Robert Lawrence Kuhn

The Belt and Road Initiative is the ideal way to engage with China and sets a good example for international economic cooperation. It will also provide broader opportunities for U.S. businesses, said Robert Lawrence Kuhn, chairman of Kuhn Foundation in an interview with People’s Daily newspaper just days before the opening of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which is China’s diplomatic highlight of the year.

Kuhn said there are three main reasons for the high popularity of China’s Belt and Road Initiative among many nations throughout the world: First, infrastructure is the primary need of developing countries, and the Belt and Road initiative focuses on building infrastructure. Secondly, economies in most countries, and in the world, are sluggish, and the hope is that Belt and Road Initiative will stimulate the economy. And the last but not least, for many developing countries, China is both a role model and a source of expertise, experience, and capital. Belt and Road are the ideal way to engage with China.

Over the past three years, Kuhn closely watched the development of Belt and Road Initiative, and he said the Forum marks a transition of the high symbolism in President Xi Jinping’s grand vision for a new era of win-win globalization from blueprint to roadmap, from plan to practice, and from concepts on paper to projects on the ground.

“I’ve witnessed the progress from vision to reality,” said Kuhn, who will attend the Beijing summit. “To me, the more important achievement has been to institutionalize a professional process of ongoing ‘best practices’: project structure, project finance, governmental coordination, international management, monitoring systems, and the like.”

Kuhn believes the summit sets a perfect example for international economic cooperation and global governance. The gathering of government officials and business leaders of more than 100 nations, including 28 heads of state and government leaders, shows a great desire to work together for the common good of all humanity, said Kuhn.

More generally, Kuhn added, the initiative also exemplifies President Xi’s new global thinking of “active engagement”: “It is an inclusive developmental model guided by the principle of mutually beneficial growth. Inclusiveness is the key. While the initial focus is strengthening connectivity among Asia, Europe, and Africa, the big vision is to uphold the rules-based, transparent, non-discriminatory, open, and inclusive multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization at its core. ”

The initiative benefits China too, Mr. Kuhn stressed. “It will help China rebalance its own imbalanced geographies because China’s Belt and Road gateway provinces are largely less developed. It is also good for its maturing diplomacy, requiring nuance and sensitivity in dealing with diverse countries and cultures.”

Some media have implied that the Belt and Road initiative poses a challenge to the West. Kuhn rejected this idea and quoted Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi who said, “It must be viewed as a ‘circle of friends’ open to all countries that share similar goals, rather than as a China-led club.”

“What’s for sure is that the world has a great need and China has a grand plan. The Belt and Road Initiative is one of the biggest stories of the early 21st Century,” said Kuhn.

Kuhn also warned of challenges that China will have to handle with sensitivity. “Belt and Road risks are real – economic, financial, structural, political instability, political risk, nationalism, and terrorism. Political instability and terrorism are ever present and China must integrate contingency planning and provide security mechanisms in cooperation with host countries.”

With decades’ long experience of consulting multinational corporations on China strategies and transactions, Kuhn was optimistic about US companies’ role in the Belt and Road Initiative. He said American policy has taken on a more pragmatic approach under President Donald Trump. With creation of American jobs the highest priority, there is no longer a “stigma” or a problem for American companies to take part in China initiated projects.