China celebrates its New Silk Road trade project. Representatives from around 140 countries are there, including many from autocratically ruled countries. President Xi praised the project – and the trust between China and Russia.
In his opening speech, Xi Jinping praised his “New Silk Road” initiative, which has transformed from a rough idea into real projects. The exchange of goods, investments and technology, among other things, has experienced a boost, said China’s head of state and party. Over the past ten years, China has built ports, roads and railway connections with the equivalent of tens of billions of euros as part of the “Belt and Road Initiative” – including in Asia, Europe and Africa. There is repeated international criticism that poorer countries are becoming indebted and dependent on China.
“Focus on developing countries”
But the initiative has also changed in recent years, says Christoph Nedopil from Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia: “Today the focus is more on developing countries and no longer as much on international cooperation.”
There is also less government investment in infrastructure and less involvement of Chinese state-owned companies – instead, private companies are more involved in the “New Silk Road”.
“Alternative world model, alternative to the West”
But there is another level, says Nedopil: “China is trying to develop an alternative world model with the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’. They are trying to present themselves as the largest developing country that also has a voice for the rest of the developing countries. And me “I think this year this direction has been strengthened again, to offer an alternative to the West. And of course this will also invite many countries that may not be viewed so positively in the West.”
In the evening, Xi Jinping invited heads of state and government from several countries to a banquet. Russian President Vladimir Putin was there, as was Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who was the only EU head of government to travel to the meeting. Putin and Orban met for talks on the sidelines of the summit.
Orban: Never confrontation with Russia
Orban said it was never his goal to go into confrontation with Russia. Hungary has always tried to expand contacts. The “military operation” – meaning the war in Ukraine – and European sanctions against Russia destroyed much of what had been built together.
Putin spoke of “satisfaction” that, despite the tensions with the West, there were still countries in Europe that maintained contact with Russia. Critics have long accused Orban of being too close to autocrats.
Putin is being courted
The Russian president, largely isolated because of the attack on Ukraine, is wanted with an international arrest warrant – for alleged war crimes. He is not threatened with arrest in China; the People’s Republic does not recognize the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Instead, Putin is being courted in Beijing.
China’s head of state and the Russian president reaffirmed the close cooperation between their two countries on the sidelines of the “Silk Road” summit. It is not known whether Xi and Putin discussed the war in Ukraine and the situation in the Middle East at their bilateral meeting today.
Both Russia and China have criticized Israel’s heavy bombing of the densely populated Gaza Strip in response to Hamas attacks. However, both countries have not yet clearly condemned the attack by the radical Islamic Hamas on Israeli civilians as terrorism.