Xi always looking at the bigger picture
- By Ma Xiaolin
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E-mail China Daily, April 27, 2015
In other words, this is a non-aligned partnership where the two are simultaneously independent and bonded in pursuit of shared interests and strategic geopolitical security. Such a partnership can be stronger than the typical alliances between the United States and its friends such as the United Kingdom and Canada, thus serving as a milestone in China's foreign relations.
More importantly, to many regional leaders at the 2015 Asian-African Summit, what China offered was a potential boost to the development of the South, rather than hollow diplomatic speeches.
Meeting Xi in Jakarta, the Indonesian President Joko Widodo welcomed the Chinese president's proposal to increase investment in Indonesia's infrastructure, and he witnessed the signing of cooperation documents on high-speed rail project afterwards. The Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday also hailed the Beijing-initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which has attracted 57 countries to join as founding members as "the voice of the South".
In addition, Xi pledged on Wednesday that China will grant the least developed countries with which it has diplomatic ties duty free privileges on 97 percent of imported products within the year, and cooperate with all parties concerned to implement the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Belt and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
It shows they have hopes for, and support, Beijing's economic leadership in the region, and that China, the world's second-largest economy which contributes one-fifth of Asia's economic growth, is taking steps to shoulder its responsibilities as a world power.
At the request of the Japanese side Xi met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the sidelines of the summit. Xi spared half an hour during the busy summit to meet with Abe, to whom he said both countries should take "active policies toward each other". Without censuring the Abe administration on specific issues, Xi urged Japan to face up to historical issues and even welcomed it being part of the AIIB.
With such diplomatic moves, China indeed is becoming a major power that always looks at the bigger picture of geopolitics.
The author is president of blshe.com and an expert in international relations studies.
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