From the Global Times 2016-06-26
The "Belt and Road" (B&R) initiative is the top-level design of
China's opening-up and economic diplomacy in the new era. In China, it's
a domestic development strategy aimed at poverty reduction and the
development of central and western regions; but for the rest of the
world, it's an open and inclusive initiative, sharing common ideas and a
goal with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Infrastructure
construction is one of the core contents of the initiative, and also one
of UN Sustainable Development Goals and the goals of the G20. When we
talk about sustainable infrastructure development, in general we always
think of ecological and social sustainability. But in fact, we need more
conditions to achieve sustainable infrastructure development. The advancement of the B&R initiative will promote regional economic
integration and bring prosperity. But it's evident that it faces
instability that includes terrorism and geopolitical suspicion. Thus, for the B&R intiative, sustainable infrastructure development
needs sustainable international and regional peace and stability, and
sustainable regional economic cooperation. To realize and maintain
regional peace and stability, G20 countries should coordinate and
cooperate. Meanwhile, China hopes to synergize different countries or regional
development plans along the belt and road. G20 countries should promote
coordination and cooperation and set up common infrastructure standards
to improve infrastructure construction and investment. Countries that receive B&R investment should be politically stable
and capable of governing, which is one of the reasons that East Asian
countries enjoyed fast economic growth and a large amount of FDI in the
past decades. And they should have stable, sustainable and clear
development policies that make foreign investors feel at ease. As for ecological and social sustainability, countries along the belt
and road can enact laws and regulations according to international norms
and their own reality, and ask foreign investors to abide. Ecological
and social assessment can be undertaken by a third party. But the
country should not break contracts for political reasons, and investors
should enjoy the right to defend the safety of investment through
international investment dispute settlement mechanisms. Now some international organizations are thwarting B&R
infrastructure projects by using so-called ecological and social
problems. The G20 should coordinate domestic investment policies of its
members and set up a model for other countries. The sustainability of financial support is key. It can be divided into
two sides: First, it's necessary to get various and sufficient financial
support for infrastructure construction; second, the budget
sustainability of the investment receptor, which means FDI should enter
countries progressively but not instantly.
But how to get various financial support?
The government should play the leading role, adopting smart financing
methods and enhancing public-private cooperation. The Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and New Development Bank (NDB) can
provide finance to B&R projects. All the members of the G20 should
accept AIIB and NDB as a part of multilateral development network and
stable resources of finance and knowhow similar to the World Bank and
the Asian Development Bank. Lastly, the sustainability of infrastructure planning and design is also
vital. The parties concerned should adopt a hollistic approach to
solving bottle-neck infrastructure problems. The planning and design of
infrastructure should carry out an integrative design according to local
natural characteristics to achieve the construction of low-carbon
infrastructure, ecological preservation and transportation links. To
seek balance between short-term and long-term economic achievements, we
should not only promote the service efficiency and utilization
efficiency of infrastructure, but also keep in mind the development of
the next decades, reserving spaces for necessary infrastructure
upgrading. This requires us to deal with the contradiction between the short-term
political tenure and long-term national development goals.
