President Trump did not attend the first Belt and road Forum-(BRF) in May of 2017, only sending a sub ministerial delegation. According to the US State d\Department, no US delegation will be attending this month’s second BRF. If true, this would represent a serious error by the Trump administration in its future relations with China. Beyond China, the decision not to participate in this historic conference will undermine US commitment to collaborate with more than half the world’s population that has joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Thus far, the only G-7 nation that has the wisdom to join the BRI is Italy. A minimum of 40 heads of state will be attending the second BRF. For the US to abstain, from this conference on the Belt and Road, which has already transformed the planet, would be strategic blunder in US policy. A more enlightened US foreign policy would view China as a partner in development not as a competitor, as China as been described by the Trump administration.
April 4, 2019
State Department Says U.S. Will Not Attend the Belt and Road Forum
According to an unnamed spokesperson for the U.S. State Department yesterday, the United States will not send high-level officials to attend China’s second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing later this month, Reuters reported. In 2017, when the first Belt and Road Forum took place, the U.S. was represented by Matt Pottinger, the senior White House official for Asia. There are no such plans this year, Reuters stated.
Answering a question from Reuters, the unnamed State Department spokesperson said: “We will not send high-level officials from the United States…. We will continue to raise concerns about opaque financing practices, poor governance and disregard for internationally accepted norms and standards, which undermine many of the standards and principles that we rely upon to promote sustainable, inclusive development and to maintain stability and a rules-based order. We have repeatedly called on China to address these concerns.”
On March 29, speaking to the ruling Communist Party’s official mouthpiece, {People’s Daily}, Political Bureau member Yang Jiechi, who runs the party’s foreign affairs committee, said he found that critics of the Belt and Road Initiative “obviously show a lack of objectivity and fair understanding of the Belt and Road initiative. It is a misunderstanding, misjudgment and is even prejudiced,” stated Yang. Yang also confirmed that “about 40” foreign leaders would take part in the second summit.