Cartoon Commentary, B&R Forum①: Jointly drawing glorious picture of 'Belt & Road'

On May 14 - 15, the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which takes the theme "strengthening international cooperation and co-building the 'Belt and Road' for win-win development," will be held here in Beijing.

President Xi Jinping will attend the opening ceremony and host a round-table leaders' summit. 29 heads of state and government leaders and 3 heads of the most influential international organizations including the United Nations' Secretary-General will attend the round-table leaders' summit.

This marks a new height for China's "home field" diplomacy ever since China's successful hosting of the Beijing APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) economic leaders' meeting in 2015 and the G20 Hangzhou Summit in 2016.

This forum will function as a platform for enhancing the Belt and Road construction and have attracted worldwide attention.

Since Xi proposed the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, the B&R construction has obtained its first-stage achievement: evolving from individual projects to interconnected economic corridors and belts; paralleling the development of both land and sea routes; bridging the east to the west.

As a "China Proposal" embodied with oriental wisdom and major power's responsibility, the Belt and Road Intitiative has become a new pattern of improving global governance, a new platform of strengthening international cooperation and a new solution of promoting welfare for peoples in countries alongside the New Silk Road.

We have reasons to believe the B&R Forum will open up a new vista for international cooperation, enhance construction of the B&R onto a new stage, and inject new energy in structuring a more impartial, rational and balanced global governance system.

Byang Maorong, researcher with the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations; cartoon drawing by Liao Tingting