China convened a “high-level meeting” today in Beijing on the Global Development Initiative (GDI) which China launched five years ago, for the purpose of “Joining Hands for A Brighter Future of Sustainable Development,” which was the theme of today’s meeting. Chaired by Foreign Minister Wang Yi, it was jointly hosted by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the China International Development Cooperation Agency and UN development agencies in China. Attending were Earle Courtenay Rattray, chef de cabinet to UN Secretary-General, ambassadors from the 83 countries which have joined the “Group of Friends of the GDI,” and representatives of UN development agencies in China, CGTN reported.
According to the Foreign Ministry’s July 27 announcement, the meeting was designed to allow the exchange of ideas on how to accelerate development through joint efforts around the GDI, set priorities for cooperation, and review “the initiative’s contribution to the world,”
Foreign Minister Wang emphasized the “changing and turbulent international landscape” today makes advancing development efforts through the GDI more important than ever, in his opening address. CGTN summarized four proposals he put on the table for discussion: “strengthening solidarity and cooperation to create a peaceful environment for development;” that China will “continue to provide more development resources to developing countries and help address imbalances and inadequacies in global development;” that joint work on “mutual learning and innovation-driven development” is vital; and the need to strengthen policy coordination between nations on “upholding multilateralism and improving global governance” (e.g. the functioning of the United Nations).
What is the key to the GDI’s success? That “China’s development cannot be separated from the world, and that global development also needs China’s participation,” Wang stated. He reiterated that China, regardless of how the international situation changes, will continue “to closely link its own development with the common development of all countries, and serve as a promoter of and contributor to global development.”
Compare that spirit of shared development, which also motivated the United States’ founding fathers, with the scandalous news published today by Associated Press, that the Trump administration plans to increase its funding of efforts to stop China’s economic development projects in Asia, Africa and the Americas by “hundreds of millions of dollars"!
AP reports on two initiatives: the State Department informed the U.S. Congress last Friday of plans to spend $175.8 million on an underwater sea cable project in the Caribbean and Central America in order “to keep China from moving in;” and an internal State Department plan seen by AP which outlines plans drawn up by the administration to spend another $340 million-plus on over 50 specific anti-China projects around the world” with the aim of stopping developing countries from working with China on space exploration, or in developing port facilities and other “critical infrastructure,” or (God forbid) to develop capabilities to exploit their own critical minerals.
