PRESS RELEASE
Global Times Op-Ed Proclaims, ‘U.S. Participation in Belt and Road Inevitable’
Nov. 14, 2017 (EIRNS)—That's the headline of an op-ed yesterday by Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at China’s Renmin University, writing in Global Times. He says that the trade deals from President Trump’s official visit to China
"will enable the U.S. to better grasp the potential and prospects for economic cooperation. Against this background, it is time for the U.S. to reconsider joining the Belt and Road Initiative, which offers wider space for cooperation."
"Sino-U.S. cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative will not only benefit economic and trade ties, but also shape the trajectory of a new mode of major-country relationship and the world in the next 50 years,"
he writes.
"Although the U.S. has not announced it will take part in the Belt and Road, it already has connections with it," he continues. This is the case in part because standards, rules, capital, technology, and personnel in projects are global, and also because U.S. companies are already involved.
He recommends that the two countries could work together on infrastructure, perhaps first in developed countries, such as regional cooperation in in the U.S. Midwest, and also on military resources; a challenging proposal. Defense Secretary Mattis has said that 19% of U.S. military facilities are idle, Wang reports. These facilities could be developed by Chinese enterprises, he suggests. Cooperation could also be strengthened in the Maritime Silk Road context, regarding navigation, logistics, and maritime industry.
The United States and China could establish a "global infrastructure investment bank," alongside global interconnection and global development programs. He concludes that such initiatives
"will serve the two nations’ interests and benefit the world. What’s more, functional participation and constructional cooperation has always been what Trump aims for."
