The Silk Road is the name for the ancient trading routes linking the two ends of the Eurasia continent via Central Asia. As a gateway and vehicle for the Western and Oriental civilizations to know and trade with one another, these routes played a tremendous role in the historical development of the world. Today one end of the Eurasia continent is the highly developed European economy and the other the fast-growing Asia-Pacific economy, with the vast less developed middle region in between. The notion of a Silk Road Economic Belt exactly stands for great cooperation in this broad region aimed at connecting the Asia-Pacific and European economic economies.
Central Asia was once the hub of the Silk Road and if a Silk Road Economic Belt is realized it would be so again. The development of this economic area hinges on the development of Central Asia. In this sense, the Silk Road Economic Belt proposed by President Xi Jinping during his visit to the Central Asia would reach the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Although the Central Asian area is rich in mineral resources, it remains an underdeveloped area. And the total population of the Central Asia is only 60 million, almost equivalent to a middle-sized province of China. So, in our push for westward opening-up, it is incumbent for us, on the basis of a good Central Asia development strategy, to include the Mediterranean, the Atlantic as well as the Indian Ocean into a broader cooperation of 3 billion population involving the Central Asia, West Asia, South Asia, even dozens of European countries.
As a matter of fact, as soon as the concept of a Silk Road Economic Belt was put forward, the Chinese provinces and cities along the ancient Silk Road responded proactively and put forward their proposals and suggestions on how to forge a modern Silk Road. Such an active posture is valuable, but if these regions are only do so for purely narrow selfish interests they should be nipped in the bud. For example, the ongoing discussions about the original starting point of the ancient Silk Road make no sense. The significance of concept lies in the creation of a Silk Road Economic Belt that links China’s most vigorous Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and Bohai Sea economic zones to the European economy.
The key to the success of the concept is the development of an unblocked road network. Just like the opening-up of China’s eastern coastal regions, the focus should be on infrastructure construction to better realize this concept. If the infrastructure in the country’s eastern regions is concentrated on developing the traffic and transport systems, such as ports, highways and high-speed rails, then infrastructure construction in its western regions needs to be focused on the establishment of an all-dimensional system, such as modern railways, expressways, energy pipelines, the power grid, telecommunications and a modern capital circulation system that operates throughout the Eurasia continent. Such “great development” and “great opening-up” will help realize the flow of people, goods and capital on an unprecedented scale on the Eurasia continent, and this will provide unprecedented opportunities for the development of China’s western regions, its overall development and even the development of all countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt.
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