Alwaght- China laid out $900 billion new Silk Road vision on Sunday, with President Xi Jinping pledging $124 billion for the ambitious plan to forge a path of peace, inclusiveness and free trade.
Addressing a high-level international cooperation forum, dubbed " One Belt and One Road Initiative,” Xi called for the abandonment of old models based on rivalry and diplomatic power games.
While Xi uses the initiative to boost China's global leadership ambitions his American counterpart Donald Trump insists on "America First" policy and questions global free trade deals.
Chinese president compares his country to a peace-loving explorer set on transforming the world with treasure-laden galleys not warships, guns or swords, as US President chooses Saudi Arabia as his first foreign visit aiming to in ink $300 billion arms deals for the regime that has been bombing neighboring Yemen for past three years.
"We should build an open platform of cooperation and uphold and grow an open world economy," Xi told the opening of the two-day gathering that that was attended by 29 heads of state in Beijing.
“The glory of the ancient Silk Road shows that geographical dispersion is not insurmountable,” the Chinese leader said, adding that “The Belt and Road initiative is rooted in the ancient Silk Road ... but it is also open to all other countries.”
Just as Chinese traders and explorers such as Zheng He, a Ming dynasty navigator, went out into the world in peace, so too would China now seek to engage with other countries. “These pioneers won their place in history not as conquerors with warships guns or swords but are remembered as friendly emissaries leading caravans of camels and sailing treasure-loaded ships,” Xi said.
“This part of history shows that civilisation thrives with openness and that nations prosper from exchange.”
China has touted what it formally calls the Belt and Road initiative as a new way to boost global development since Xi unveiled the plan in 2013, aiming to expand links between Asia, Africa, Europe and beyond underpinned by billions of dollars in infrastructure investment.
Xi said the world must create conditions that promote open development and encourage the building of systems of "fair, reasonable and transparent global trade and investment rules".
"Trade is the important engine of economic development," Xi said.
He said the world must promote the multilateral trade system, the establishment of free trade regions, and the facilitation of free trade.
However, Xi's initiative faced a backlash with India launching a scathing attack, announcing it would boycott proceedings. According to the Times of India, New Delhi believed the scheme was “little more than a colonial enterprise [that would leave] debt and broken communities in its wake”.
