Expert: China's development efforts widen

China is seen as an increasingly important player in South-South and global development cooperation.

Sourabh Gupta, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for China-America Studies (ICAS), gave several reasons for that view in an interview with China Daily.

President Xi Jinping participated in the 22nd summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, and paid a state visit to Kazakhstan on his way.

It was in Kazakhstan nine years ago that Xi proposed One Belt One Road, now called the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which already involved more than 140 countries and 32 organizations, with over 200 signed cooperation documents signed and more than 3,000 cooperation projects completed or under construction.

Gupta described the BRI as "a very far-sighted initiative".

"Among the key themes that animated President Xi the moment he stepped into office as president was the idea of global development. And the Belt and Road was the flagship initiative of his approach to global development. And I think the Belt and Road has been, for the most part, very successful," he said.

Gupta mentioned that Central Asia "was one of its earliest testing grounds for success" and then moved further into Pakistan, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the Arab world, Africa, Latin America, and even some Mediterranean countries in Europe.

He said China is broadening the concept of development "and we saw that in President Xi's speaking last year at the UN General Assembly, where he talked of the global development initiative".

"China is gradually moving … from infrastructure building and transportation links and connectivity to a broader understanding of development, including building soft infrastructure as well as trying to attain and help countries attain their sustainable development, UN Sustainable development goals," Gupta said.

He discussed the issues of fiscal sustainability and debt that "arose in certain countries" after the COVID-19 pandemic. He said that China "has become an empowered player" to find ways to renegotiate, restructure, reprofile and reduce debt.

"So countries that even received a lot of Belt and Road financing and infrastructure might have certain debt and fiscal sustainability-related concerns," he said. "How can those concerns be worked cooperatively?"

Gupta said it was "heartening" to see that China worked with France and the International Monetary Fund on Zambia's debt. China is building its development philosophy internationally in step with UN sustainability goals.

At the Bo'ao Forum for Asia in April 2022, President Xi introduced the Global Security Initiative. In his keynote speech, Xi said the initiative is to "uphold the principle of indivisible security, build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture, and oppose the building of national security on the basis of insecurity in other countries".

He emphasized the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations as well as their right to choose their own development paths and social systems.

Gupta said that the Global Security Initiative "taps into long-standing principles of China's foreign policy" while it "puts a lot more meat on the bones of the philosophy of Chinese foreign policy".

"By fleshing out these principles into greater detail like divisible and indivisible security, I think, President Xi added a lot of clarity in terms of how China approaches and sees the global system, and as it keeps rising within the global system, what sort of an international player it is going to be and what are the international principles that it is going to champion," said Gupta. "And most of these principles which are being championed (are) arch principles, which are very UN-centered," he said. "And therefore, the UN-centering is very important because that is a foundation and a basis around which 190 countries have been able to associate themselves with."

Gupta said that the Global Security Initiative "will facilitate that dynamic, simply because it is respectful of international society, international law, and the multilateral system as was constructed in 1945 by the major players", he added.

Gupta also mentioned China's increasing role in global digital governance.

In 2020, China proposed the Global Data Security Initiative. China and the League of Arab States (LAS) then jointly announced the China-LAS Cooperation Initiative on Data Security in March 2021, and China and five Central Asian countries agreed on the Data Security Cooperation Initiative of China + Central Asia (C+C5) in June 2022.

China also took steps in the domestic legislation of data security and data governance, with the Data Security Act and the Personal Information Protection Act coming into force in 2021, following the Cybersecurity Act in 2017.

"China's data regulations, data laws and regulations, along with the Europeans, are cutting edge. They are the best in the world. They're also very farsighted in terms of treating data as a factor of production and creating a liberalized universe where data can flow liberally and without interference and interruptions at the cross-border level," said Gupta.

"So, best practices in the area of digital cross-border data flow, cross-border data privacy, cross-border data security are all being written at this point of time. And therefore, this is a perfect time to endow those principles, those best practices in terms of data management."

He also described the Data Security Cooperation Initiative of China + Central Asia as an agreement for the time as well as "an agreement whose time has come".

"It is one of the probably only cutting-edge digital agreements in the world, and that's why it's good to see China at the forefront of rules-making and standard-setting in terms of cross-border data flows," said Gupta.