“The Belt And Road”:an Emerging International Regimes In The Ascendant

The formation of Westphalia System makes sovereign nation the most rudimentary political unit and the most important actor in the international community.Since the international community is usually considered under anarchy,the countries often follow “Law of the Jungle”.Therefore,a powerful country can rely on daunting comprehensive strength to establish a global governance system in its own interest,whereas a weak country is merely forced to accept and take obedient stance.Such a global governance system can maximize the interests of hegemonic countries.This is exactly the primary reason why a strong country takes active or negative power means to dominate in the establishment,development and change of international regimes and maintain the balance and stability of the governance system through international regimes.It can be said that major international regimes of global governance are basically monopolized by hegemonic countries.These international regimes vigorously represent the powers and interests of hegemonic countries.The current international system originates from the founding of the United States after the World War II.Such developed countries as the United States always keep control of the major global governance regimes and their rules.These regimes and their rules center on the interests and values of the United States and other Western developed countries.They even serve as instruments for the United States to intervene in the domestic political process of other countries,and export the Neo-liberalism development mode.It is undeniable that peace under the hegemony of the United States does provide a lot of public goods for global governance.However,as economic downturn of the United States leads to a relative decline in its national strength,the United States has been less able to set the pace for the world and providefavorable political climate.In other words,the United States has been already trapped into a dilemma that its own strength falls short of commitment.As a result,the existing international regimes are unable to address various global challenges.Counter-globalization,the insufficiency of global public goods supply,the widening gap between the rich and the poor in the North and the South,the slow progress in reform of the global governance system and the increase in non-traditional security issues aggravate the challenges to the prevailing global governance system.In response to this,the existing global governance system has undergone reform at varying degrees,but it still has shortcomings,such as insufficient representativeness,absence of fairness,dislocation of responsibility and failure of governance.International community has stronger desire to reform and improve the existing governance system.This implies an opportunity for China to comprehensively participate in global governance and play a leading role.In 2013,the Chinese leaders advocated an initiative to jointly build “The Belt and Road”.“The Belt and Road” Initiative contains two major political implications.On one hand,“The Belt and Road” Initiative is a global solution for China to achieve fundamental goal of national prosperity and national rejuvenation under new historical conditions,which is aimed to leverage China's existing advantages,actively shape up the process of globalization and go all out to seize more advantageous position in the ever-changing global political and economic landscape.On the other hand,“The Belt and Road” Initiative actually assumes the responsibility of providing public goods for the international community,which suits the remedy to the previous long-standing problems in the field of global governance,and attempts to fill the gaps in the field of global governance after the United States is on the wane.Specifically,“The Belt and Road” Initiative makes arrangements for resolving the current problems of international community in five aspects as follows: Firstly,it begins with synergy between construction and planning,integration of quality and technology,promotion of transport facilitation and advancement of project construction,gives impetus to infrastructure construction of the countries along “The Belt and Road”,and pushes forward connectivity among Asia,Europe and Africa.Secondly,through continuous optimization of trade scale and structure,establishment of free trade zone network and strengthening of cooperation among the customs authorities along “The Belt and Road”,it improves the economic and trade cooperation between China and other countries along “The Belt and Road”,andestablishes an equal and balanced trade system.Thirdly,it sets up trade and economic cooperation zones,supports cross-border and cross-regional investment facilitation,expands international production capacity cooperation,and makes progress in industrial development.Fourthly,it strengthens the linkage of financial cooperation mechanisms,deepens cooperation from the perspective of financial institutions,financial markets and financial regulators,and innovates financing mechanism.Fifthly,it unites the efforts to strengthen the protection of forestry and wild species,boosts the protection of water resources,and steers investment and financing towards“green”.It can be said that “The Belt and Road” Initiative combines China's own development experience with the development aspirations of various countries,and offers China Solution to the current governance problems in the face of the international community.Thanks to promotion and implementation in the past four years,the fruitful project achievements of “The Belt and Road” Initiative are known to all.In terms of infrastructure construction,significant progress has been made in famous projects,such as Hungary-Serbia railway,Peshawar-Karachi Expressway in Pakistan,Jakarta-Bandung High-speed Rail,Gwadar Port,Pakistan QA Photovoltaic Power Generation Project,etc.In terms of economic and trade cooperation,the annual amount of import-export trade with other countries along “The Belt and Road” has been increasing year by year.Free trade agreements have been signed with various countries and regions.In terms of capacity and investment cooperation,a number of production cooperation documents have been executed with many other countries.China has established a number of overseas economic and trade cooperation zones.In terms of financing and financial cooperation,China joins hands with the international community to create a series of multilateral financial mechanisms,it provides a stable regional financial environment and diversified financing channels for the countries and regions along “The Belt and Road”.As can be seen from specific practices along “The Belt and Road”,“The Belt and Road” Initiative is guided by a new concept of cooperation and all-win,establishes a new international cooperation mode characterized by openness,inclusiveness,equality and mutual benefit,and indeed makes up for some deficiency in the current global governance.“The Belt and Road” Initiative helps developing countries carry out infrastructure construction and drives the transfer of excessive industrial production capacity to developing countries.To some extent,this approach canimprove the industrial system of developing countries and lay a foundation for developing countries to rely on their own resources to promote economic development.Compared with the international financial governance regimes dominated by the western developed countries,multilateral financial institutions,built on “The Belt and Road” Initiative,feature more inclusive membership,more impartial interest concerns,more representative distribution of power and more rational operation principle.Emerging countries and developing countries occupy the main position in multilateral financial institutions.Therefore,these institutions can also better manifest the vital interests of emerging countries and developing countries.International regimes intend to provide public goods for the international community and provide free riding opportunities for all countries.Similarly,“The Belt and Road” Initiative is a public product offered by China to the international community on the basis of its own development experience.Although “The Belt and Road” Initiative has not formed a complete international regimes as yet,it is growing up to be an emerging and well-established international regimes.Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank,Silk Road Fund Co.,Ltd.,BRICS New Development Bank and Asia Financial Cooperation Association and other mechanisms,which have been already set up,not only give financial support for regional connectivity and industrial development,but also maintain stable regional financial environment.In addition,“Belt and Road” Forum for International Cooperation,which has been held in Beijing,serves as a platform for China to strengthen its strategic alliance with other countries along “Belt and Road”,advance partnerships,achieve mutual benefits and reap all-win outcomes.These mechanisms provide a strong institutional guarantee for various countries to reach a consensus and jointly build “The Belt and Road”.As proved by the successful launch of “The Belt and Road” Initiative,China believes that its development is not only highly interdependent with global development,but also will propel the development of the rest of the world.China can achieve its own development only under the premise of common development of the whole world.Although the establishment of emerging international regimes entitled“The Belt and Road” is initiated by China,China calls on the united efforts from all countries along “The Belt and Road” so that its foundation will be more extensive,and operation will be more transparent.Under this regimes,all member countries can develop in harmony,achieve mutual benefits and reap all-win outcomes.With the continuous evolution of the international community,this emerging regimes will notonly be continuously improved,standardized,consolidated and innovated,but also will surely become an important part of global governance in the new era.