At the think tank workshop during the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation opened on the morning of 25 April, Justin Yifu Lin, Dean of the Institute of New Structural Economics of Peking University, noted that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is China’s way to live up to its international responsibilities as a major country and will deliver new development opportunities.

According to him, China is now an upper-middle income country and is likely to cross the high-income threshold of 12,700 US dollars in 2025. As the world’s top trading nation and second largest economy, China should take on more responsibilities for the development of the world.

Developed countries have made much effort at global development after the Second World War. But despite their good intentions, the impact was limited. Most of the developing countries in the world are either on the lower end of incomes or fall into the middle-income trap. Lin said China learned from its own experience that only with road construction can prosperity be possible. Now infrastructure is the biggest bottleneck holding back progress in the developing world. The BRI meets this challenge head on by focusing on infrastructure connectivity as the way to promote a community of shared future and prosperity, and, as such, is well placed to generate new development opportunities.

He also stressed the importance of not blindly copying the experience or models of others, as each country has its own realities. Think tanks, while studying the success of other countries, should also develop a thorough understanding of their own national conditions in order to advise their own development. International think tank cooperation under the BRI offers a platform for the exchange of experience to the benefit of common progress. “As a member of this community, I look forward to working together with my friends from foreign think tanks to seize the opportunities of our times and realize our shared aspirations for prosperity.”