Xi Jinping to host third belt and road summit in Beijing next week

Conference will be a day shorter than the last one, with no mention of a leaders’ round-table event held previously
A select list of leaders has been invited, sources say, with Russian President Vladimir Putin among those attending

Belt and Road Initiative

Hayley Wong

Published: 5:24pm, 11 Oct 2023

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Chinese President Xi Jinping will host the third belt and road summit in Beijing next week, with a select list of leaders invited, according to sources.

The foreign ministry on Wednesday said the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation – bringing together representatives of at least 130 countries and 30 global organisations – would be held from October 17 to 18. The forum was last held in 2019.

As he has done previously, Xi will make an opening speech at the conference which will mark 10 years of China’s global infrastructure-building scheme, the Belt and Road Initiative.

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But a round-table event held previously is not likely to be on this year’s line-up and Beijing has invited only a select list of leaders to the forum, diplomatic sources told the Post.

That list will include Russian President Vladimir Putin, who confirmed he will attend the forum – a rare trip overseas – during a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in St Petersburg last month. The International Criminal Court in March issued an arrest warrant for Putin over alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

Sources told the Post that some leaders who have met Xi since China reopened its borders following three years of Covid-19 closure had not received invitations to the forum.

But they said there were exceptions, including leaders of strategic partners in Southeast Asia and Africa such as Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who chaired last month’s Asean summit, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

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The foreign ministry has made no mention of the round-table event that has previously brought together state leaders and the heads of international organisations.

Li Kexin, head of the ministry’s Department of International Economic Affairs, on Wednesday said the forum would be “not only the most grand event in the Belt and Road Initiative’s 10 years, but also an important platform for all parties to develop collaborative and high-quality cooperation”.

This year’s conference will be a day shorter than the previous events. There will also be fewer discussions on the agenda, with nine thematic forums to be held – down from 12. Three of the forums will be exclusively for high-level officials, discussing interconnectivity, green development and the digital economy. Sea cooperation has also been added, an area Beijing has given more priority in recent years. The CEO summit, which some 800 chief executives attended last time, will again be held.

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The announcement came a day after Beijing released a white paper on the Belt and Road Initiative, reinforcing its commitment to the “overarching plan and its top-level design” for international cooperation.

China has spent hundreds of billions of US dollars on overseas infrastructure since Xi announced his signature project in 2013 and is redoubling efforts to boost trade relations with its programme partners.

When Beijing hosted the last belt and road conference in 2019, 37 heads of state and seven high-level and international organisation representatives were among around 5,000 delegates attending the event, according to the forum’s official website.