China’s President Xi Jinping is promoting, in the Belt and Road Initiative, a plan for building the infrastructure crucial for development throughout the world, and emphasizes the interconnected and inclusive focus of this global project.
It would appear that by constructing the transport facilities, the industries, etc. which facilitate economic development, the poorest, most remote, and destitute areas of the world will thereby become accessible, and the resources essential for rescuing people from poverty can be transmitted.
The abysmal inequality which plagues and endangers, ultimately, the survival of everyone, will, through this construction, be reduced, and, ultimately eliminated. This vast global vision should create the economic framework for ultimately building hospitals and schools, within this infrastructure, which will enhance the quality of life for the hitherto most “wretched of the earth.”
President Putin welcomes this initiative as promotion of peace and development. Of particular interest is the great enthusiasm of the British representative, which can be explained in many different ways. The United States also spoke in support of the Belt and Road Initiative, citing various ways in which the country is developing infrastructure, and various industries.
Although Xi Jinping mentions the numerous wars and spread of terrorism, and the refugee crisis, at no point is there any mention of the vast resources being squandered in the weapons industries, or the trillions of dollars spent on building more advanced nuclear weapons. Unless a method is devised of transforming the economies which are based on profit maximization, and the most profitable industry is war, the glorious vision of an interconnected, inclusive and peaceful world will be jeopardized.
Carla Stea is Global Research’s Correspondent at UN headquarters, currently in Beijing for the Belt and Road Forum.
