Summit stabilizer for Central Asia

The China-Central Asia Summit to be held on Thursday and Friday in Xi’an, Shaanxi province, is expected to give a shot in the arm to regional development under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, which has evolved to be an international public good and an open platform to promote common development.

The leaders from all five Central Asian countries — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — are scheduled to attend the summit, which will be chaired by President Xi Jinping.

Last year, China’s trade with the five countries reached $70 billion, a historical high, and the region has not only become an important trade partner of China, but also developed into a pillar of the new Eurasia Land Bridge formed by the China-Europe freight train services.

Since he proposed to build a Silk Road Economic Belt during his visit to Kazakhstan in 2013, President Xi has maintained close contacts with the heads of state of the five Central Asian states, outlined the blueprint for high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, and reached important consensuses on synergizing the development strategies of the Belt and Road Initiative with those of the five Central Asian states.

The upcoming summit will further consolidate the consensus of China and the Central Asian countries on high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, which will extend from infrastructure, energy and agriculture to more high-tech sectors, and financial and services industries that are crucial to realizing sustainable and green development, improving people’s livelihoods and maintaining regional peace, unity and stability.

That will help further squeeze the space that external forces can take advantage of to incite unrest in the region, through which they intend to sow seeds of discord or create conditions to implant their puppet regimes.

As Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, in Xi’an, the starting point of the ancient Silk Road, China and the Central Asian countries will take advantage of the meeting to reinvigorate the millennia-old Silk Road and make new and greater contributions to building a closer China-Central Asia community with a shared future.　

Over the past decade, thanks to the joint efforts of all participants, the Belt and Road Initiative has delivered tangible benefits to the central Asian countries under the principle of extensive consultation and joint contributions. This has further consolidated the high level of political trust between the two sides.

With the global turmoil intensifying, optimizing the development trajectory of the region will help it maintain and consolidate the conditions conducive to maintaining peace and stability.

Editorial, China Daily