The Belt and Road Initiative Brings New Development Opportunities for the Agriculture and Food Industry
The "Belt and Road" strategy proposed by China covers one third of the world's sovereign states and involves nearly two thirds of the global population, making it the world's largest regional economic cooperation initiative. To realize this grand economic vision, it is completely impossible to rely on China alone. It is necessary to gather the joint efforts of all countries along the routes, move forward hand in hand, and head toward the goal of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation. This requires all parties to further strengthen communication and coordination, dialogue and exchange, build trust and dispel doubts, build consensus, increase understanding and awareness of the "Belt and Road," establish policy communication mechanisms for jointly building the "Belt and Road," and lay a foundation of public opinion for deepening cooperation.
First, the "Belt and Road" is a concept and initiative for regional cooperation and development, and its core is openness and inclusiveness. So-called openness means it cannot be exclusive and cannot be discriminatory. At present, there are roughly 230 regional trade liberalization arrangements being implemented in the world, but any kind of FTA or RTA has similar characteristics: their members can share the new growth opportunities and trade diversion effects created by intra-regional trade and investment liberalization. However, other non-members are excluded.
The "Belt and Road" will eliminate this exclusivity and discrimination. Countries participating in the construction, based on but not limited to the scope of the ancient Silk Road, and all countries and international and regional organizations, may participate in extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits as long as they are willing.
In particular, unlike many other regional cooperation arrangements, the "Belt and Road" advocates tolerance among civilizations, respects the choice of development paths and models of all countries, sets no preconditions, and does not deliberately emphasize that participating countries must all follow the same standard.
Second, the "Belt and Road" is an innovation and exploration of regional cooperation and development mechanisms, and its foundation is win-win cooperation. From the perspective of cooperation content and methods, the "Belt and Road" clearly identifies three key tasks for joint construction. First, regional infrastructure connectivity will be further improved, and a network of land, sea and air corridors will basically take shape. Second, the level of investment and trade facilitation will be further raised, and a network of high-standard free trade areas will basically take shape. Third, people-to-people and cultural exchanges will become more extensive and in-depth, and different civilizations will learn from each other and prosper together. This will mainly be achieved through the "five connectivities": policy coordination, facilities connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration and people-to-people bonds.
From the perspective of cooperation paths and mechanisms, the "Belt and Road" advocates equal consultation and mutual benefit. The countries participating in jointly building the "Belt and Road" include both developed and developing countries; both large and small countries, but regardless of wealth or size, all countries are equal members in cooperation.
From the perspective of the purpose and direction of cooperation, most countries along the "Belt and Road" are developing countries, with per capita GDP less than half the world average, and their development tasks are arduous and heavy. Therefore, cooperation under the "Belt and Road" is mainly South-South cooperation. It is necessary to accelerate the pace of development of these countries, narrow the North-South development gap, and promote common prosperity and progress for all countries. Ultimately, by advancing all-round practical cooperation among countries along the routes, a community of shared interests, shared future and shared responsibilities featuring political mutual trust, economic integration and cultural inclusiveness should be formed.
Third, jointly building the "Belt and Road" provides new opportunities for the world to jointly address difficulties and promote growth cooperation. Since the outbreak of the international financial crisis, although the United States and a few other countries have entered a recovery path, most economies, and even the world economy as a whole, are still trapped in structural contradictions to varying degrees, with sluggish economic growth. Jointly building the "Belt and Road" will bring new opportunities for the world to jointly address difficulties and achieve economic growth.
First, it will activate infrastructure construction. The "Belt and Road" takes transportation infrastructure construction as a key and priority area of cooperation, which fits the actual needs of the Eurasian continent. Especially in Asia, infrastructure in many countries and regions urgently needs upgrading and renovation. Strengthening investment in infrastructure construction can not only itself form new growth points and drive the economies of countries in the region, but can also promote investment and consumption, create demand and employment, and lay a solid foundation for the future development of countries in the region.
Second, it will promote trade, investment and industrial cooperation. The different industrial foundations and resource advantages of countries along the routes have huge complementarity. By combining the capital advantages, production capacity advantages and technological advantages of the relevant countries, they can be transformed into enormous advantages for regional cooperation, accelerate and expand trade and investment among the relevant countries along the routes, and promote industrial upgrading.
Third, it will promote international development cooperation. Cooperation under the "Belt and Road" explores new models and new practices such as South-South cooperation, North-South cooperation and tripartite cooperation. It is an important supplement to traditional international development cooperation and is conducive to countries along the routes sharing experience and learning from each other.
Fourth, jointly building the "Belt and Road" is of great significance. First, it will push China to build a new opening-up pattern featuring interaction between east and west, mutual connectivity between south and north, coordinated land and sea development, and integration of domestic and external opening. It will promote China's adaptation to the new situation and new requirements of economic globalization and regional integration, establish and improve an open economic system, and build a new high-level open economic system.
Second, it will provide new impetus for the world economy. The construction of the "Belt and Road" will more closely connect the two ends of the Eurasian continent, namely the developed European economic circle and the most dynamic East Asian economic circle, drive the development of Central Asia, West Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia, promote the formation of an integrated Eurasian market, and radiate to regions such as Africa. The implementation of "Belt and Road" cooperation projects and promotion measures will certainly narrow regional development gaps and accelerate the process of regional integration.
Third, it will promote the development of Asia, Europe and Africa and the peaceful development of mankind. The mission of jointly building the "Belt and Road" is to promote the development of two thirds of the global population. This is a great undertaking that benefits the people of all countries along the routes and is also a major contribution to human development.
Fourth, it is conducive to optimizing and innovating international cooperation and global governance mechanisms. Jointly building the "Belt and Road" is an active exploration of innovation in international cooperation and global governance mechanisms. It can alleviate the dilemma that today's global governance mechanisms find it difficult to adapt to real-world demands in terms of authority, effectiveness and timeliness, and it can also meet the demands of developing countries, especially emerging countries, for reform of global governance mechanisms. It is conducive to linking Asian, European and African countries more closely in new forms and raising mutually beneficial cooperation to a new historical height. It also helps relevant countries jointly address real threats such as trade protection, climate change, poverty and extremism, and jointly provide new global public goods.
Fifth, it will create new opportunities for regional agricultural and food trade and investment. Poverty reduction and ensuring food security remain arduous tasks for agricultural development in most countries, including China. At present, nearly 800 million people in the world still do not have enough to eat. The food security situation in countries along the routes, especially in Asia, is not optimistic. Some countries have made important progress in implementing the "Millennium Development Goals," but the task of ensuring food security remains very arduous.
Jointly building the "Belt and Road" will promote the formation of a new pattern of international agricultural cooperation, new opportunities for agricultural trade and investment, and a new order for global agricultural governance, bringing new opportunities for food security and the development of the agriculture and food industry in developing countries along the routes.
First, it is conducive to realizing complementarity with the agricultural resources of neighboring countries. By implementing a new type of international agricultural cooperation strategy, giving full play to the advantages of relevant countries with abundant agricultural resources, and supporting relevant countries, especially developing countries, in raising agricultural science and technology levels, improving farmland water conservancy facilities, and enhancing comprehensive agricultural production capacity, it will not only help solve their food security and farmers' income increase problems, but also expand their agricultural product exports and increase global supply.
Second, it will promote production capacity cooperation in the agriculture and food industries of countries along the routes. Through international production capacity cooperation in agriculture and food, the value chain of the domestic agriculture and food industry can be extended overseas through investment, cooperation and other means, forming an agricultural supply chain covering the "Belt and Road" region and gradually promoting the upgrading and structural optimization of the agriculture and food industries of countries along the routes. This is both in line with the interests of countries along the routes and a need for the development of China's domestic agricultural industry.
Third, it will establish a mutual benefit mechanism for agricultural product markets. Under the regional cooperation framework advocated by the "Belt and Road," if a high-level free trade area network can be gradually built, it will promote the formation of a fair, reasonable, safe and stable regional agricultural product market system, enabling all countries to share equally and safely in the benefits brought by economic development and growth in the agricultural product market.
Fourth, it will achieve win-win agricultural development among countries along the routes. That is, it will promote mutual benefit and common development of agriculture between China and countries along the routes.
For example, at present China's grain imports mainly come from North America and South America, while imports from neighboring and route countries are relatively small. However, these regions have very great potential for agricultural development. Examples include Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar on the Indochinese Peninsula. Based on research, we once made an estimate that as long as a little more effort is made in agricultural technology extension and agricultural infrastructure construction, the rice export potential of these three countries could increase by 20 million tons. At present, however, global rice trade volume is only 35 million tons. This in fact overturns a previous assertion, namely that global rice trade is limited. If this is a limitation of agricultural resources, it would be better said to be caused by insufficient effective demand for rice. In southwest China, the four provinces and municipalities of Sichuan, Chongqing, Guizhou and Yunnan, under the current situation of severe overload of agricultural resources and high environmental costs, still have a grain gap of more than 25 million tons. If the "Belt and Road" promotes the formation of a regionally integrated agricultural product market, then consideration can be given to linking the agricultural product markets of southwest China with those of the Indochinese Peninsula and establishing a new type of food security system. Southwest China could then withdraw overloaded resources such as cultivated land and truly realize the sustainable development of its agriculture. The Indochinese Peninsula, in turn, could use the agricultural product market of southwest China to promote the development of its modern agriculture.