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Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is in Beijing to attend the two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation opening on May 14, 2017. [Photo / China.org.cn]

Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on Sunday that the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative can help promote the reform and development of the current international order.

He made the remarks during a Chinese-language speech given at the Thematic Session on Think Tank Exchanges at the ongoing two-day Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation opening on May 14 in Beijing.

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for the building of a Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in 2013. It is predominately an infrastructure and trade cooperation framework that spans Eurasia as well as the rest of the world.

The former Australian Prime Minister said there are no world wars in the past 75 years, largely because there is a rules-based international order designed by the United States and other major powers in the world. But he also acknowledged that the West-dominated international order is far from perfect.

In an interview with China.org.cn after the session, Rudd elaborated further, saying that there is not enough international aid, inadequate action on climate change, threats of trade wars and many other problems facing the world. China can contribute to reform and develop the existing international order. "The world will look for greater Chinese contribution," he said.

Rudd said the Belt and Road Initiative is "of positive significance" for China, Eurasia and the entire world. "It can become a new way of bridging the East and West in terms of cultural exchanges, trade and commerce, cooperation and mutual-learning. And on the basis of that, higher-level political and security cooperation can be carried out too."

President Xi made a keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the two-day forum, detailing the progress made under the Belt and Road Initiative in the past four years and pledging to strengthen China's input on the initiative going forward.

Rudd commented on the speech, saying that Xi's speech "is able to place the Belt and Road Initiative into a much bigger context… and take the spirit of the old Silk Road, which is about economic and cultural exchanges, and apply it to the new environment of the 21st century."

"When he describes the future Silk Road and its economic and cultural content as a result of the atmosphere of political cooperation, I think these are positive new trends of the world," he added.

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