China has vowed to push forward its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through eight major steps, including the opening up of its manufacturing sector and the launch of more high quality overseas investment projects and research laboratories. China will provide more financing support for BRI projects on the basis of market and business operations, Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a speech at the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing held on Wednesday (October 18). “The Belt and Road cooperation was proposed by China but its benefits and opportunities are for the world to share,” Xi said. He said the CEO Conference held during the Belt and Road Forum saw the conclusion of new agreements worth US$97.2 billion. The event marked the 10th anniversary of the BRI, Xi’s signature trade-promoting initiative. By June 2023, China had signed more than 200 BRI cooperation agreements with over 150 countries and more than 30 international organizations.

The eight steps to keep the BRI revving into the future include: 1. Build a multidimensional belt and road connectivity network 2. Support an open world economy 3. Carry out practical cooperation to support high-quality Belt and Road construction 4. Promote green development 5. Advance scientific and technological innovation 6. Support people-to-people exchanges 7. Promote integrity-based Belt and Road cooperation 8. Strengthen institutional building for international Belt and Road cooperation

Among them, steps 2, 3 and 5 include quantifiable objectives while the others are general directives. To support an open world economy, China said it will remove all restrictions on foreign investment access in its manufacturing sector. The country aims to boost its total trade in goods and services to $32 trillion and $5 trillion, respectively, in the 2024-2028 period, it was announced at the forum.

Last year, China’s trade amounted to $6.3 trillion in goods and $889 billion in services. The country’s trade targets can be translated into an annual growth of 0.6% in goods and 4% in services in 2024-2028 from the 2022 level, according to Asia Times’ calculations. “We have already removed all negative list items for the manufacturing sector within our free trade areas. Now, we will do the same thing nationwide,” said Bai Ming, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation under the Ministry of Commerce. “China wants to have a high-level opening up, and it welcomes foreign companies to invest in its manufacturing sector.” Bai said China will make use of global resources to transform from a large manufacturing country to a powerful manufacturing country. Until now, foreign firms are still not allowed to produce Chinese medicine or operate printing businesses in China unless done within specially designated free trade areas. Such restrictions will be removed soon, it was announced.

Debt trap criticism

Over the past decade, China has been criticized by the West for setting so-called “debt traps” for Belt and Road countries. In 2017, the Hambantota International Port, a deep water facility in Sri Lanka, had its 70% stake leased to China Merchants Port Holdings for 99 years for $1.12 billion when he South Asian country could not repay its Belt and Road debts. Similar cases were also seen in Laos, Jordan and Zambia. China has also been criticized for failing to provide a safe working environment for construction workers in some countries. As this criticism mounted, many Belt and Road countries have slowed their China-related infrastructure projects since 2016. Despite these setbacks, China announced on Wednesday that the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China will each set up a 350 billion yuan ($48.75 billion) financing window to support Belt and Road construction. China’s Overseas Development Finance (CODF) amounted to $498 billion between 2008 and 2021, involving a total of 1,099 Chinese overseas development finance commitments made to 100 countries, mainly in Southeast Asia, Africa and South America, according to the database of Boston University Global Development Policy (GDP) Center. “As Chinese overseas development finance has fallen in total value, so too has the average loan commitment size, both in monetary value and in the geographic footprint of financed projects,” the GDP Center said in a commentary earlier this year. “This trend is emblematic of the ‘small is beautiful’ approach to Chinese economic engagement in recent years, which prioritizes smaller and more targeted projects.” Some Chinese commentators said it’s not China’s fault that developing countries could not repay their debts. “China had accepted Zambia’s debt structuring plan, which was suggested by the International Monetary Fund, and made a long-term arrangement about it. But the plan was rejected by Western creditors, resulting in Zambia’s debt crisis,” said Zhang Yansheng, chief researcher of China Center for International Economic Exchanges. He said developed countries in the West had used quantitative measures to boost their own economies since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis but these measures, followed by rate hikes, increased the debt burdens of developing countries. He said as these developing countries faced recession, their debt-to-GDP ratios grew significantly.

Xi said in his speech that China will carry out 1,000 small-scale “livelihood assistance” projects and enhance vocational education cooperation with Belt and Road countries. He said more efforts will be taken to ensure the safety of BRI projects and personnel. Xi also said China will inject an additional 80 billion yuan into the Silk Road Fund.  Established in 2014 with an initial capital of $40 billion, the Silk Road Fund received an additional 100 billion yuan in 2017. It has so far invested $20 billion in different projects across 60 countries. China says it will increase the number of joint laboratories built with other Belt and Road parties to 100 in the next five years and support young scientists from other countries to work on short-term programs in the country. As of the end of 2022, China has established 53 joint laboratories involved in agriculture, new energy and public health with more than 30 Belt and Road countries. In December 2021, China and Russia set up a laboratory in Harbin in Heilongjiang province to develop advanced energy power. In August last year, China and Belarus established a laboratory in Taiyuan in Shanxi province to explore battery technologies. Read: Xi, Putin meet with a parallel view on the Gaza war Follow Jeff Pao on Twitter at @jeffpao3