChina.
According to Javier Solana, former secretary-general of NATO, the Belt and Road Initiative embodies China’s wish to tighten economic ties with other parts of the world and enhance China’s soft power. He told NewsChina that Xi made himself a defender of globalization as early as the Davos World Economic Forum held this January. Xi claimed that nobody could avoid the tide of a global economy and it is neither possible nor in line with historical trends to partition the world into tiny, isolated economies.
Two months before the G20, China held the first Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation which was attended by around 1,500 delegates from over 130 countries and 70 international organizations. During the G20 summit, Xi met with the other BRIC leaders and his meeting with Trump went smoother than media had predicted. Analysts said that it proved that approval for the Belt and Road Initiative had reached a consensus around the globe and that China has found a perfect point to connect its development projects with those of the rest of the world.
