Xi Doubles Down on Belt and Road Initiative --- Chinese leader, Putin tout trillion-dollar project at summit West largely shuns.

"BEIJING -- With one conflict raging in Ukraine and another unfolding in the Middle East, Chinese leader Xi Jinping is promoting his signature foreign-policy project as a force for unity, cooperation and prosperity around the globe.

At a summit convened here to celebrate the Belt and Road Initiative, a crucial part of China's rivalry with the West, the picture looked more fractured. The prominence given to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the summit, and the near absence of Western representation among the roughly two dozen world leaders who attended, underlined how geopolitical divisions have deepened since Xi proposed the Belt and Road idea a decade ago.

Fissures that ramped up with events in Ukraine are becoming even more stark as the crisis in the Middle East unfolds. The conflict between Israel and Hamas has stretched American and European resources while relieving pressure on Russia and prompting China to align itself more closely with the Palestinian cause.

During a keynote speech inside Beijing's Great Hall of the People on Wednesday, Xi positioned China as a leader of a new, more inclusive global order and promised that his country's rise would benefit any that wanted to participate.

"We don't do ideological confrontation, we don't do geopolitical rivalry and we don't do bloc politics," he said, taking aim at unilateral sanctions, economic decoupling and other tools Beijing accuses the U.S. of exploiting to contain its rivals. "What has been achieved in the past 10 years demonstrates that Belt and Road cooperation is on the right side of history."

Invited to speak directly after Xi, Putin praised what he said were the trillion-dollar infrastructure program's efforts to build a "fairer, multipolar world and system of international relations," Chinese state broadcaster CGTN reported.

Originally envisaged as a way to promote infrastructure development to better link China to Central Asia and beyond, the initiative has faced criticism from Western governments for piling what they say are unsustainable debt loads on some participant countries.

Xi didn't directly address the debt criticism in his speech on Wednesday. Instead, he spoke in broad terms about how China's rise benefits other countries.

"When China does well, the world will do even better," Xi said. "Through Belt and Road cooperation, China is opening its doors even wider to the world."

Amid the conflict in Ukraine, Putin's attendance at this year's forum reinforced China's economic and diplomatic support for the Russian leader even as he has become a pariah in the West.

In response to Western sanctions against Russia following events in Ukraine, trade ties between Russia and China have surged, as Russia has increasingly turned to China to source technologies and machinery it struggles to get elsewhere.

As Russia contends with economic isolation from the West, Putin in his speech invited Belt and Road countries to take part in developing what is known as the Northern Sea Route, which runs through the Arctic from northwestern Russia to the Bering Strait. The route cuts the shipping distance to China and avoids the chokepoints of the Suez Canal and Malacca Strait.

While Russia has previously sought to frustrate China's ambitions in the Arctic, Putin sounded a more welcoming note in his speech in Beijing. "We invite interested states to directly participate in its development," he said of the Northern Sea Route.

In a meeting between Xi and Putin on Wednesday, their 42nd since 2013, the Chinese leader praised what he said was a "good working relationship and a deep friendship" with Putin, Chinese state media reported.

"The Chinese side supports the Russian people taking the path of their own choice for national rejuvenation, defending national sovereignty, security, and development interests," Xi told Putin, according to Chinese state media.

The Chinese state-media readout didn't mention Ukraine specifically, but said the two leaders discussed the situation between Israel and the Palestinians. Putin said the meeting with Xi ran for three hours, during which he provided a detailed update to Xi about the situation in Ukraine.

Under the difficult current circumstances, China and Russia should closely coordinate their foreign policies, Putin told Xi, Russian state media reported.

Russia has previously praised China's official position on the Ukraine conflict, with Beijing taking the view that the security interests of all parties must be taken into consideration in seeking a resolution to the conflict. That position, Western analysts said, lends weight to the Russian stance that external security threats meant it had no choice but to fight the NATO in Ukraine.

There was no immediate word of a breakthrough on long-running negotiations for a new natural-gas pipeline linking Russia and China, dubbed the Power of Siberia 2. The pipeline would traverse Mongolia and bolster Russian gas sales to China, further reorienting Russia's energy industry toward Asia and away from its traditional reliance on Europe.

In a meeting with Mongolia's president in Beijing on Tuesday, Putin said he thinks the project will move forward with good momentum, Russian state media reported.

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Some Lose Enthusiasm for Massive Infrastructure Plan

There is evidence that, in some ways, enthusiasm for the Belt and Road Initiative is waning. This year, roughly two dozen heads of state or government have attended the Beijing summit, compared with the 37 who participated in the latest such forum in 2019.

Other governments, such as Afghanistan, sent lower-level officials. The Taliban dispatched the country's acting minister of industry and commerce.

Noticeably absent from this year's forum is almost all representation from the European Union. Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban was the only head of an EU member state to attend this year's gathering. Leaders from Greece, Italy and Portugal attended the 2019 meeting.

And while the Belt and Road Initiative was once focused on China helping to finance and build large-scale infrastructure, it now appears to be shifting toward smaller, more commercially oriented projects, analysts who follow the initiative say." [1] [2]

1. The biggest infrastructure projects might be already completed:

 "China's Ministry of Commerce indicates China's trade in goods with Belt and Road countries grew from US$1.04 trillion in 2013 to US$2.07 trillion in 2022, with an average annual growth rate of 8%."

2. World News: Xi Doubles Down on Belt and Road Initiative --- Chinese leader, Putin tout trillion-dollar project at summit West largely shuns. Spegele, Brian; Fan, Wenxin.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 19 Oct 2023: A.10.