Author: Himalaya Post

China’s Belt and Road Initiative, proposed by President Xi Jinping nearly six years ago, has made practical progress, with 125 countries and 29 international organizations having signed 173 cooperation agreements under the initiative framework as of March 27. Under the initiative’s five cooperation priorities of policy coordination, facilities connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration and people-to-people bond, there are a batch of projects, such as transportation construction and industrial infrastructure, in full swing or already having yielded fruitful results. Here are some of the amazing projects achieved worldwide under the initiative. Infrastructure projects Railways: Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail, Indonesia The 142-km Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway, connecting the Indonesian capital Jakarta with Bandung, is now under construction, after China and Indonesia signed an agreement in October 2015 to establish a joint venture to build and operate it. As a part of the Belt and Road Initiative projects in Indonesia, the high-speed railway is the first to use China’s high-speed railway standards, technologies and equipment on a foreign line. It being constructed and operated by a China-Indonesia consortium of firms led by China Railway Corp and Indonesian state-owned PT Wijaya Karya Tbk, and is to be funded mainly by loans from China Development Bank. The high-speed rail, the first of its kind in Southeast Asia, will have a maximum design speed of 350 km/h and is capable of transport passengers and goods within 45...

Editor’s Note: Doubts have again been raised over the Belt and Road Initiative’s goals, with some calling it a “debt trap” for participating countries and China’s “geopolitical expansion tool”. Why are anti-China elements using such ploys to malign China? And will they see reason once the Belt and Road Initiative starts yielding fruitful results for the participating countries? Two experts share their views on the issue with China Daily’s Pan Yixuan. Excerpts follow: BRI’s aim is peaceful development for all Under the Belt and Road Initiative framework, China wants to share its development experiences with other countries and improve connectivity between Asia and Europe and Africa. China greatly benefited from infrastructure construction, and while sharing this experience with other countries, it aims to work with them to enhance the complementarity between the Belt and Road Initiative and their development plans to strengthen global cooperation. Many countries that need to build or improve infrastructure networks may not get loans from international financial organizations because of various reasons, including uncertainty of repayment and supposedly poor environmental protection rules. So when China provided such countries with loans-including Pakistan which suffers from electricity shortage owing to the lack of power plants-to help them solve their infrastructure problems, some observers and advanced countries started seeing red. China’s cooperation with Central and South American countries, Panama for instance-which the United States considers China’s strategy to...