Beijing, 10 Oct (ZXS) -- Interview with Wang Yiwei: The "Belt and Road" initiative lights a light and allows people to see the world outside the West
Written by Pang Wuji Wang Mengyao
This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative. As an important public good of global governance, the Belt and Road Initiative has not only opened the door to rejuvenation for the ancient Silk Road, which once stretched for thousands of miles and lasted for thousands of years, but also injected it with a new spirit of the times and humanistic connotations. In the past ten years, what has the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" brought to the world?
Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at Chinese University and professor of the European Union's "Jean Monnet" chair, said in a recent interview with China News Agency that the "Belt and Road" initiative has lit a light for people to see the world outside the West, discover the diversity of the world and another kind of beauty.
"Lamp" has two meanings
Wang Yiwei explained that this "lamp" has two meanings: one is physical and the other is psychological.
The so-called physical lamp is that the "Belt and Road" shares the experience of China's reform and opening up - "build roads before getting rich". In the past, globalization under neoliberalism did not have anyone to build roads for others. The core content of the Belt and Road Initiative is to promote infrastructure construction and connectivity, align policies and development strategies of various countries, and deepen practical cooperation. The Belt and Road Initiative will promote the transformation of globalization, shifting from neoliberal globalization in the past to development-oriented globalization and inclusive globalization.
The other is a psychological "lamp". Wang Yiwei said: In the past, when we talked about modernization, it was equivalent to Westernization, detraditionalization, and even secularization. However, the "Belt and Road" initiative emphasizes becoming oneself rather than becoming someone else, innovating and transforming one's own traditional culture, innovating and developing, and taking a modernization path in line with one's own national conditions, which is also an important reason why the "circle of friends" of the "Belt and Road" is expanding more and more.
There is more than one path to modernization
Wang Yiwei said that the "lamp" lit by the "Belt and Road" has changed people's modern world outlook, changed the situation that "looking at the world with open eyes" is actually "looking at the developed world", and "looking at the whole world" instead.
"In the past, some developing countries were always unconfident, felt that their strength was weak, and attached to and worshiped the suzerainty." Wang Yiwei said that this is because almost the entire world has been colonized by the West, and there is a general duality in developing countries, that is, the economic base is backward and the superstructure is Western-style, and there is a phenomenon of suzerainty worship.
This has led many countries to feel that there is only one way to modernize, that is, to learn from the West, and to firmly believe in Western modernization theory and the development economics of the United States. "Now that China has successfully embarked on its own path to modernization, they are beginning to think: You can succeed, why can't I succeed?" It turned out that I had neglected my own characteristics in the past and did not take the development path that met the conditions of my own national conditions. Wang Yiwei said.
Especially for the countries that jointly build the "Belt and Road", the practice of joint construction and the real changes in the local area have broken their superstition of the West in action, and many countries realize that there is more than one path to modernization, and believe that "China can do it".
Understand the concept of "a community with a shared future for mankind"
The Belt and Road Initiative provides a practical platform for building a community with a shared future for mankind. However, at present, there are still some people in the international community who do not understand the concept of "a community with a shared future for mankind", how to solve this problem?
Wang Yiwei pointed out that there are three main reasons for not understanding, and the way to solve it should also start from these three points.
First, as mentioned above, there is a clear duality in developing countries, and many countries tend to agree with Western public opinion led by Europe and the United States, so it is difficult to understand the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind.
Second, because this concept was proposed by China. The United States does not deny that mankind will inevitably enter the era of community, but it resists the "community of human destiny" proposed by China. This is unfortunate, because the common idea of a common destiny for mankind is meant to transcend ideology.
Third, China is considered to be a secular country that does not believe in God, and is a rare independent country (civilization is self-contained, system and industry are independent); The fate of a single country is dependent on regional or global hegemony or former suzerainty, and countries that only believe in the same god or ideology are a community of common destiny, and it is difficult to identify with or envision a community of human destiny. (End)