"Belt and Road Initiative" sends light to 121 Mongolian cataract patients

Policies are extensive and in-depth

Policy communication is an important guarantee for jointly building the "Belt and Road". During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, policy communication and coordination mechanisms and platforms at multiple levels have been established.

First, we will clarify the promotion ideas and convey Chinese solutions through important meetings. At the internal level, in November 2021, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping attended the third symposium on the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative and delivered an important speech, emphasizing that the new development concept should be fully, accurately and comprehensively implemented, with the goal of high standards, sustainability and benefiting people's livelihood, consolidate the foundation of interconnected cooperation, expand new space for international cooperation, strengthen the risk prevention and control network, strive to achieve higher level of cooperation, higher investment efficiency, higher supply quality, and higher development resilience, and promote the high-quality development of the joint construction of the "Belt and Road". In December 2024, General Secretary Xi Jinping attended the fourth symposium on the construction of the "Belt and Road" and delivered an important speech, emphasizing that it is necessary to focus on promoting the construction of the "Belt and Road" mechanism for high-quality joint construction, improve the coordinated management mechanism for the cooperation planning of the "Belt and Road" by co-construction, improve the coordination and promotion mechanism of "hard connectivity", "soft connectivity" and "heart connectivity", improve the pragmatic cooperation mechanism for the industrial chain and supply chain, improve the international exchange and cooperation mechanism in emerging fields, improve the diversified guarantee mechanism for investment and financing, improve the internal and external coordination mechanism for risk prevention and control, improve the overseas interest protection mechanism, improve the high-level international communication mechanism, improve the cooperation mechanism on the honest Silk Road, and promote the high-quality joint construction of the "Belt and Road" to move forward steadily. At the external level, play an important role in the "Belt and Road" International Cooperation Summit Forum. In October 2023, the third summit forum opened in Beijing. Representatives from more than 150 countries and more than 30 international organizations attended the meeting, with more than 4,000 guests registered. President Xi Jinping attended the opening ceremony and delivered a keynote speech, proposing eight actions to jointly build the "Belt and Road" with high quality, and clearly conveyed China's proposition to the co-built countries.

The second is to use bilateral and multilateral mechanisms and important occasions to actively connect with the joint construction of the national development strategy. For example, in the direction of Central Asia, in June 2025, during the Second China-Central Asia Summit, President Xi Jinping and the five Central Asian heads of state witnessed the signing of a high-quality joint construction of the "Belt and Road" action plan. This is the first time that China has signed a cooperation document for jointly building the "Belt and Road" with all countries in a neighboring single region as a whole. This also means that the "Belt and Road" initiative has achieved precise docking with Kazakhstan's "Bright Road" new economic policy, Kyrgyzstan's "National Development Outline before 2026", Tajikistan's "National Development Strategy before 2030", Turkmenistan's "Silk Road Revival" strategy, and "New Uzbekistan" 2022-2026 development strategy. Kyrgyz political scholar Kubanechbek Taabaltiev said that this shows that all parties are willing to further strengthen the docking of the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" initiative with the development strategies of Central Asian countries, which will help further promote the construction of infrastructure projects in Central Asia and continuously improve the level of connectivity.

The third is to formally establish the forum secretariat to promote policy docking. In October 2023, President Xi Jinping announced the establishment of the secretariat of the "Belt and Road" International Cooperation Summit Forum. On May 11, 2024, the Secretariat of the Summit Forum was officially unveiled and put into operation. The Secretariat is located in China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responsible for providing support to the summit forum and coordinating and promoting relevant international cooperation.

Three-dimensional development of facilities

Facilities connectivity is a priority direction for jointly building the "Belt and Road". During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, a four-in-one interconnection pattern of "land, sea and sky network" was basically formed, laying a solid foundation for promoting economic and trade and capacity cooperation, strengthening cultural exchanges and personnel exchanges.

Looking south, as a landmark project for jointly building the "Belt and Road", since the 1,035-kilometer-long China-Laos Railway was opened and operated on December 3, 2021, the role of the "golden channel" has become increasingly prominent. The daily passenger volume has increased from 20,000 to the highest 100,000, and the daily cross-border freight trains have increased from 2 to 18. The source of inbound and outbound personnel has increased from more than 20 countries and regions to more than 100 countries and regions, and the types of goods have increased to more than 3,000... So a new fashion of "eat rice noodles in Kunming in the morning and drinking coffee in Vientiane at night" has emerged, and a picture of regional interconnection has become clearer.

Looking west, the China-Europe freight train has become a microcosm of China's interconnected cooperation with the world. As of June 2025, 128 cities in China have opened China-Europe freight trains, reaching 229 cities in 26 European countries and more than 100 cities in 11 Asian countries. On average, one train departs in less than half an hour. The China-Europe freight trains operate efficiently, stably and smoothly, not only building a bridge for economic and trade exchanges between Asia and Europe, but also injecting development momentum into countries along the route.

Looking east, the Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Railway has become a golden signboard for China and Indonesia to jointly build the "Belt and Road". As the "first overseas order" of China's high-speed railway, the Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Railway is the first high-speed railway in Southeast Asia. The total length of the line is 142.3 kilometers and the designed speed is 350 kilometers per hour. Since its opening and operation in 2023, the train operation time between Jakarta and Bandung has been shortened from more than 3 hours to 40 minutes. All Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Railway adopt Chinese design, Chinese construction, Chinese equipment, and Chinese standards. This is the first time that China's high-speed railway has achieved a true "going out" in the sense of the word. The total number of passengers sent in the first year of operation was 5.79 million, with a maximum daily passenger attendance rate of 99.6%.

In the surrounding area, in December 2024, the launch ceremony of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway project was held. The China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan-Uzbekistan-Uzbekistan-China Railway is a landmark project for the cooperation between the three countries to jointly build the "Belt and Road" and will greatly change the constraints of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan in terms of geographical development conditions.

At sea, since the launch of the "Silk Road Maritime Transportation" in 2018, as of June 30, 2025, a total of 19,907 ships were launched nationwide on 128 "Silk Road Maritime Transportation" named container routes, completing a container throughput of 23.4707 million TEUs, leading to nearly 150 ports in more than 40 countries and regions around the world.

In the air, China's civil aviation "Belt and Road" cooperation platform was officially established in August 2020, and the national civil aviation exchange and cooperation mechanism and platform were more sound. Taking the Zhengzhou-Luxembourg "Air Silk Road" as an example, after 8 years of development, it has formed an operating pattern of "one point and three continents, one line connecting Europe and the United States", and regularly operates 8 intercontinental freight routes, covering 24 countries in Europe, the Americas, and Asia, and more than 100 cities. With the help of China's huge market, Luxembourg Cargo Airlines has an average annual profit growth rate of up to 139%, and its world comprehensive ranking jumped from 9th to 5th.

In addition to "hard connectivity", the joint construction of countries has increasingly attached importance to the construction of the "Digital Silk Road", aiming to create an open, fair and non-discriminatory digital development environment, promote the deep integration of digital technology with the real economy, and promote the healthy, orderly and safe development of artificial intelligence. In addition, in 2025, China's State Administration for Market Regulation also launched the "Belt and Road" international food testing capacity verification program with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, aiming to enhance international mutual trust and promote the interconnection of quality infrastructure.

Trade is smooth and well-rounded

At present, against the backdrop of frequent changes in global economic policies and increasing uncertainty, the growth rate of international trade is under significant downward pressure. Countries restarted announced tariff hikes or expanded retaliatory policies, which may inspire more trade restrictions. Several data show that the stronger and stronger headwinds of trade protectionism are causing global trade growth to slow down. Not long ago, the World Trade Organization released the "Trade Monitoring Update: Latest Trends" report, which evaluated the latest developments in global trade and trade-related policies from mid-October 2024 to mid-May 2025. The report pointed out that during the statistical period, tariff levels rose sharply, trade uncertainty increased, regional conflicts and geopolitical tensions increased, which together led to increased fluctuations and unpredictability in the global trade environment.

In contrast, China's trade data with countries that jointly build the "Belt and Road" are even more eye-catching. The latest data released by the Ministry of Commerce shows that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China's trade in goods with countries jointly built increased from US$2.7 trillion in 2021 to US$3.1 trillion in 2024, with an average annual growth of 4.7%, and its share of overall trade increased from 45.3% to 50.7%, and further increased to 51.8% in the first half of 2025, which is more than half. High-quality products such as durian, dragon fruit, and coffee that jointly built the country have entered the Chinese market more, and China's mechanical equipment, electronic components and other related products have also helped the development of the country's industrial development.

June 20, 2025, Shanghai, the 27th Shanghai Film Festival, "Belt and Road" Film Week - Charming Pudong Journey

Financial and financial communications are speeding up

Finance and Finance is an important support for jointly building the "Belt and Road". During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China and the co-construction countries and relevant institutions innovate investment and financing models, broaden investment and financing channels, improve investment and financing mechanisms, vigorously promote various forms of cooperation such as policy finance, development finance, commercial finance, and cooperative finance, and strive to build a long-term, stable, sustainable, and controllable investment and financing system.

For example, in terms of cross-border payment system standards construction, under the guidance of the People's Bank of China, China UnionPay has carried out technical cooperation with central banks and market institutions in jointly building countries such as Thailand and Singapore to improve the level of local digital payments; and has carried out QR code payment network interconnection cooperation with countries such as South Korea and Malaysia to facilitate residents to use local payment tools for cross-border payments. The Institute of Digital Currency of the People's Bank of China has actively communicated and exchanged with central banks in the UAE, Singapore, Laos, Kazakhstan and other countries on central banks; under the framework of the multilateral central bank digital currency bridge, it has jointly explored the cross-border application of central bank digital currency with 21 countries that jointly built with the monetary authorities of the monetary authorities of the central bank.

In addition, the joint construction countries have increased infrastructure investment through multiple channels. China has provided preferential loans to the countries jointly built by the "Belt and Road" through the form of aid, and used the Silk Road Fund, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, etc. to raise funds. As of July 2025, the number of members of the AIIB increased from the initial 57 to the current 110, covering 81% of the world's population and 65% of the global GDP. More than 300 projects have been approved in total, with a total financing of more than US$60 billion, and a capital of more than US$200 billion.

People's hearts communicate with each other and move forward steadily

"The friendship between the country lies in the people's dating, and the relationship between the people lies in the hearts." The communication between the people's hearts is the most basic, solid and lasting interconnection. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China worked together with the countries to build a joint construction to take the "heart connectivity" among the people of all countries as an important foundation for jointly building the "Belt and Road". The wonderful cultural year, art festival, expo, exhibition, unique cultural exchange projects such as Luban Workshop, "One Family in the Silk Road" and "Bright Tour", and the continuous deepening of exchanges between non-governmental organizations, think tanks, media, and youth, playing the Silk Road music of the new era.

Some brand new forums and communication platforms continue to emerge. In December 2023 and November 2024, China held two consecutive "Liangzhu Forums" to further deepen the dialogue on civilization with countries that jointly build the "Belt and Road".

In September 2023, on the basis of the Silk Road International Theater, Art Festival, Museums, Art Gallery and Library Alliance, the Silk Road Tourism City Alliance was established.

A number of "small and beautiful" people's livelihood projects have been taken root. In the past five years, China has actively promoted and implemented more livelihood projects in agriculture, education, health, poverty reduction and other fields, such as demonstration and promotion of mushroom grass, hybrid rice, etc., and has cultivated a large number of technical talents for the local area. In April 2025, the first Luban workshop in the Americas was accelerating its implementation in Nicaragua. It will help Nicaragua improve the technical skills of local young people, support the implementation of the "poverty reduction plan" proposed by the Nicaragua government, and serve the development of local Chinese-funded enterprises, and contribute to the promotion of Sino-Nepal cultural and economic and trade exchanges.

A batch of international students rushed to China for an appointment. In 2024, China received 320,000 international students from jointly built a country, of which 40% pursued master's degree or above. The Chinese government scholarship on the "Silk Road" has a total of 45,000 students who come to China for further studies. In 2024, the number of Chinese citizens traveled to the country jointly built exceeded 80 million, accounting for 65% of the total outbound travel.

Looking forward to the 15th Five-Year Plan, China is willing to work together with the countries that jointly build a country, continue to inherit and carry forward the spirit of the Silk Road, and go to the new journey of the development of the "Belt and Road", make every effort to make new contributions to promoting the recovery of the world economy and the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and work together to create a better tomorrow for all countries to move towards modernization together.

Wang Dan Deputy Director of Communication Center and Head of Publishing Center of the Institute of Contemporary China and World