Mutual benefit is the hallmark of initiative led by China

Despite the Belt and Road Initiative projects yielding positive results in several areas, some Western observers still view the initiative with suspicion and liken it to a Chinese version of the Marshall Plan. One such example is an article in the Dec 19 edition of The Washington Post.

But they need not go any further than the countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative to see how it has become a platform for global win-win cooperation. South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, in collaboration with several other places in China, has just finished building a southward route linking the region with Chongqing municipality in the north and Singapore in the south.

As China's southern gateway, Guangxi, which borders Vietnam, enjoys the geographical proximity to and strong people-to-people bond with Southeast Asian countries. Its four ports in the Beibu Gulf have maritime routes connecting 47 ports in seven ASEAN member states and operate 29 regular container-shipping routes to those countries.