[The Chinese government has been planning the
forum for months, introducing an extensive propaganda campaign on the
initiative in state news media and squelching alternative views from skeptical
scholars and state company executives worried about burning money.]
By Jane Perlez and Keith
Bradsher
 |
|
President Xi Jinping of
China at the opening ceremony on Sunday for the
Belt and Road forum in
Beijing. He pledged more than $100 billion
for development banks in
China that he said would spearhead vast
spending on
infrastructure across Asia, Europe and Africa.
Credit Pool photo by Mark
Schiefelbein
|
BEIJING — President Xi Jinping of China
delivered a sweeping vision of a new economic global order on Sunday,
positioning his country as an alternative to an inward-looking United States
under President Trump.
Mr. Xi, surrounded by autocratic leaders from
Russia and Central Asia at a forum in Beijing, pledged more than $100 billion
for development banks in China that he said would spearhead vast spending on
infrastructure across Asia, Europe and Africa. Noticeably absent from the
gathering were leaders of major Western democracies.
Sparing no modesty for the plan, Mr. Xi
called the initiative, known as “One Belt, One Road,” “this project of the
century.” The program, based on Chinese-led investment in bridges, rails, ports
and energy in over 60 countries, form the backbone of China’s economic and
geopolitical agenda.
In a new twist for China, which has generally
been skeptical of social programs by the World Bank, Mr. Xi said the initiative
would tackle poverty in recipient countries. He promised to deliver emergency
food aid and said China would begin “100 poverty projects,” though he stopped
short of providing details.
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He portrayed the plan as “economic
globalization that is open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial to all.” China
would invite the World Bank and other international institutions to join it in
meeting the needs of developing — and developed — countries, he said, in a
suggestion that he is seeking to forge new markets and export China’s model of
state-led expansion.
Mr. Xi stressed the differences between the
United States system of alliances and his notion of commerce under China.
“We have no intention to form a small group
that would dismantle stability but we hope to create a big family of harmonious
coexistence,” he said, with the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, in the
front row of the convention center where he spoke.
So far, China has spent only $50 billion on
the initiative that Mr. Xi announced four years ago, a relatively small amount
compared with the vast domestic investment program.
But Mr. Xi told the audience — made up of
more than two dozen national leaders, envoys from more than 100 countries and
officials from various financial institutions and businesses — that he was
increasing the amounts available to China’s main policy banks.
The China Development Bank and the Ex-Im Bank
would dispense loans of $55 billion between them, and the Silk Road Fund would
receive an additional $14 billion, he said. About $50 billion more would be
directed at encouraging financial institutions to expand their overseas
renminbi fund businesses.
The Chinese government has been planning the
forum for months, introducing an extensive propaganda campaign on the
initiative in state news media and squelching alternative views from skeptical
scholars and state company executives worried about burning money.
China, seeking validation for the project,
pressed Western countries and American allies to dispatch their leaders, but
most declined, sending lower level officials instead.
Among the attendees were Britain’s chancellor
of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, and Matthew Pottinger, senior director for
Asia at the National Security Council in Washington.
In remarks to the forum, Mr. Pottinger urged
China to insist on transparency in government procurement as projects began.
“Transparency will ensure that privately-owned companies can bid in a fair
process, and that the cost of participating in tenders will be worth the
investment,” he said.
American firms were eager to work on the
projects, he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India did not
turn up, concerned about the significant infusion of Chinese money into its
rival Pakistan. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan, for his part, whose
country has been a longtime ally of China, said he was proud to stand “shoulder
to shoulder” with Beijing.
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PRIVACY POLICY
The Indian government said in a statement on
the eve of the forum that the initiative risked “unsustainable debt burden for
countries,” a worry expressed by some Western economists who have studied the
program. China is not giving aid, they say, but is asking countries to assume
debt from Chinese banks to pay for the infrastructure.
Some officials from the United States and
Western Europe contend that China is spending abroad and corralling others to
join it while keeping important sectors of its huge market at home off limits
to foreign investors.
“The opening up of China for foreign
businesses is still timid,” said Joerg Wuttke, the former head of the European
Chamber of Commerce in China.
Hours before Mr. Xi was to speak, North Korea
fired an intermediate-range ballistic missile.
Some delegates interpreted the test launch,
the first since a new president took office in South Korea, as a deliberate
effort to embarrass Mr. Xi.
Chinese news media were ordered to take down
coverage of the launch an hour before Mr. Xi’s speech, Chinese reporters said.
Then, 30 minutes before Mr. Xi was to to speak, the delegations from North
Korea and South Korea met briefly, said a South Korean diplomat who spoke only
on the condition of anonymity.
It was fairly normal procedure, the diplomat
said, for those delegations to meet at international gatherings. Still, the
encounter seemed to symbolize China’s interest in arranging talks on the North
among all the parties, including the United States.
The South’s Yonhap news agency reported that
Park Byeong-seok, a senior member of the Democratic Party of Korea, told the
North’s delegation that his government “strongly objected” to the missile test.
The presence of the North Korean delegation,
led by Kim Yong-jae, the minister of economic relations, at a highly
choreographed event drew criticism from the United States Embassy in Beijing.
The Trump administration has asked China to
exercise pressure on the North but it is unclear what China has done to further
cut its economic ties.
At Mr. Xi’s invitation, President Moon Jae-in
of South Korea sent Mr. Park to the forum, a spokesman for the South Korean
leader said.
The two leaders shared a phone conversation
on Thursday, days after Mr. Moon was elected, setting the stage for tense
relations between the countries to improve.
Mr. Park is expected to meet a former foreign
minister of China, Tang Jiaxuan, in Beijing on Monday, South Korea said.
Those talks would probably center on China’s
strong opposition to the deployment of an American missile defense system,
known as Thaad, in the South, and how Mr. Moon plans to walk a fine line
between the United States, its security guarantor, and China, its biggest
trading partner.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry criticized the
North’s missile launch, saying in a statement that it violated United Nations
Security Council resolutions and asking for restraint.
Yufan Huang contributed research from
Beijing.
