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\u201cBeing labelled as China\u2019s \u2018strongman\u2019 after Mao Zedong, Xi has proven himself as a different kind of Chinese leader.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough his constant consolidation of power within the party and the country\u2019s political system, he has showcased his ambition and growing confidence by pursuing the BRI at the world stage – which none of his predecessors or other countries have embarked on,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For China, the BRI marked a departure from Deng Xiaoping\u2019s \u201ctaoguang yanghui (keeping a low-profile)\u201d strategy to \u201cyousuo zuowei (accomplish something)\u201d strategy, Dr Nur Shahadah said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThus, one may notice that Xi\u2019s style is more proactive and confident,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, there has been scepticism about Beijing\u2019s motives.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy is China so nice to us?\u201d is a common question posed to the Chinese hosts during academic exchanges, shared Professor Cheng Ming Yu, chairperson of the Belt and Road Strategic Research Centre at Malaysia\u2019s Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR).\u00a0<\/p>\n
And China\u2019s reply is simply, \u201cFor win-win development.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Only when you grow, then we can grow. We have to grow together,\u2019\u201d Prof Cheng said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cChina cannot prosper if people cannot buy what they produce. It\u2019s better to make other countries develop at the same time, then China can transfer its technology and continue to sell its products.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
With an emphasis on infrastructure connectivity and unimpeded trade, the BRI has the potential to substantially improve trade, foreign investment and living conditions for people in participating countries, a World Bank study in 2019 suggested.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With the infrastructures in place, travel times could reduce by up to 12 per cent along the economic corridors, while that with the rest of the world was estimated to decrease by an average of 3 per cent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trade would also increase between 2.8 and 9.7 per cent for Belt and Road corridor economies and between 1.7 and 6.2 per cent for the world, the study added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The caveat, though, was that China and the countries have to adopt policy reforms that increase transparency, expand trade, improve debt sustainability as well as mitigate environmental, social and corruption risks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to the report, one-quarter of the Belt and Road economies already have high debt levels, and medium-term vulnerabilities could increase for a handful of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
China critics have long described the initiative as a debt trap that drowns countries in unsustainable debt as Beijing wields undue influence over them, not to mention sovereignty and security concerns.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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[ad_1] \u201cBeing labelled as China\u2019s \u2018strongman\u2019 after Mao Zedong, Xi has proven himself as a different kind of Chinese leader.\u00a0 \u201cThrough his constant consolidation of power within the party and the country\u2019s political system, he has showcased his ambition and growing confidence by pursuing the BRI at the world stage – which none of his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6097,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,6],"tags":[277,41,107],"class_list":["post-6096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-news","tag-belt-and-road-initiative","tag-china","tag-xi-jinping"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiaposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiaposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiaposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiaposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiaposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiaposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiaposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiaposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiaposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiaposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}