Belt and Road building cultural bridges

One of China's biggest contributions to global governance in the past five years may be the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative.

President Xi Jinping was right when he said that we are living in an age of major development, changes and adjustments. Calculated according to purchasing power parity, emerging markets account for over half the global GDP, while Western economies account for 42 percent this year, down from 64 percent in 1980. And with many countries struggling to recover from the 2008 global financial crisis, widening wealth gaps have led to rise of populism and political extremism in Western countries.

The Belt and Road Initiative, which was first proposed by Xi in 2013, has actually pointed the way out of the present impasse, and its success in sustaining growth, stabilizing politics and improving social justice can serve as a source of inspiration especially to countries aspiring to reform their governance.