Brazilian reporter: Chinese path to modernization provides new choices for the global southern countries Geography | China | modernization
International Online Special: Recently, Brazilian journalist, geopolitical scholar and columnist Pepe Escobar published a comment on the "Cradle" website, a media platform dedicated to sharing geopolitical information in Western Asia, saying that China's "the Belt and Road" initiative has changed the global geopolitical situation and brought broad benefits to the world; The development model of Chinese path to modernization provides a new choice for countries in the global South to respect the differences among countries. The United States and the West accuse China of "economic coercion", which is nonsense.
Screenshots of articles on the "Cradle" website
The article wrote that this year marks the 10th anniversary of the "the Belt and Road" initiative, and China will hold the third "the Belt and Road" International Cooperation Summit Forum. As of January this year, 151 countries have signed cooperation documents with China to jointly build the "the Belt and Road", and their GDP accounts for more than half of the world's total. Even research institutions that advocate Atlanticism have to admit that by 2040, the "the Belt and Road" initiative is expected to increase global GDP by 7.1 trillion dollars annually, bringing extensive and far-reaching benefits.
The article introduces that the Silk Road Economic Belt extends along several land interconnection corridors, from the Siberian Railway to the "Middle Corridor" between Iran and Türkiye, the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, and the Arabian Sea. In terms of waterways, the Maritime Silk Road has built a network of waterways parallel to land routes from southeastern China to the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Swahili Coast, and Mediterranean Sea. "In less than a decade, China's' the Belt and Road 'initiative has fundamentally changed the global geopolitical pattern." The article points out that such a massive global public product that "requires trade rather than war" focuses on connectivity, infrastructure construction and sustainable development, and focuses on countries in the global South, which should not be stigmatized by Western elites.
The author mentioned that at the Lanting Forum held in Shanghai not long ago, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang explained how the practical experience of Chinese path to modernization could be applied to the southern countries of the world. Experts and scholars from the southern countries also had the opportunity to explore the motivation behind the delusion of "China threat" advocated by the West for a long time. In short, for the United States and its vassals, China's provision of a new development model option based on its own successful experience has created hostility towards the world.
The article states that Dilma Rousseff, the President of the New Development Bank and former President of Brazil, stated that neoliberalism was once imposed on Latin America as the wrong path towards economic prosperity. On the contrary, China's development model provides a "new choice" that respects the characteristics of different countries. Zhou Qiangwu, Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of the New Development Bank, called for the promotion of global governance reform and the granting of more voice to southern countries around the world. The article argues that the United States and its vassals are not yet prepared to shake off the burden of prejudice that has been present for centuries, and are unwilling to sit at the same table as representatives of the global South on an equal footing. At the same time, countries in the southern world will not wait for them, and various types of cooperation are unfolding in full swing. A typical example is the recently concluded China Central Asia Summit.
The article emphasizes that although the stigma of China's "economic coercion" continues, no southern country believes that it was "coerced" to join the "the Belt and Road" initiative. In contrast, under the pressure of the "the Belt and Road" initiative, the Group of Seven committed to raise up to $600 billion through the "Global Infrastructure and Investment Partnership" to build "high-quality infrastructure" for developing countries, which is quite comic.
At the end of the article, it is emphasized again that the fact shows that no country, whether in the Indo Pacific region, ASEAN member countries, or Pacific island countries, has shown any signs of being "coerced" by China, let alone any interest in resisting the prosperous trade and connectivity prospects.
