Page 6 - ON BUILDING A HUMAN COMMUNITY WITH A SHARED FUTURE

ON BUILDING A HUMAN COMMUNITY WITH A SHARED FUTURE

to take initial shape.
These past four years have seen stronger people-to-people
connectivity. Friendship, which built on close ties among our peoples, is
the key to sound state-to-state relations. Guided by the Silk Road spirit,
we BRI participants have pooled our efforts to build a knowledgeable
Silk Road and a healthy Silk Road, and carried out cooperation in
science, education, culture, health, and people-to-people exchange. Such
cooperation has helped lay a solid popular and social foundation for
pursuing the BRI. Every year, the Chinese government provides 10,000
government scholarships to relevant countries. China’s local governments
have also set up special Silk Road scholarships to encourage international
cultural and educational exchanges. People-to-people cooperation
projects such as Silk Road culture year, tourism year, art festivals, film
and TV projects, seminars, and think tank dialogues are flourishing.
These interactions have brought our people increasingly closer.
These fruitful outcomes show that the BRI echoes the call of these
times, conforms to the laws of development, and meets the people’s
interests, thus ensuring its prospects for the future are vast.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
Friends,
We often say in China, “Beginning is the most difficult part.” A
solid first step has been taken in pursuing the BRI. We should build on
the momentum generated to steer it toward greater success. In pursuing
this endeavor, we should be guided by the following principles.
First, we should build the Belt and Road into a road for peace. The
ancient Silk Road thrived in times of peace, but declined in times of war.
The BRI cannot develop without a peaceful and stable environment. We
should foster a new type of international relations based on mutually
beneficial cooperation, and we should forge partnerships based on
dialogue not confrontation and friendship not alliances. All countries
should respect each other’s sovereignty, dignity, and territorial integrity,
each other’s development paths and social systems, and each other’s core
interests and major concerns. Some regions along the ancient Silk Road
used to be lands of milk and honey. Yet today, these places are often
associated with conflict, turbulence, crisis, and challenge. Such state of

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