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May 13-14, 2017 9
COMMENT
OPINION
ChinaDaily
chinadaily.com.cn/opinion
Jean Pierre Raffarin and Xu Gai
A new growth point
for world economy
In Europe, the Belt and Road Initiative does not
get the attention it deserves. However, the history
of the ancient Silk Road has fed our imagination
for centuries. Today, China speaks for reality
while Europe is limiting itself to curiosity. But newly
elected French President Emmanuel Macron can accelerate
Europe’s interest in the initiative.
President Xi Jinping surprised the rest of the world
when he announced the Belt and Road Initiative. As
often happens in China, the idea is the result of a deep
strategic reflection.
China is seeking big markets for its industrial products.
Marginal gains of globalization are shrinking,
and growth needs a new revival. In Asia, this new
revival is called connectivity. By helping the economies
along the Belt and Road routes to develop and
improve their infrastructure, hard and soft, China is
reinforcing its openness and the upgrading of its
manufacturing sector.
The initiative will also help the internationalization
of its currency and, in the long run, the transformation
of its growth toward quality.
Europe should find interest in this. Under the initiative,
cooperation with China on its two aisles, Eurasia
and “Eurafrica”, can allow the European Union to
reach its economic growth and employment targets.
That big geostrategic region must become “a community
of interests, of responsibility and common fate”.
As Premier Li Keqiang has often said, “today, no
nation can succeed alone”. Therefore we must invent
international engaging projects. This perspective is
definitely pacifist. And by serving development and
prosperity, it serves peace.
China’s analysis needs to be studied. In the past, the East
was the place where goods were born, and the West where
they matured. Today, the West is standing still or even
going backward while the East initiates reforms.
Asian dynamics must reach Europe. As

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