The Belt and Road (B&R) Initiative, officially known as the ‘Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road’, is a trans-national economic network proposed and spearheaded by China. The idea of building the inter-continental economic network was first promoted by President Xi in 2013. Inspired by the ancient Silk Road, the development strategy aims to establish a new platform for international cooperation and to facilitate global development.
The ancient Silk Road, which connected countries in Asia, Europe and Africa, started to take shape with Zhang Qian’s explorations of Central Asia in the Han dynasty. After centuries of development by the states along the trade route, Silk Road, in addition to the ‘Maritime Silk Road’, the maritime transport route which stretches from Quanzhou, Fujian to Italy and Egypt, not only played a significant role in cultural exchanges and trading among Asia, Europe and Africa, but also promoted interactions between the eastern and western civilisations.
After centuries of development by the states along the trade route, Silk Road promoted interactions between the eastern and western civilisations.
Inspiration
In his state visit to Kazakhstan in September 2013, President Xi delivered a speech in Nazarbayev University that encouraged worldwide cooperation on the development of Silk Road Economic Belt1. A month later, President Xi addressed the Indonesian Parliament, expressing China’s intention to build the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road with ASEAN countries2. In March 2015, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Commerce jointly issued the ‘Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road’ with the endorsement from the State Council, stating that the Belt and Road Initiative is one of the most important state development plans. Since then, 68 countries and international organisations have signed cooperation agreement, substantiating the credibility and acceptance of the initiative by the international community3.