One Belt, One Road includes benefits for all

Since taking office, Chinese President Xi Jinping has been seeking aggressively to put his own stamp on policy and is setting a strong foundation for the next decade of national development. Internally and externally, Xi is trying to straighten the ship of state. This can most readily be seen domestically in the aggressive, and arguably fairly successful, anti-corruption campaign.

As Xi seeks to increase China's prestige and impact on the world, he must think and act far more strategically. One of his early bids toward this goal was the announcement of the "One Belt and One Road" strategic concept.

In actuality, the "One Belt and One Road" project is composed of two individual initiatives, which in and of themselves largely include a reorganization of China's existing bilateral trade and development relationships, with proposed connections to China's multilateral or regional relations helping to bind them together.

In China, more than in the US or Europe, international undertakings may have an important impact or require meaningful reform on the domestic front. This appears to be particularly true of the "One Belt and One Road" initiative, consisting of both the "Silk Road economic belt" and the "21st century maritime Silk Road."

The three-decade-long period of double digit economic growth, largely based on cheap production, appears to be entering the draw down stage, forcing some long needed reforms to the fore.

The integration of international and domestic policies requires that Xi institute reforms in policy and in structure in order to support the developmental goals that he has for the "One Belt and One Road" initiative. Due to these new economic conditions, China's domestic producers are ever more willing and interested in seeking out new markets for their goods, while the government in Beijing seems increasingly willing to make some of the required systemic changes to help keep trade growing. Both of these are good things for the world economy and should be supported.

As for the international implications for the "One Belt and One Road" program, there has been some trepidation from the US and other powers. Many in China take a traditionally Marxist constructionist view of this, in that it isn't so much the form of the policy, but rather its intentions.

According to Xinhua, during his trips to Central and South Asia, Xi emphasized the essential nature of the program as establishing a win-win condition for all nations involved. He stressed that China does not seek to become a hegemon in Asia, and rather is seeking to help the nations of central Asia develop economically.

From the Chinese perspective, a stronger and more developed Central Asia is beneficial to both ends of the Silk Road, that is to say both China and Europe, as well as those in between, i.e. Central Asian states and those nations with open ports on the maritime Silk Road.

By developing Central Asia, China is hoping to bring stability to the region. Stability, as we all know, is one of China's leading strategic imperatives and is a central goal of most of Chinese policies, domestic and international. If China truly seeks to wield its influence to improve stability and prosperity for all those partnering in this endeavor, then it truly may be an all-win achievement.

In pursuit of this goal, China is willing to put its money where its mouth is. China has pledged to support its "One Belt and One Road" initiative with a fund of $40 billion, primarily directed at establishing and improving infrastructure in countries who sign on to this program. This has the benefit of improving the host nation's ability to engage in trade and commerce, and allowing China and Chinese companies to take advance of both the newly developed local markets, as well as benefit from the easier and cheaper flow of goods facilitated by this new and improved infrastructure.

China is also seeking to promote an Asia-Pacific free trade deal in order to help stimulate trade across the "One Belt and One Road." This proposal, however, was seen by some as a competitor to the US-led initiative called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). As such, diplomatic pressure has reportedly been applied to American allies and partners to keep the focus on the TPP, which has taken the wind out of the sails of the Asia-Pacific free trade deal.

This is unfortunate, because in the modern interconnected world of international trade and commerce, there are ever-overlapping frameworks, agreements, and institutions, all of which can work in harmony to improve economic ties, increase commerce, and generally raise the standard of living for all peoples involved.