 People are still coming in and out, so we'll just wait half a minute. Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming to this session on the Belt and Road Initiative. The Belt and Road Initiative was started, was mentioned by President Xi Jinping of China in 2013 while he was visiting Kazakhstan. He was talking about the terrestrial belt, and then the next year in Indonesia, I believe it was, he mentioned the sea route or the sea road. It used to be called the Belt One Road, and later they call Belt and Road Initiative or BRI. A lot of people are not so clear about the terms, especially in English, because I believe that was a mistake made by the Chinese in translation. And that is, the belt is a terrestrial belt that spans all the way from East Asia, from Japan, Korea, China, all the way to the eastern part of East Europe. The road in the Chinese language can be sea road, but of course, in the English language, you don't have a road in the sea. So perhaps we should call it a sea route, but it doesn't matter. The road is a sea link. And this is my first point. The second point is that this is nothing new. 2000 years ago, mankind already had the silk road. What we are talking about today, basically geographically, is exactly the same area that was there 2000 years ago, and President Xi Jinping mentioned in 2013 that this is a silk road. So I suppose is nothing new under the sun, and this is just another effort of mankind over a long period of time. This thing was mentioned by China, was brought up by China, but from day one, President Xi Jinping mentioned that this is not something for China alone. This is way too big for any one country. This is something that is indeed for the international community. China, wealthy as it may be, does not have all the necessary funding for such a huge endeavor. It is really an endeavor that crosses 50, 60 countries, indeed, not just the countries that is touched along the silk road today, given transportation and technology and communication, anyone can participate in this effort. And hence, for example, the AIIB, the Asia Investment Infrastructure Investment Bank. Yes, started by China, but do you know that today some of the top executives are American, European, the rest of Asians? And this is something that is truly an effort that needs the international community to participate. Where I think that it has went wrong, if it did go wrong, was that I believe that the populace in particular, populace in particular on the internet had just blown this thing way out of proportion. And then of course, foreign countries, some of them who don't like either China or Xi Jinping, want to make it into a grand strategy. Well, if it is a grand strategy, as far as I can tell, as an economic strategy, as we will show later geopolitically, it really does not make sense, but economically it makes all the sense. Let's confront this head-on. That is, why is China bringing this up? What is there for China? Well, as I said, it is for everybody who want to participate. And by the way, everybody sign up on AIB, all the major nations except two. That is United States and Japan, I hope they will join very soon. Obviously there is something for China. Nobody in the international arena does everything, does things because of altruism. It must be for its own good. In the short run, this is very good for China because China is over inventory and China has over capacity. China needs to sell steel, cement, many things elsewhere. Number one. Number two, in the medium term, I think China needs energy security. That is very critical to China and indeed food security as well, but energy security is number one. And then in the long term, all those countries along the belt, the terrestrial belt, are basically Muslim countries. And China does have some internal issues with the Muslim community. For the most part, in all the provinces, there's no problem except one. And some people have mentioned that and that is a bigger situation in Xinjiang province. So China needs to make friends with all the Muslim countries, west of China, all the way to Eastern part of East Europe. Number two. Only when the terrestrial belt of Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, all the way up to Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and so forth, unless there is economic development, they will not be able to trade with China. China need to help them first, together with any other country who want to participate in building the infrastructure that is necessary for those countries to economically develop. And finally, I suppose it's also good to make friends. After all, the United States every year in the United Nations in Geneva, pick on China on its human rights record. I don't know why they don't pick on the Saudi Arabian, but anyway, they pick on the China and it's very useful to have more friends. My last comment is this and I will open it and I will turn to my three speaker and that is, I believe that 100 year later, 200 years later, 500 years later, all the geopolitical, all the geopolitical interactions may be accepted as is or may be forgotten. But whatever it is, there is one thing I believe that is underlying the whole thing that will not be forgotten. And that is the cultural exchange. Just like Silk Road of the old days, of course it accomplished something ge economically, a little bit geopolitically, but mainly the cultural exchange has perhaps affected the world more than anybody else. So I'm very, very honored to be here with the three very distinguished speakers. Immediately to my left, my good friend, Mr. C.Y. Leung, he was the third chief executive of Hong Kong. Under the British, it's called Governor, they're governors. Now that after 1997, the top leader of Hong Kong is called the chief executive. I suppose his business is very important to us. So Mr. Leung is the first chief executive, the third chief executive of Hong Kong after 1997 and after his term was up, he is now a vice chairman of CPPCC or China Political, People's Political Consultative Conference, which ranks him as one of the leaders of China. So next to him is my other good friend, Shiv Kamka. Shiv's family is truly amazing. They hail from India. However, his parents are mostly in London, although every time I'm in London, his parents are traveling, can't see me. But anyway, Shiv has lived 20 years, 25 years in Russia. He speaks Russian fluently, many other languages as well, and then he is doing business all along the terrestrial belt, of course in India, which straddles both the belt and the sea road, but also Russia and that he is, I understand, recently doing some business in China as well. So he is truly very qualified to speak on this subject. Last but not least, Dr. Bayu, Krishna Muti, the former Minister of Trade from Indonesia, as we all know, Indonesia is really the big country in Southeast Asia. They account for 40% of the population and 40% of the GDP of the entire Asian countries. And Dr. Bayu is a leader in many, many fields, including agriculture, trade, and so forth. And so we are very, very happy, Dr. Bayu, that you can be with us. So I will begin by inviting Mr. Leung to perhaps being a Chinese leader now, a national leader, tell us something about the Belt and Road Initiative. What does China have in mind? How can other countries participate? And then I will turn to Shiv and Dr. Bayu. Mr. Leung, floor is yours. Good morning, everyone. I'm very pleased to be in Morocco, attending the World Policy Conference, which is my first time. I have two hopes. One is that my diary will allow me to come back to join you again next year. The second hope is that hopefully, at the next year's World Policy Conference, I'll be able to come with more of my fellow countrymen to share with you the Chinese narrative. I heard the name China being mentioned in many different contexts over the past day and a half. And I think I should encourage more of my fellow countrymen to come and share their narrative with you. Belt and Road, two basic points. One, the Belt and Road Initiative is not limited, not limited to the 60-plus countries that are found along the traditional Belt and Road. As an example, at the Belt and Road Summit held in Beijing May last year, the British Chancellor of Stryker and the United States Secretary for Commerce also actively participated. Over 100 countries were in Beijing for that location. So that's the first point. Second, there are five connectivities. There are five connectivities. Much has been said about the successes and failures of the regional and international infrastructure projects. But there are actually five connectivities under the Belt and Road Initiative. Policies, facilities, trade, capital, and people-to-people connectivity. So I'll repeat again. Policies, facilities, trade, capital, and people-to-people. I shall return to these connectivities a bit later. The basic premise of the Belt and Road Initiative is that the world is highly connected. And although it is already highly connected, it can be better connected still through more focused international cooperation. We had in the past overlooked certain parts of the world in terms of connectivities. We have overlooked certain parts of connectivity. And we have overlooked certain ways of enhancing the connectivity. So it's time in this increasingly globalizing world that we have sort of focused actions. Let me give you one example. Kazakhstan is a country. This country is not small. It's not on our lips every day. In terms of land mass, it is the 10th largest country in the world. I, for one, fly from Hong Kong and out of Asia to parts of Europe, typically London very frequently. I sometimes even do Hong Kong, London their returns, leaving Hong Kong at midnight, arriving in London at 6 o'clock in the morning, breakfast, shower, change, going to the office by taxi, 9 o'clock meeting, finish at 5 o'clock, go back to the airport, and fly back to Hong Kong. The flight, comfortable, convenient, takes about 11 hours. But somehow, we, living in Asia, and people living in London coming to Asia, too, somehow assume that there's nothing, there's this hollowness between Hong Kong and Europe, or between Asia and Europe, not knowing that you have these large countries, including five-star countries, including Kazakhstan, the 10th largest country in the world in terms of land mass, that's there between Hong Kong and Europe. Flying from Hong Kong to Kazakhstan takes only about five and a half hours. Flying from the closer parts of Europe to Kazakhstan, again, takes only about five and a half hours. So that's one reason why we need to have a focused approach to connectivity, because we have been missing certain important parts of the world that we need to connect with. Now, why was I in Kazakhstan? I was there a few months ago to attend the launch of the International Financial Center. I had this conversation with the Kazakhstan Prime Minister when I was Chief Secretary of Hong Kong three years ago, and he mentioned to me the fact that they've taken international advice, and they want to establish an International Financial Center in Astana, in Kazakhstan. And Hong Kong being one of the largest International Financial Centers in the world may have something to offer. And so finally, they were ready. They launched. It was very well attended by European and American experts. There were a few Chinese people there. It wasn't a Chinese initiative. It was an international initiative. And Kazakhstan has come up with a rather ingenious, innovative way of kickstarting the international financial activities. They have adopted, they needed to change their constitution for this. They adopted British common law when it comes to signing financial contracts. And they even appointed five senior British judges to form the Kazakhstan International Financial Center legal authority. Now, Kazakhstan is a landlocked country, big as it may be. There's now road connection to Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China. And then there's a new rail connection from Xinjiang to a seaport in southern China. I had a conversation with the Deputy Prime Minister of Kazakhstan when I was there, exploring with him how goods to be exported from Kazakhstan to other parts of the world could use the road connection in China and then a new rail connection in China. Instead of going along the Yangtze River to a eastern seaport, they could actually go down as an alternative to go down to the southern part of China using a seaport there next to Vietnam. Now, who built the railway? It's a joint venture between Singapore and China. So that really goes to show how international, something as simple, you may say, as moving goods produced in Kazakhstan to the outside world may be. Now, the Prime Minister of Kordivore said yesterday that one of the priorities is the building of infrastructure. China is part of the international community. And China itself has done a lot of infrastructure in the past 40 years since reform started. And China realized a couple of things. Firstly, infrastructure projects could be costly. In Hong Kong, we just opened a month ago our very expensive high-speed rail connecting Hong Kong to the rest of the country's high-speed rail network. A few days ago, we opened this longest sea bridge in the world and also it's very costly. Now, China has learned that while these projects would be very costly, they are also crucially important in opening parts of the country so that people, goods, capital could move in and also in the reverse direction. And China likes to share this experience and expertise with other parts of the world on the trade front. It's not just about China under the Belt and Road Initiative exporting more to other countries. It is also about China buying more from other countries as well. In about 10 days, the first China import-expo is not import and export-expo, it's import-expo will be opened in Shanghai. So far, 2,800 enterprises from 130 countries, 2,800 enterprises from 130 countries, including 180 from the US, have confirmed their participation. People-to-people connectivity, one of the five connectivities. Let me share with you what Hong Kong, as part of China, is doing as an example. I found that a year ago, the Belt and Road Hong Kong Center and this center focuses on people-to-people connectivity, not commerce, not trade, not capital movements. We have sponsored and organized so far students from 70 schools in Hong Kong to visit, so I say, off the beaten track countries, including countries in Africa. The center will sponsor 280 school principals and teachers as well. We also have a Catrack Linus eradication project going on in Cambodia, in a certain province in Cambodia. We've identified 8,000 to 10,000, which is the total size of the Catrack blind population in this province in Cambodia. And our medical team is there to stay until the last patient is cured. So we probably take about two years to do this. It's a rather unique project in that we don't fly in and fly out. We fly in, we stay there until the last surgery is performed. Two weeks ago, the center sponsored a visit of about 14 orphans from Kazakhstan to Hong Kong. Lastly, let me just conclude by quoting this and saying this. Well, I'd like to quote this, no man is an island. Well, I'd like to say is no man should be an island. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Leung. Chef, now I turn to you. You know, you operate in a part of the world that most people do not operate. That is, in the terrestrial belt between China and Eastern Europe. As far as I can tell, I just came back from Africa where I go every year. One of the last developed, less developed part of the world is really the Osil Road. Whereas historically it was very advanced, but today, through colonialism and otherwise, Africa, Latin America, they are all rather developed. The only part that is perhaps the least developed, and I've been there many a times, is between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, all the way to Georgia and Armenia and so forth. You operate in there. What do you think about the Belt and Road Initiative? It wasn't started by Russia. Your adopted country is not started by India, although they are welcome to join. You see opportunities? What are the problems? Are you suspicious of China's intention or what? Tell us, please. Shift camera. Thank you very much, Rony. Thank you first of all for inviting me here. It's a delight to be here. My first time to Morocco and a beautiful country. I'd like to give two perspectives. One is a perspective as someone working in Russia and understanding the Russian mindset and the Central Asian mindset. And the second thing is as an Indian and how we see it from an Indian perspective. I lead India's engagement with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as the leader of the Indian business delegation there. And so I see this slightly two views of the Belt and Road, One Belt, One Road Initiative. From the Russian perspective, the West in the last 15 years, or really especially since sanctions in 2014, has really pushed Russia eastwards and pushed Russia to a much more sinocentric view of the world. And that has meant that Russia today sees One Belt, One Road as a tremendous opportunity for Russia to encourage growth within Russia, to create greater connectivity with Asia, and a viable strategy to engage with the East rather than its predominant strategy which was always to engage more with the West. And I think examples of that are very specific. So $46 billion of money has now been invested in Belt and Road related projects, $46 billion. The Amur Bridge is now being completed, although it was stored for many years. A rail corridor has been created, the UTLC, a freight land bridge basically, which starts in Dostik in Kazakhstan on the border of China and ends up in Kaliningrad. And it's owned by the Belarus government, Kazakhstan government and Russian government, state owned railway companies, one third each. They plan to transport one million containers by 2025 from a start of about, right now they're doing about 176,000 containers. So very fast growth. The Russia China Investment Fund has been created between RDIF and CIC in China, $2 billion fund. And the two big projects, the Russians and the Chinese are working on now. And obviously with Central Asia all tagging along as part of the Eurasian Economic Union are the Renminbi Fund, a fund which will not use dollars or euros, which will be effectively between Renminbi and Rubles to be able to invest in that region, as well as a polar silk route. As the Arctic ice cap is melting, transporting LNG from Yamal to China using the Arctic polar silk route is another project that's being studied very deeply and I think may well become a reality. That's the Russian perspective as something that the Belt and Road Initiative is something that's encouraging investment, encouraging growth, encouraging connectivity, and actually is a wonderful good thing to do. And of course there's geopolitics attached, which will be there, but it's good because both sides are connected in a positive manner to that. There's obviously some strategic hesitation historically between China and Russia, and that is now reducing due to this connectivity and encouragement and also lack of strong relationship with the West. India, on the other hand, has a much more cautious view of Belt and Road Initiative. The Chinese have invested $62 billion in something called the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. It's the largest single Belt and Road Initiative project and it goes through disputed territory in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. 21 power stations are being built, roads are being built, railways are being built, a huge international airport and a huge international port. The telecoms, including a GPS system, has been put in there, Baidu, which is the Chinese version of GPS, or Galileo, or GLONASS, has been already installed there and is already working. All of this makes India nervous. Similarly, the Chinese have invested $31 billion in infrastructure or committed to invest $31 billion into Bangladesh. In Sri Lanka, they have started a port, which then due to the port being unable to function adequately has now been taken over by the Chinese due to unsustainable debt load. That's a $1.3 billion project, which the Chinese now have taken under a hundred year lease. So this encirclement of India, while at the same time Belt and Road has had no appreciable investment in India, no connectivity with India, no money has been invested in India, makes India feel actually that this is really a strategic encirclement strategy, a containment strategy for India's growth over the next 20 to 30 years. And this has made India nervous and is kind of, therefore, it shows you the two sides of it. Malaysia, of course, has taken a more, even a more aggressive position with when Prime Minister Mahathir was in China a couple of months ago, he canceled $3 billion of Belt and Road projects. He put $20 billion of Belt and Road projects on suspension due to a fraud investigation against one MDB, the big financial institution which collapsed and accused China very bluntly of a new form of colonialism, a neo-colonialism, which was obviously not received well by the Chinese. I think the truth lies between those two extremes and I think that from my point of view as a very personal opinion, I welcome the Belt and Road Initiative as a chance to bring necessary infrastructure to the planet. It's great to see someone taking leadership on that. The question is under what rules will that investment be made? Will it be made on the basis of a multilateral rules-based system or will it be a purely Sino-centric system where all legal disputes are resolved in Shenzhen and Xi'an as it is at the moment? Thank you. Shreve, let me ask you a question. You rightly say that China has not put any money in India. I suppose India may be suspicious if China were to put the money into India. If China were to propose to India and say, can we jointly do a project such as the one in Kazakhstan or the rail link, do something together in India? Do you think that India will be amenable to that? So I have personally been involved, Ronny, in many discussions between Chinese companies and the Indian government and Indian partners. And what we have seen time and again is Chinese companies come, they study everything, they talk a lot of interesting things, but when it comes down to actually investing and doing something, nothing happens. And so this has created an atmosphere of, really it's more of an expedition to analyze and understand and study rather than to actually do anything. Now obviously there is some hesitation on the Indian side as well for strategic assets, some port source, other things might be. But I think it's extremely important for China and India to really engage. And I think our Prime Minister's recent visit, which was a visit to meet with the Chinese Premier, was extremely good. The meeting went extremely well. And I think there's a thawing and a warming of the relationship, I would even say. And I think it's a great opportunity for the two countries with the largest population on the planet to actually show the world what it means to take leadership on a planet where leadership is solely lacking, unfortunately. I await that day, Shiv. Let's hope that it will happen. I used to serve in two American companies boards. Both of them have businesses in India. And I was personally as a director, sued in every case. And I have looked into the opportunities in India myself or my family. We haven't done a thing. A lot of my family have not either. I'm hopeful that Modi, whose I believe doing something good in the economic area, will be able to change some situation such that there will be a lot more incoming investment. Dr. Bayu, now I turn to Indonesia, which is really in some ways the leader and representative of the ASEAN, which is very, very important and a sizable economic block. As we all know, the terrestrial belt and the sea row is quite different in the sense that the terrestrial belt go through very large countries such as Kazakhstan. Rather, less developed rule of law is not that strong. And hence, a lot of infrastructure projects are needed. For that, I don't think private sector will be that easy to do. And hence, perhaps some of the stable enterprises from China may have to be involved. But it's always the case, human civilization always developed around water. Whether there's a sea or river or lake. And the sea row all the way from China, which is an old silk row by sea, which is stronger actually in the old days than the terrestrial silk row. And that's the area where a lot of people, highly populated, rather developed, more wealthy in general. So the belt and the row are really two very different concepts on my mind. How does Indonesia as a leader in your part of the world, how do you see the Belt and Road Initiative? Are there opportunities? Are there dangers? What's your concern? Dr. Bayu. Thank you, Ronnie, for inviting me here. And of course, congratulations, Therian WPC with an excellent conference. I think we need to see this on the very core that the BRI or the OBO, the O-B-O-R Initiative, is basically an infrastructure development initiative. Whether or not we use land or sea, this is the first initiative, I think, in the coherent manners in this size on infrastructure development. So that's why we, many countries, 60 countries already and including Indonesia, welcome the initiative because we are trying to develop our own. And within Indonesian development plan, we already put out about 350 billion US dollars of plan of infrastructure development for the next seven to eight years. And I think I believe about 200 billion of it, already been in discussion with the BRI. And probably about 56 billion is, you know, tried to materialize on the investments. So in Indonesia, they call it the Maritime Corridor developments, and that is part of developing infrastructures within Indonesia as an archipelagic countries. So again, we welcome the infrastructure developments. But I think the question is to whom it serve, to whom the infrastructure serve. And I do believe that the BRI need to serve the achievement of sustainable development goals, right? Poverty reductions, food securities, energy securities, employment creation and so forth. And I would like to underline that you already mentioned it, food and energy and maybe water securities. Many of the countries who are involving in the BRI are in the big needs to have that on their survival. We face climate change. We also, at least in Indonesian experience, the last few months, if you look at the media, we also need to have a disaster preparedness, put it out as a part of infrastructure developments and post-disaster rehabilitations or earthquake, tsunami and so forth. And I think this is make Indonesia approach the BRI initiative rather carefully because many are asking China to open up their markets, but I think in our experience, please be careful because China is such big countries to put on context something like this. Indonesia is number four in term of population in the world. We import about two to three million tons of soybean. China import 60 million tons of soybean. So you can imagine if China use the infrastructures to fulfill their needs, maybe there will no other soybean left for countries like Indonesia, for example. So I mean, this is something that we put this in a very, because we do totally understand about the reason of the Chinese government and Chinese people, of course. We're not blaming them about that, but that is the situation. So I think that one point that we need to understand of this initiative. The second is the process of development. You mentioned about the investment, investment related to loan, loan related to debt. That is one aspect. But within the, much of the project, I think that is the case of Malaysia, you mentioned about Malaysia, that's a concern Prime Minister Mahathir is not only about the investment, but also the labor market as well as the product markets because the investment come also with a package and that package is a product that they've been used in the project as well as the worker who are also being used there. The other point I think is very important that BRI, I'm not against it, just to put this on the context, that we need to have a short-term and long-term result on that BRI. Why? Because political decision in our democratic country is short-term. It's a five years process. One years is honeymoon after that work and the next two years is campaign ready. So it's very short actually. So we need to have a result. So the government, the current government and the next government, whoever, will support the sustainability of the project because infrastructure is a long-term project. That's last point that I would like to share on this very distinguished conference is that if the BRI can be put on the land as it been dreams by China and also other countries, I think from the last two days we talk about multilateralism, I think this will create new set up of multilateralism. Not only deal with agreement or diplomacy or negotiation, bound by infrastructure, physical infrastructures and that will create a different ball game in terms of multilateralism. Thank you. Thank you, very good point. I wonder, take for example Dr. Bayu, the rail link that Mr. Luang mentioned between Kazakhstan, well all the way, I suppose Kalina's grant, all the way to southern port of China, pass it through Kazakhstan. Obviously it benefits China. Whenever you pass through goods and capital and people, it benefits China. But it also benefits Kazakhstan as well because it links it, give it a seaport and then also the high speed rail that goes both east and west or south and west. So would you consider that as mutually beneficial? Yes, I think that is something that we can see as a mutual, but again, size does matter. Size matters, right? Yes, China is big and you know compared, let me put it this way, China compared to Malaysia, I think certainly both will take the benefit, but the size that they will take by China and Malaysia will be different. So that is something not easy to understand, not easy to comprehend, especially in the political decision making. I think that Malaysia is an interesting case. Yes. I just held a seminar in Hong Kong on the IMBD. IMBDB, sorry. I just held a seminar on that and the two Wall Street journalists who discovered that were the two speakers, the only two speakers. And I suppose there's a lot of things behind the scene there that a lot of people don't want to touch and hence that perhaps might have forced the hand of Dr. Mahatir to back off from that. So it is really domestic corruption related rather than necessarily geopolitical or economically related. On this matter of size, I think you brought up a very good point, talking about you. 10 years ago, the government of Israel asked me to help them develop economic relationship with China. So I brought a lot of Chinese business leaders to Israel. But in the last one year, I began to tell my Israeli friends, don't be very careful because China is so crazily big and Israel is rather small that it can overwhelm and then have a bad lash. That is something that I tell my Chinese friends as well that you should be careful not to do that. Moreover, I think from Israel or any other country's perspective, which is part of the BRI, it is important to pick on quality rather than quantity in order not to have a bad lash. Can I now invite, before opening to the floor, invite the three speakers to comment on each other. If anything you want to add to comment on each other's talk, please do so now before I open to the public. Very quickly about, is it working? Yeah. Very quickly about Malaysia. Malaysia has either suspended or cancelled a major infrastructure project with China. What has escaped international attention so far is that at the same time, Malaysia has also either cancelled or suspended a major infrastructure project with Singapore, which is this long railway connecting Malaysia Peninsula to the island state of Singapore. So there are domestic financial, economic, and political reasons as well. I was in Malaysia about three weeks ago speaking at a conference, a China conference organized by the Hong Kong English newspaper at Hong Kong South China Morning Post. Very well attended, it was a two-day conference and they had about 700 people from very parts of the region. Three ministers of the Malaysian government came to speak and they were supportive of the Belt and Road Initiative. And one minister said this, I mean, you might want to just check it out because I think the South China Morning Post is still carrying this report on their website. And he said China doesn't have any, in their view, expansion ambitions, territorial expansion ambitions. If China had the emerald, emerald Zheng He, who had been exploring different parts of the world, and apparently he came as far as the coasts of East Africa in a place where it's part of Kenya today. And he said if China had territorial ambitions, they would have 600 years ago, they would have conquered and colonized Malaysia, but the Chinese didn't. Breasts did. This comparison between how China behaved, at least in those days, and how some Western countries behaved in around the same period didn't come from me or Chinese person, it came from Malaysian minister. So I'll just pause there, thank you. Chef? No, I just wanted to add that, look, lots of, there've been some great examples of Belt and Road projects doing well. Piraeus, the port in Greece, which was taken over in 2010, it was 93rd largest port in the world. Today it's the 38th largest port in the world in seven, eight years because of Chinese investment, upgradation and support. So I think there are lots of good opportunities to engage. I think the question is, is it hegemony with consent or hegemony without consent? And I think that's really the key question. Is it with the consent of the multilateral rules-based order with global best practice? Or is it a very sinocentric strategy that we're gonna do it this way and you can be a small country, Burkina Faso or wherever, we're gonna just do it like this? I think that's the core question that underlies, I think the success globally in acceptance of Belt and Road as a positive development project versus something that is purely serving the interests of the Chinese state growth. Let me run if I may. Chopin here. Hong Kong is regarded by the central authorities of China as an important and key node in the Belt and Road Initiative. One of the things that we have been saying to Beijing, and I think we're getting some traction following, and also to enterprises, particularly construction companies that are venturing out to the federal countries, it says, please use the Hong Kong contracting system and the Hong Kong dispute resolution system, better still put Hong Kong in the applicable law part of these contracts, Hong Kong. So if we do that, these Belt and Road infrastructure contracts would be drafted in Hong Kong law, which is essentially English common law, and any dispute will be resolved accordingly. Dr Bayu? Yeah, two points. First, I think the increasing demand for food, energy, and water in the futures will be tremendous. And maybe some of the countries worry about that because they still have it, right? The second, I think, the second point is the trade war issues and policy by other countries and put China in term of a bear eye in an upper head. And I think that is inevitable. And we should discuss that more carefully on looking at the futures, because again, the bear eye is not something for tomorrow. It is for 10, 15, 20 years from now. Very good, thank you. Okay, now let's open it to the floor. Is there any question, please, identify yourself and then ask a question. The gentleman in front, the microphone, please. Front row. Thank you, Mr. Laishubi, academician, former minister, Algerian. The interest of these spaces of reflection is to be able to link between the different reflections of the different panels. So I would like to quickly resume what you said. You mentioned the interest of developing marginalized areas or sometimes peripheral areas. And when we look at what some have qualified to be the world system that the economist had, Korean had qualified as a triad, we realize that this world system had a asymptote, had limits, because it left marginalized areas. And so this idea, this initiative and news from that point of view, to recover peripheries, to put them back in the world. So could we share the critical reflection that the different panels, especially this morning, when we talked about Trump's policy, some of us made part of the term, saying, we're going to wait for Trump to leave, that America comes back, and certainly we're going to have new ideas, new visions. When yesterday I was allowed to say modestly that in the initiatives, we certainly had to have more data, so do you have the impression that there are spaces, logic that have reached asymptotes and that the world is interested in telling them that they need to get out of their asymptotes and that everyone joins, maybe to try to create a new vision with obviously all the reserves, all the reflections that you mentioned, to see if this new system is not hegemonic, to see if this system is consultative and that it brings interest. But it's clear that for these regions, the debate is quite marginalized, periphery, suffering from all the difficulties, no infrastructure, no development structure, and we don't propose it, and if someone comes and proposes all that, it's obvious that the temptation is there. So between the marginalization and the new initiatives, shouldn't we reinterrogate our strategic friends in these opulence spaces of the time to tell them, can you not take the world differently? Thank you. And any of the three panelists would like to take a crack? Okay, I'll try to take a crack. So I think that the current geopolitics, which seems to be fracturing and going back to the creation of inward-looking blocks, I see that really as a hiccup, as Carlos Gon said, it's a hiccup in the arc of history because I think globalization is inevitable. And I think the leadership role that China has taken to actually say we're gonna go to countries all over the world, build this connectivity, the US stepping out of that role and not really taking leadership in that, Europe having its own issues at the moment. I think that there is a new space that's been created and I think there will be a new global architecture. I'm part of the BRICS, for example, the BRICS Council and I see interesting things happening there. I'm part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. I see interesting things happening there. And I think it's really about us as a team. And I just wanna repeat what Dr. Bayou said that we are very focused on sort of a very particular elite view of the world. The reality is today on the planet, the World Economic Forum data that came out a year or two ago says that if this room were a hundred people, eight people have 83% of the wealth. Eight people have all the food and drinks for the next three days for our conference. I think we would have a little crisis here. So I think that we need to really step up to the plate as global leaders and realize that what we're trying to do is not just about the zero sum game of power politics that existed 100 or 200 or 500 years ago. I think it's very important for leadership to really grow up, move out of this adolescent stage. We need adults in the room who go, how do we actually get the planet functioning? Because it really is one world with all the connectivity that exists today. Everything is in everyone's mobile phone, in everyone's television. And I think that we're sitting on potentially a big disaster socially in terms of refugee crises and migration and many other problems compared to what we have today. If we don't really deal with the core issues of global economic growth, global economic leadership, political leadership, and actually constructive dialogue. Okay, Mr. Leung, and then Dr. Bayou, and then the gentleman in the middle. On the question of multi-electoralism, I read in a Hong Kong newspaper report this morning on the early results of the Japanese Prime Minister, Abby's visit to Beijing, the first such visit in seven years. The two countries announced six major points of agreement. One which is the question of the two countries working together in third-party infrastructure projects. Now, this is multi-electoralism. It's not Japanese building projects in China or the Chinese building it in Japan, it's China and Japan doing it in third countries. So I think that's welcoming and it's a new development and it really underscores the nature of BRI. Dr. Bayou and the gentleman in the middle. Yes, I think the only certainty on these issues is that the population of the world is growing up, the demand for resources is growing up, and we need to come with the solutions because business as usual will doom us. And I think we will welcome any initiative who are willing to take the risk and the effort together and solving their problems. China is not always compelling for Indonesia, we have our history with China, but now we can become friends and we work together in so many aspects because we see the same threat and the belt and road initiative, that's the only notes that probably I could share with you, need to be an instrument to solve that problem. The gentleman in the middle, please. Jean-Pierre Cavistan again. In spite of what has just been said, it seems to me that there is a little chance for the belt and road initiative of becoming a multinational or multilateral initiative. One of the figures you haven't mentioned is 89% of the investments of the infrastructure projects realized on the belt and road are funded by China and built by Chinese companies. So I mean, one of the things you haven't mentioned is the reaction of the US and Europe to the belt and road initiative, and that's maybe one positive kind of indirect impact of the belt and road initiative that both the US and Europe have put together some money to build infrastructure and to finance infrastructure in Africa and elsewhere. So it's kind of reaction to the belt and road. But my question is about two issues you haven't mentioned very much, profitability, profitability and debt. Sorry. Profitability and debt. Profitability. Yep. And debt. And debt. Two weeks ago I was in Djibouti and clearly for a conference, but I took advantage of that conference to observe what the Chinese are doing there. You, I'm sure, were aware of the military base which has been built last year. But none of the projects in which China has been involved is profitable. None of them. The train is losing money. The train from Djibouti to El Salvador, you've got two trains a week, they're losing money. I don't know whether, I mean, and the Dorelli multi-purpose port is losing money. And there's a new free trade zone. There is no one inside and built by China which is losing money as well. So, and then Djibouti has a debt of 1.4 billion US to China and the GDP of Djibouti is 1.8 billion. So, and Djibouti doesn't have the money to pay that debt back to China. So what's gonna happen? Maybe China is going to take over the Dorelli multi-purpose port. Maybe another country will stay there. But here, you know, these two questions needs to be addressed because countries like Djibouti are really in difficult situation to pay back the debt and to make the projects which were financed by China profitable. So it seems to me, I mean, one of the drivers of the Belt and Road Initiative, at least in the part of Africa, seems to be much more geopolitical than economy. But the question for the time, thank you. Thank you. On the question of profitability, the Hong Kong experience, the Chinese experience is that we don't look at the financial return alone. Financial return is important. Some projects have to be bankable. But we also look at economic benefits and social benefits. If we just look at the financial bottom line, I'm afraid the underground railway system in Hong Kong will never have been built. The high speed rail system in the mainland of China will never have been built and so on and so forth. So that's one point. As I said in my presentation, China is sharing its own experience within China with other countries in the world. China raises a lot of debt to fund its own infrastructure projects within the country. So they are not really preaching without practising. China is sharing experiences with other countries. You also mentioned... Debt. Yes, debt. Before profitability, the same argument. These infrastructure projects are important and one shouldn't just look at them as if they were pure commercial and privately funded projects. Last two questions. The lady at the end and then the gentleman in front of her. Yeah, please. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. My name is Astana. I'm the Malaysian ambassador here in Rabat. So you'll understand why I asked for the floor. I was quite pleased to hear some level of understanding on Malaysia's position on the issue, both from yourself, Rony, as well as Mr. Leung. I think Mr. Leung, you've certainly captured very well what the Malaysian position is vis-à-vis the Prime Minister's decision in recent weeks about the infrastructure projects in Malaysia. And at no point in time did the Prime Minister suggest that it was China at fault in coming up with these projects that it was at cost to Malaysia, et cetera. I think the Prime Minister was very clear. The problem Malaysia is facing with those couple of projects vis-à-vis China, as well as the project that we have since suspended with Singapore, the fault was very much with the previous government in Malaysia that we had entered into those projects, perhaps not in the wisest fashion, et cetera. So just to make that clear, and I think you've captured that very well, I also want to make just a small referencing to Shiv. I agreed with the initial parts of what you were saying, vis-à-vis Malaysia, except for the last point. And this was during the visit of Prime Minister Mahadeh to China. And during the joint press conference he had with Premier Li, you suggested that he had made reference to China vis-à-vis his referencing of a new form of colonialism. But if you were to revisit that interview, that was actually his statement in response to Premier Li asking him about his view of the trade war going on between China and the US at that point in time. Of course, as a Prime Minister, he wouldn't want to make a finding or an opinion so directly about what is an ongoing issue. So his response, which you referred to about new forms of colonialism, et cetera, was actually in response to that question rather than the deals, et cetera, that's being suspended with China. So just to clarify that. Thank you. The gentleman in front, the last question, sorry for the time we're already slightly over. First of all, I'd like to thank you very much for this opportunity. I think the Belt and Road Initiative for Africa is one of the best initiatives we have ever seen in the global setting to address the infrastructure deficit in Africa. The main impediment for competitiveness in Africa is there is huge infrastructure deficit that has to be addressed. One of the ways that China has supported Africa is in building this infrastructure. The issue of railway between Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, and Djibouti was one of the Belt and Road Initiatives. And when it comes to the question, there is no country globally who has built infrastructure in commercial terms. None of the railways, even in Europe, has been profitable. So I think we have to understand that this is an initiative that helps to build in terms of, in general, I think, support and competitiveness that it brings through the course of the life of those infrastructure. To us in East Africa, one issue that China has to address is these contracts has been made on commercial basis. And usually this kind of infrastructure should be built on a concessional basis. And China has to look into these kind of issues, especially for developing countries. And the debt sustainability issue is a crucial and critical issue at this time. And that also has to be seen critically, as mentioned earlier. So I think it's a good initiative, but there are issues that has to be addressed through course of evaluating the successes. Thank you, sir. Any last comment? Yes, Dr. Bayu. I think learning from Indonesia make your own plan for infrastructure development. I think debt is the most fundamental. And after that, look for friends to help you to support you. But if you very much depend only for the initiative, then you will find yourself sometimes in trouble, including try to count your own profitability and sustainability of your financial management. So that is, I think, the very basic. And with that note, we will welcome the BRI initiative. Well said. OK, just a one minute conclusion. I'm a short guy. I'm 1 meter 6. I walk into a room nobody noticed. Who cares? But if my name is Shaq O'Neill or LeBron James, I walk into a room everybody will notice. And like it or not, China is not Ronnie Chan. China is Shaq O'Neill or LeBron James. And when he walks into anywhere, it matters. And I think the world will just have to learn to live with the fact that there is, besides the United States, besides EU, besides India, there's another big boy on the block. And without which, I think the world will be a terrible one. So I just go back to three words. The first question the gentleman asked. He said, we need some courageous moves. Well, I suppose the BRI initiative is quite courageous. The second word you use, sir, is self-sentence. Well, as Dr. Bayou said, everybody better know how to care for his own interests. If any country, any individual, doesn't know how to care for his or her own interests, perhaps you will be in trouble. And we are not talking about small guys. Every nation is a big guy. They better know how to take care of themselves so that they will not be taken advantage of by anybody, be it United States in the past or China today. Finally, what kind of mechanism should be there in order to guide the future of the Baron Rogen Initiative? I think it's a very good question. I think that whatever China say, the Europeans, some Europeans, and America is not going to believe it. So be it. They just have to learn to live with facts. And for example, this is my last word. I think the West is right now in an echo chamber in a dark room. In a room full of mirrors. And then they put a straw man there. And then everywhere they turn, they see the same straw man and get a hat out of themselves. I think that America, in particular, but part of the rest of the world, is having a little bit of that problem. Echo chamber, a lot of mirrors, one straw man, and try to scare the hat out of themselves. Perhaps it is unnecessary, don't have a heart attack. I think China historically has always tried to work with its neighbors. Perhaps China will be a real positive force of peace and prosperity in the world rather than what you are afraid of. Last example, and that is what was said about the South China Sea in the last session. You mentioned that we should touch upon the other sessions. I was just amazed. Nobody know the facts. Do you know about Cairo Declaration of 1943? All the land that Japan took from everybody has to be given back to its original owner. Who did they give back the whole South China Sea too? China, escorted by the 7th Fleet of the United States Navy. So America knows it that all those Spratly and Paracels, South East China, were given back to China, escorted by the 7th Fleet of the United States. Now they are saying, whoa, just because China is a Champ O'Neill or LeBron James. Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps China is not that big of a guy. Perhaps it's somewhere between Champ O'Neill and Ronny Chan. I think that we have to learn to live with each other. And I want to thank Terry for putting this conference together. I think it's very useful so that we can interact and discuss so that hopefully we'll get to know each other better. With that, I want to invite everyone to thank the three great panelists I have here on stage. Thank you.