Green development benefits BRI and Chinese economy
A law professor said on Thursday that China has been very "sincere" in terms of environmental protection with its Belt and Road Initiative, and that promoting green development would not only benefit the initiative, but also all aspects of the nation’s economy. Wang Jiangyu, from the City University of Hong Kong, made the comments on RTHK’s Backchat programme after the conclusion of the third Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, where President Xi Jinping highlighted eight steps to support high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, two of which include promoting green development, and advancing scientific and technological innovation.    “I think China seems to be rather sincere making the Belt and Road Initiative greener, not only because this is the so-called global trend, but also because China can economically benefit from this,” Wang said.  “China now has an upper hand in terms of both the technology, the products, and also you have the moral high ground over there, so I think this will continue.” He added that working on smaller projects within the initiative would achieve more sustainable results.  “There were some criticisms on the Belt and Road, including that BRI wasted too much money on those mega white elephant but not very useful projects so the overall shift of strategy to focus on smaller but workable [projects] so the deliverable products would be the overall change.” Speaking on the same programme, lawmaker William Wong added that China is taking steps in conservation that are valuable to Belt and Road projects. “The big construction we use up a lot of energy. For example, if everything was done using electric cars or electric vehicles, that would save a lot of energy already. Not to mention that whatever petroleum-filtering technology, they are also using advanced technology and one of the goals is on saving energy. So they are very serious about the carbon-tracing part of the thing,” he said.  However, Ambassador Amr Elhenawy, the founder of the Mena Chamber of Commerce, told RTHK that green projects could be costly for developing countries and emerging economies.