The initiation of the “Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road” strategy (“Belt and Road” strategy) in the fall of 2013 has promoted both the offshore and maritime development between China and its neighbors. In the beginning of 2015, the Chinese Government officially announced the implementation of the “Belt and Road” strategy. As an international-level long-term systematic project, this strategy needs to be implemented with international-level strategic wisdom and diplomatic skills. In this process, the mission of public diplomacy is to borrow internationally well-known concepts to introduce and explain the nature and features of the “Belt and Road” strategy, so as to bridge the cognitive differences between domestic and international audience, forge consensus, and make the strategy a linkage between the “Chinese dream” and the “World dream”.

 

Encourage Global Connectivity

 

Initiated by China, the “Belt and Road” strategy features global connectivity with a focus on its neighboring countries. Global connectivity is the basic feature of the era of globalization. The Silk Road itself is a history of global connectivity. The opening-up, development and cooperation strategies of all countries are integral components of global connectivity. In the past three decades, China’s global connectivity has greatly promoted its domestic connectivity and converged huge energy. Now, it’s the right time for China to make integration and innovation, properly adopt various development methods, take the lead in designing and advancing both domestic and international development. In fact, besides the “Belt and Road” strategy, the Chinese leaders have made other proposals in regional and multi-lateral cooperation mechanisms, such as the Asia-Pacific connectivity, East-Asia connectivity and global infrastructure cooperation. If these proposals are put together, they become a strategy of global connectivity with the focus on the neighborhood. The essence of the strategy is connectivity in physical, mechanism and personnel areas, implemented through policy communications, facility connectivity, trade facilitation, currency circulation and people-to-people exchanges. For example, in the future, the oil and gas pipeline from Central Asia to the inland of China and then to Lianyungang via the West-East Gas Transmission route, as well as the “grassland silk road” from the borders of Inner Mongolia will be connected with the China-ASEAN port cities cooperation network, join the “maritime silk road” and become a strategic channel linking the west coast of the Pacific, Southeast Asia and South Asia. They will exert the diffusion effect on regional or “third-party” investment in Central Asia and other landlocked areas. For example, the Japanese investment in mineral resources, oil and gas resources in Kazakhstan will be operated within the region with greater ease. Therefore, the neighborhood and global connectivity encouraged by the “Belt and Road” strategy will be more tangible, confident and overwhelming, opening a new chapter of China’s contribution to global connectivity.

 

Offer Global Common Goods

 

In the post-crisis era, the world in general is faced with development challenges, especially the developing countries in the neighborhood. According to China’s experience, building infrastructure is an effective way to achieve economic development, and China is the only country across the globe which has the will, the capacity and the experience to offer development opportunities to developing countries. The significance of the “Belt and Road” strategy is that it marks a key step for China to provide common goods to the region and the world at large. “The poor has to improve himself, and the rich has to improve the world.” For a rising China, it has become an integral part of its foreign strategy to be an accountable country and to offer global common goods to the region and the world, which is also the expectation of the developing countries on China. But China also notes that it is impossible to promote the “Belt and Road” strategy by relying on China alone to provide money and technology like a contractor. So it puts forward the principle of “mutual consultation, joint building and mutual benefit”, and proposed to set up the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Silk Road Fund so as to build the “Belt and Road” with crowdfunding. To our surprise, the UK, France, Germany and some other western countries also showed their willingness to join the AIIB. This shows that the crowdfunding proposed by China to offer common goods has gained understanding and support from more neighboring and developed countries.

 

Build Global Destiny Community

 

Globalization has helped the broken world in becoming integrated, and pushed it to develop into a global destiny community. If the “Belt and Road” strategy goes on well, it will also promote the evolution of the global destiny community. First, it will promote the connectivity of the real world and the virtual world between the neighborhood and the world at large. The “Belt and Road” strategy not only connects the aeroamphibious real world along the route as well as on the entire globe at large, but also connects the virtual world with infrastructure via the Internet and the Internet of Things. A bold prediction was made that China’s WeChat will become a global social media platform with the implementation of the “Belt and Road” strategy. Second, it promotes the connectivity of the market space and mechanism space in the neighborhood. After the Cold War, the world has witnessed the accelerated globalization of the market economy, as well as the formation of a unified world market. However, from a global point of view, the neighborhood of China as well as the vast areas of Asia, Africa and Latin America still need to improve the integration of the market, as well as the innovation and docking of certain mechanisms. The building of the “Belt and Road” strategy covers infrastructure, free trade zone, financial investment and currency, which in theory can fill in the pits in the neighborhood market, and overcome the obstacles in the mechanisms. Third, it can promote the connectivity of the cultural space and psychological space in the neighborhood. The cultural space emphasizes unity. There are various civilizations along the routes of the “Belt and Road”. It is the common dream of human beings for the various civilizations to befriend each other in harmony. With the aim of peaceful development, mutual benefit and win-win progress, the building of the “Belt and Road” reflects the humanism developed by people from Plato to Sun Yat-sen, as well as the modern humanism featuring rationality, openness, inclusiveness, equality and cooperation. According to Mr. Wang Gungwu, the eminent overseas Chinese historian, the new “silk road” could benefit the economies, set the values of peace and thus deserves a positive attitude. The psychological space emphasizes individuality. It is the common aspiration of all countries to seek peace, development and win-win progress. A leader from a Kazakhstan think tank suggested that China explore the modern significance and value of the spirit of Marco Polo, showing its inclusiveness heart to the relevant countries along the silk road.

 

Advance Global Governance

 

In the post-crisis era, the “Belt and Road” strategy will directly face global security difficulties, development bottlenecks, governance failures and other challenges. The worsening and intertwining of these challenges will pose complicated security problems. The “Belt and Road” strategy covers many Asian, African and European countries and regions, which are also subject to conflicts with intense hotspot issues. The regions are faced with non-traditional security and governance problems such as terrorism, environment deterioration and the lack of water resources. The intertwining, co-existence, conduction and spread of global non-traditional security problems can easily give rise to multi-factor, long-chain and cross-border crisi of complexity. The web-based new media has made it more difficult for crisis management and social governance. Despite the development of various country-based and NGO-based mechanisms, it is hard for them to make joint efforts, let alone comprehensive governance mechanisms. For example, the slow global economic growth and widening wealth gap usually lead to increasing cross-border migration and urbanization bottlenecks, which in turn leads to an under-supply of energy and other resources, deterioration of the environment and the spread of epidemic diseases. These can result in the rising of ethnic separatism within some regions and countries, as well as pronounced tribal and religious conflicts. They can possibly encourage terrorism and extremism and then lead to traditional security problems. So the building of the “Belt and Road” connects domestic governance, regional governance and global governance. As a process of seeking the biggest common divisor, it is expected to give rise to new consensus and practice in regional and global governance.

 

Accommodate Global Stakeholders

 

The “Belt and Road” strategy is open and involves regional and global stakeholders. China should learn and use the international multi-stakeholder mode, trying its best to benefit domestic and international stakeholders, so that they can develop together with China. In general, the stakeholders along the route usually come from the government, business, enterprises, academia, media, military, non-government and religious organizations. Only when we consider, accommodate and coordinate with the interest of all stakeholders, can we minimize the risk and benefit all. If we fail to take the interest of any side into consideration, it can possibly result in some problems or even affect the general situation. So China needs to strengthen its coordination with domestic and international stakeholders, accommodate the requests of various strata from the grassroots to the elite, and involve the decision-maker, designer, practitioner, builder, participator and rater into an integrated group. There are two points worth noticing: First, the “Belt and Road” strategy is better to be introduced with the label of “benefiting the people”, which is probably the most realistic and effective slogan of public diplomacy. “State-to?鄄state relationship lies in the friendship of the people”. People hold the uttermost interests, and it is a great blessing to benefit the common people. Of course this is an ideal mode for cooperation and win-win progress, but it points out the direction where we should move towards. Second, we need to coordinate with the US and Japan in policy and seek cooperation, showing the openness and will to benefit the general public, and trying our best to lower the risks and competition. If these two countries oppose to the “Belt and Road” strategy, it would pose more challenges than expected.

 

Improve the Global Value Linkage

 

To implement the “Belt and Road” strategy we need to follow the rules of economics, which requires not only investment connectivity but also high added value, so as to increase the significance in the industrial network and global linkage. After WWII, the Asia Pacific region has witnessed two rounds of high-speed economic growth, the first of which is attributed to global division of labor, and the other to regional cooperation. The commonness of the two is that the core driving force for growth is the high-speed operation of the production network. With regard to the features of the resources, the engine for economic growth probably still comes from the division of labor and collaboration, so it is necessary to make more efforts in upgrading the production network. The investment in infrastructure, in light of the “East Asia production network” and “global production chain” can possibly encourage the third round of growth. To be specific, the “Belt and Road” proposes to build the offshore and maritime strategic channel. Through the implementation of the projects, it proposes to promote the infrastructure building in the region as well as the formation of the basic industries and market, facilitates broad connectivity, helps with trade and investment liberalization and facilitation, and formulates new rules of trade, investment and the transfer of personnel, information and money conducive to common development. Therefore, it is possible to bridge the gaps in economic development, address the imbalance in world economic development, develop a new mindset on international economic cooperation in the post-crisis era, and set up new norms of cooperation compatible to world economic diversity.

Strengthen Glocalization

 

Finally, if we direct our attention to the domestic aspect of the relevant countries, the “Belt and Road” strategy has shown even a stronger capacity in market absorption and transfer. The local capital, resources and labor have been absorbed through the implementation of projects, and then transferred into higher level of employment, income, consumption and capital return, directly contributing to local economic and social development instead of increasing the figures of GDP alone. Therefore, the “Belt and Road” is a process of globalization as well as localization. Think globally and act locally, which represents a popular saying these years-glocalization. This shows the great potential of the “Belt and Road” in connecting local areas and the world, as well as the microscopic and macroscopic views. Meanwhile, if we look back at the dozens of years since China launched the “Going abroad” strategy, it is our greatest lesson to ignore glocalization. Now many overseas investors have noticed this problem, and increased the direct return of projects to local communities. We need to win the hearts before winning the market. Recently, the bidding of COSCO for Belay Av J Port in Greece has attracted worldwide attention, thanks to the success of COSCO in the localized purchase in Docks No. 2 and 3 of Belay Av J Port. The throughput of the two docks in 2013 has exceeded 2.5 million standard cases, four times of the volume of Dock No. 1 managed by the Greek government. However, there are less than ten Chinese staff working there, and the rest are all local employees. COSCO not only helps the government boost the business of the port, but also provides more employment opportunities and creates a favorable environment for long-term operation. It is regarded as a successful example in China’s overseas investment, which points out the direction for the “Belt and Road” initiative. 

 

(The author is a professor with the School of International Relations, Peking University. )