ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND LEADERSHIP ON THE BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE

In September and October of 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping firstly proposed the initiative of jointly building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21^st-century Maritime Silk Road during his visit to countries in Central Asia and Southeast Asia. The phrase derives from the term of “the Silk Road” in ancient China and quickly gains close attention and popularity among the public with the name as “One Belt, One Road”, but according to the National Development and Reform Commission of China [NDRC], it is recommended to use “the Belt and Road Initiative” or “the B&R” as the abbreviated names (Sep., 2015).

This paper intends to probe into the details of the Belt and Road Initiative and find out the implications and suggestions for entrepreneurs and supervisors to make it successful. In order to get an in-depth knowledge and insight of the Belt and Road Initiative, this paper starts with the history background of the Silk Road, and then talks about the proposal of the Belt and Road Initiative and its objectives; the next, the paper discusses relevant challenges and obstacles faced by policy makers as well as business participants; in the following part, recommendations will be provided with further interpretative statements; and the last part will be the list of references used in this paper.

The Silk Road

The “Silk Road”, also called the “Silk Route”, was originally used to refer to a network of trade routes linking the major civilizations of Asia, Europe and Africa for more than two millennia ago. It was named this way in respect to the lucrative trade of silk between China and other countries.

The history of the Silk Road can be traced back even before the Han Dynasty (207 BCE – 220 CE) in practice. However, the road was largely expanded with the rapidly increasing trade of different kinds of merchandise between China and the West in the Han Dynasty, when the Chinese imperial envoy Zhang Qian made successful diplomatic visits to the western regions. The original Silk Road started with Chang’an in the Western Han Dynasty and Luoyang in the Eastern Han Dynasty, respectively, passing via Dunhuang, followed by two branches reaching to the north and the south.

As time went by, the Silk Road was turned into a collective term used for all the channels connecting the ancient China and the rest of Asia, Europe and Africa (China Memory Project), consisting of the official Northwest Silk Road opened up by Zhang Qian, the Grassland Silk Road passing through Mongolia to the Central Asia, the Maritime Silk Road connecting several Chinese costal city to the eastern coast of Africa, and the Southwest Silk Road to India via rugged mountain roads.

For thousands of years, the Silk Road was changed, expanded, cut off, and reopened repeatedly. Primarily serving as a channel for merchandise trading including the silk, furs, jade, jewelry, perfume, etc., the Silk Road also contributed significantly to the communication of politics, cultures, technologies, and economics between the civilizations of China, the Indian subcontinent, Persia, Europe, Africa and Arabia. Various literatures have supported such conclusions. Foltz (2010) and Liu (2010) have shown us how the transmission of ideas and culture, especially in areas of religions, were facilitated by centuries’ trading activities along the Silk Road. Bentley (1993) also suggests that such interaction led to syncretism between different countries and ethnics. For example, while the Xiongnu nomads adopted Chinese’ agricultural techniques and dressing style, the Chinese learnt from Xiongnu’s military and musical techniques.

More importantly, whenever we talk about the Silk Road, we should never ignore the Silk Road Spirit. Even when the Silk Road itself was on the wane, the spirit that we are so proud of has always been carried along, passing from one generation to another, encouraging the progress of social civilization, and promoting the prosperity of countries along the Silk Road. As proposed in the Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21^st-Century Maritime Silk Road issued by the NDRC and el. (2015), the Silk Road Spirit of “peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit” is a historical and cultural heritage that should be shared by all countries around the world. This spirit is the core factor that links to the new Silk Road.

The Silk Road Economic Belt and the new Silk Road

The Silk Road Economic Belt is a newly formed economic development zone roughly covering the similar areas as the ancient Silk Road did, including the northwest part of Shaanxi, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia and Xinjiang, together with the southwest Chongqing, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Guangxi. These areas are rich in natural resources, with geographic advantages and economic disadvantages, and therefore are currently regarded as “the longest and most promising economic corridor in the world”.

The Silk Road Economic Belt is in the scope of the Economic Geography. The development of such economic belt needs to rely on certain transportation routes. Taking such routes as the central axis, and one or several well-developed cities as the coral points, the economic belt will play a function of economic agglomeration and radiation, which will lead to comprehensive development for cities with different economic scales. In such cases, an integrated economic zone for manufacturing, trading and distributing will be formulated, featuring in dense points – the core cities, extended strips – the economic belt, and radiate surfaces – the whole economic areas under influences.

According to the NDRC, considering the beneficial geographic attributes, the Silk Road Economic Belt is expected to play an essential role in a number of aspects. First of all, it should help in bringing together China, Central Asia, Russia and Europe. Secondly, it should be the link between China and the Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Indian Ocean. What’s more, it should be useful for the correlation of China, the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea via the Central Asia and the West Asia.

To be more specific, by taking advantages of the  international transportation routes, such as the railway that connects China and Central Europe through Kazakhstan and Eastern Europe, the Silk Road Economic Belt plans on integrating several nodes and corridors on the land. Currently, the land-based components include the New Eurasian Land Bridge, a China-Mongolia-Russia corridor, a China-Central Asia-West Asia corridor, and a China-Indochina Peninsula economic corridor.

The concept of the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road was raised right after the Silk Road Economic Belt. As far as I see, this new Maritime Silk Road is the ocean-based part as a supplement to the Silk Road Economic Belt. Though the old Maritime Silk Road was mainly comprised of Guangzhou, Quanzhou and Ningbo, with other branching ports like Yangzhou and Fuzhou, the new Maritime Silk Road covers 5 cities including Shanghai, Fujian, Guangdong, Zhejiang and Hainan.

According to the NDRC, the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road is designed to create smooth, secure and efficient transportation channels connecting major sea ports with the purpose to increase foreign investment in China and foster collaboration across the historic Silk Road. The 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road is envisioned with two oceanic routes, one starting from China's coast, through the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, reaching to the Europe, and the other from China's coast, through the South China Sea, to the South Pacific.

To make it clearer, in building the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, elements like the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor will also be included, as an extension to the proposed Silk Road.

The NDRC also provides elaboration of some geographic and regional considerations. The Northwestern regions including Gansu, Xinjiang, etc., and northeastern regions including Heilongjiang, Jilin, etc., should all play a role as the “window of westward opening-up” and “window of northward opening-up” to deepen communication and cooperation with the Central Asia, the South Asia and the West Asia, taking advantages of their geographic traits of being near the border line of the country.

The Southwestern region includes Guangxi, Yunnan and Tibet, etc. Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has the unique advantage as a neighbor of ASEAN countries, and could serve as an opening-up to the South and Southeast of Asia by promoting the border trade and tourism between this region and the neighboring countries. For Yunnan Province, the construction of an international transport corridor should be advanced, which will contribute to the economic cooperation in the Greater Mekong Sub-region, as pivot of China’s opening-up to the South and Southeast Asia.

For Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and all the Coastal regions with a high level of openness, robust economy and strong catalytic influence, we should leverage their strengths in participating in and leading the international cooperation and competition by motivating these areas to carry out deeper reform, create new mechanisms of open economy, and accelerate scientific and technological innovation. The coastal areas with special strengths include the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Bohai Rim, and other cities like Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Zhuhai.

As to the Inland regions with vast landmass, rich human resources and strong industrial foundation, we should encourage regional interaction and cooperation, and propel industrial concentration. We should also deepen the industrial cooperation with neighbor countries by optimizing the process of customs oversight and cross-border trade. Important cities belong to this group are Chengdu and Chongqing, central Henan, Hohhot, Baotou, Erdos and Yulin, Harbin and Changchun, among all of which Chongqing is envisaged as the pivot city.