WHY should anyone sitting outside China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) give a damn about it?

The answer is because it could mean the difference between continuing to value people as a commodity to be ruthlessly exploited or, alternatively, to treat other human beings with dignity and respect.

The Chinese, unsurprisingly, continually remind people that its country has had to endure a century of humiliation.

This century of humiliation was a period in Chinese history that began with the first opium war (from 1839-42) and ended in 1945 as China emerged from Japanese occupation and World War II through to 1949 and the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

The treatment of the Chinese as subhuman during this period by Britain and Japan in particular is a cloak that cannot easily be flung to one side.

There is a determination now in China not to seek retribution against any nation but to ensure that this never happens again and that the country never returns to such humiliation.

The warlike Western colonial powers continue to invent ways to criticise China for its socialist society and daring to seek a new way.

But China continues to develop its economy and has not fired a gun in anger against another country for more than 40 years. A claim that few if any of the Western powers can make.

The BRI, announced by President Xi Jinping in 2013, is a global infrastructure project through south-east Asia to south Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

The whole project draws on what is often referred to as “the spirit of the Silk Road.”

The spirit evokes the key principles of peace, co-operation, openness, inclusivity, mutual learning, trade, exchange and the promotion of cultural diversity.

But the spirit also draws on ancient Chinese wisdoms of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism to emphasise the principles of interdependence between all peoples.

These might sound lofty goals — and indeed they are — but they are, nonetheless no less important for that.

It is also the case that these principles lay at the heart of ancient African wisdom of which only a handful remain intact.

Africans, who have been forced to endure at least 500 years of humiliation — including enslavement from its east and west coasts as well as colonialism and neocolonialism — are also fighting for a new rebirth of its own great civilisations in the same way that the Chinese are.

It is a mistake to see the efforts by China and the African continent as “new” when in fact it is an attempt to rediscover economic, political and cultural heritages that were forcibly stolen by imperialists.

Many parts of central and southern America as well as south Asia are making the same call for a new approach that moves away from the dominance of Western colonial powers that treat these “darker nations” as extractive zones with cheap labour all to benefit the interests of capital.

I make these points because I think it would also be a mistake to see the BRI as coming out of thin air — something dreamt up by President Xi in isolation.

I do not believe that to be the case at all. President Xi appears far too smart to me to do something like that.

The BRI is part of the recognition that the current international system is in place to benefit a small elite section of the Western colonial powers.

In simple terms — the rich are getting unimaginably richer while large parts of the globe are barely able to make ends meet.

China has taken in excess of 800 million people out of poverty since 1978 (according to the World Bank). But, as of 2024 around 8.5 per cent of the world’s population, around 700m people are forced to exist on less then $2.15 a day, a figure that unless something significant changes is only projected to worsen.

The inconvenient truth for the Western colonial powers is that China is responsible for approximately three quarters of the global reduction in extreme poverty over the past four decades.

The people of the global majority are not blind to these developments and have grown sick of being treated as underlings.

The BRI operates on the basis of win-win between partners rather than the do as we tell you or else approach adopted by the Western powers.

This is why we have seen uprisings in places such as the Sahel and southern regions of Africa. The demands for freedom and self-determination are ringing loudly and clearly.

The client (mis)leaders that have accommodated the Western powers looting and pillaging the resources of the global majority are — not before time — being swept aside.

During the Media Co-operation Forum on the BRI in the beautiful city of Kunming in China’s Yunnan province this week I have been fortunate to hear stories of new railway connections, new roads and new maritime routes being established across all parts of the globe.

I have seen people in the media intent on cutting through the “fake news” to tell the stories of how people across the world — in or outside the BRI — are striving to come together rather than the all too frequent ruling-class narrative of people wanting to move apart.

From my experience most people want to build new bridges rather than the higher walls the Western colonial powers seem intent on building.

The logic of doing this is being emphasised by the trade tariffs being used by the US as a weapon of war to “manners” weaker nations into submission.

The BRI must be read alongside the Global Governance Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilisation Initiative all proposed by President Xi.

I will write more about these goals in a future feature, but for now the key point is that they all emphasise the interdependence of all people on the planet and our need to move together in a shared future of peace and prosperity based on mutual respect and non-interference.

Again, Xi is merely reflecting the aspirations of most of the planet — all goals perfectly in alignment with the UN Charter but to which some, led by the US, steadfastly refuse to follow.

The BRI, then, is not against anything or any nation. It is for the vast majority of the globe. It is vital as a way of creating a new multilateral world free of piles of power but where nations coexist and co-operate.

So if this is the rebirth that I talked about earlier then the waters have broken and a new world is trying to be born.

Even though Britain is not a part of the BRI, we on the left must be part of the family that not only helps to give this new world a life but also to help it grow and flourish.