Silk Road initiatives fit into EU recovery goals
In recent years, the West has urged Beijing to shoulder more global responsibility, and since the 2008-09 financial crisis, these demands have become ever more insistent. But when Beijing offers its solutions to the world, other powers are inclined to simply turn the other way.
The latest episode of this happened when the European Commission's new president, Jean-Claude Juncker, held his first meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia.
If the published reports are to be believed, Juncker, whose main priority should be to drive growth by expanding investment, failed to even mention the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road when he met Xi, even though China and the European Union had decided, when Xi was in Brussels early this year, to work together on the matter. Indeed the Brisbane tete-a-tete is not even mentioned on the EC president's website.
