Premier Li Keqiang (R) holds talks with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Sept. 3, 2018. (Xinhua Photo)

China and Ethiopia signed a memorandum of understanding on Monday to promote cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, with the event witnessed by Premier Li Keqiang and his visiting Ethiopian counterpart, Abiy Ahmed Ali.

Other agreements inked cover bilateral economic and technological cooperation, food aid and soybean imports from the African nation.

Ethiopia has been one of China's comprehensive strategic partners on the continent, said Li, during a meeting with Abiy before the signing ceremony.

Both countries enjoy high-level bilateral trust and have supported each other in their core interests and major concerns, and both choose their own development paths suited to national conditions, Li said.

The premier said China attaches great importance to its relations with Ethiopia and will work with the African country to move forward their mutually beneficial cooperation to a new stage.

The two countries are highly complementary and should promote their cooperation based on market rules and business principles, Li said. Chinese companies are encouraged to invest in Ethiopia, and cooperation in human resources should be expanded while transportation infrastructure projects should be carried out in a smooth way, he said.

China is pleased to see stability and peace in East Africa and would like to strengthen exchanges and coordination with Ethiopia in international and regional affairs to better safeguard the interests of both countries and other developing nations, Li said.

The premier said China is willing to work with African countries to further enhance solidarity and cooperation and achieve mutual development.

In response, Abiy said China has been a solid partner. With China's support, Ethiopia and the African continent have seen consistent development and progress, he said.

Chinese companies play an increasingly important role in Ethiopia's social and economic development, Abiy said. Ethiopia is willing to boost cooperation with China in human resources, energy, highways, railways and other infrastructure, he said, adding that the business environment in his country will be improved and Chinese companies are welcome to invest there.

Li visited Ethiopia in May 2014, and Abiy is on an official visit to China to attend the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation taking place on Monday and Tuesday.

Humanitarianism, which originates from the Renaissance in Europe, incorporates a wide range of care, love and respect today. As a human-centered value, it is close to the people-first principle of traditional Chinese culture. To some extent, humanitarianism is aspiritual driving force for the construction of the human community with shared destiny.

In proposing the Belt and Road Initiative, China aims to seek common development with the other countries. China should provide timely assistance in times of emergency, especially natural disasters; and provide foresights for solving fundamental issues related to the common development of the human race.

Premier Li Keqiang vowed to provide US$100 million of humanitarian aid during the United Nations refugee summit in September 2016. In March, China promised to provide Kenya with 20,000 tons of humanitarian aid food. There are many such examples showing China's commitment to international humanitarian aid.

The Belt and Road Initiative can solve the world's imbalanced development. Poverty not only hampers a country's social and economic development, but also is the root cause of regional conflicts, environmental degradationand terrorism.

Peace, harmony and a healthy development cannot be realized unless imbalances and inequality are resolved. The Belt and Road Initiative creates jobs in poverty-ridden countries, which can help improve the population's livelihood.

Featuring joint participation, collective consultation and shared benefits, the initiative is a large-scale international cooperation which discards ideological differences and tolerates all kinds of beliefs, customs and economic systems, making the initiative a carrier for humanitarianism.

(The author Pan Zhigang is the executive director of the International Cooperation Center of the National Development and Reform Commission. The translator is Li Yang.)

The US can play a more constructive role on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), according to a group of Chinese financial experts visiting New York.

"No matter how you see it, the United States is a part of the BRI because the whole idea is about global growth and development," Zha Daojiong, international political economy professor of Peking University, said at a luncheon event with Bloomberg business journalists and other mainstream media representatives at Bloomberg Philanthropies in New York on June 20, 2017.

Zha was among a delegation of five Chinese financial and economic scholars in New York to discuss the latest on the BRI.

The delegation also spoke at a forum held by the National Committee on US- China Relations and the India China Institute at the New School on Tuesday night.

Zha said the US could help China by being a part of BRI financing. "We need good risk assessment; we need the private sectors to work with us," he said.

Zha said that one of the ideas in the financing of BRI is public-private partnership (PPP) and China will spread PPP in countries participating in BRI.

The PPP would help facilitate projects as it broadens financing channels for companies.

"But it needs to be handled with a lot of foresight and experience, otherwise PPP can become promise, postpone and paralysis, and that's not what you want to see," Zha joked.

"We wanted the US, which is a very important member in major international financial decisions, like (through the) World Bank and Asian Development Bank to continually work with us, (since) we have made some good progress," Zha said.

Zha said that of AIIB projects in the past few years, "even with a short history, it made a right beginning in terms of partnering with World Bank and others to make these loans and gained experiences".

Wang Wen, executive dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, said to keep its role as the world's capital, New York needs to find the next wave of opportunities, which in his opinion could be the BRI.

Zhai Kun, professor at the School of International Studies of Peking University, said BRI's prospects are bright. However, US President Donald Trump's policy toward Asia and Asia Pacific is uncertain.

The scholars also called for Western mainstream media to provide more news coverage of BRI.

Wang said the inference he draws is that many Western media exaggerate China's global ambition based on BRI. And on the other hand, they underestimate the potential for cooperation between China and the US.

"China is not a revolutionary state of the global order, and China is one of the most important states for supporting the global order that the US established at the end of the World War II," Wang said.

"China and the US have so many fields for cooperating, such as infrastructure," Wang said.