Abstract:As a major initiative to promote the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind, the Belt and Road Initiative has become a popular international cooperation platform and a unique narrative carrier for China to create a new form of human civilization. Previous relevant research mainly expounded from an empirical perspective on how to jointly build the Belt and Road with high quality as a proposition for economic cooperation and regional international trade. As an important tool to enhance international recognition and build up China’s discourse system, strategic narrative needs to be combined with relevant researches to deepen the research on the Belt and Road Initiative. 2023 is the tenth anniversary of the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative. Facing international doubts and slanders, the Belt and Road Initiative needs to be raised to the level of a realistic national strategy of civilization narrative and world significance. Also, it is necessary to enhance the international recognition of the new form of human civilization to respond to the concerns of the international community and counter the counter-narrative effectively. Based on the Marxist view of civilization, the Belt and Road Initiative advocates connectivity to promote the historical progress of civilization, equal cooperation to maintain the diverse pattern of civilization, and human happiness to highlight the value of civilization. In the ten years of cooperation, the Belt and Road Initiative has built up a community with a shared future for mankind as its mission, gradually formed a Belt and Road civilization narrative system with rich connotations, and enriched the content narrative of new forms of human civilization including: a material civilization with “common development” as the priority, a political civilization with the principle of “co-consultation, joint construction and sharing”, and a spiritual civilization with the purpose of “civilization exchanges and mutual learning”, the promotion of social civilization of “inclusiveness, tolerance and balance”, and the pursuit of ecological civilization of “harmonious coexistence between man and nature”. The construction of the Belt and Road Initiative has not only achieved important results, but also encountered difficulties and challenges. In recent years, some countries have intentionally spread hostile narratives about the Belt and Road, disrupting healthy interactions among countries along the initiative. Facing new changes of the international situation, we must build the Belt and Road civilization narrative system actively with a community with a shared future for mankind effectively, and expand new ideas for the development of material civilization, political civilization, spiritual civilization, social civilization, and ecological civilization from an international perspective. The Belt and Road civilization narrative is of great global significance. It not only helps late-developing countries break the bottleneck of marginalization and build up a more just and reasonable global governance system, but also opens up new paths in promoting the development of civilizations in the current multi-cultural context, which responds to the various fallacies surrounding the Belt and Road Initiative.
张柏榕. “一带一路”的文明叙事与世界意义[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2024, 54(1): 32-41.
Zhang Bairong. Civilization Narrative and World Significance of the Belt and Road Initiative. JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY, 2024, 54(1): 32-41.