BEIJING -- Pledging more than $100 billion in financing, Chinese President Xi Jinping called Sunday for closer cooperation across Asia and Europe in areas from anti-terrorism to investment as leaders from 29 countries gathered to promote a Chinese initiative that could increase Beijing's global influence.
The "Belt and Road Initiative" calls for building ports, railways and other facilities in a vast arc of 65 countries. Other countries welcome the investment, but governments including the United States, Russia and India have expressed unease that Beijing also might be using the effort to increase its political stature.
Speaking before an audience that included Russian President Vladimir Putin, Xi said his government has "no desire to impose our will on others." But he called for "economic integration" and cooperation on financial regulation, anti-terrorism and security -- fields in which China's heft as the world's No. 2 economy would make it a dominant player.
"We should foster a vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security," said Xi. He called for stepped-up action against terrorism and what he called its root causes of poverty and social injustice.
During the opening ceremony, the first speakers to follow Xi were Putin and Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who pledged support for China's initiative while showcasing their own regional projects. Putin called the initiative "timely and promising" while highlighting the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. Erdogan told delegates that the world's economic center of gravity was shifting to the East and said he would like Turkey's planned infrastructure expansion to be linked with the Belt and Road.
Other world leaders lined up to praise the project. U.K. finance minister Philip Hammond called the initiative "truly groundbreaking," stressing his country's desire for new global trade ties as it prepares to leave the European Union. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif called the forum a "historic event" that would "tear down barriers to trade and commerce."
Addressing concerns that the initiative will become a bonanza for Chinese companies or a strategic play for regional domination, Xi declared that the plan would be open to all countries and would complement each nation's development goals.
In a reminder of potential security threats, North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile Sunday that flew for a half-hour and reached an unusually high altitude of 1,240 miles.
The launch was seen as a challenge to a new South Korean president who was elected last week and came as U.S., Japanese and European naval forces gathered for war games in the Pacific.
The "Belt and Road" is Xi's signature foreign policy initiative. The two-day meeting that started Sunday gives the Chinese president a platform to promote his image as a global leader and free trade advocate in contrast to President Donald Trump, who has called for import restrictions.
Xi proposed the initiative, then known as the Silk Road, in 2013. China's investment in Belt and Road countries has surpassed $50 billion, according to Xinhua. Credit Suisse Group AG estimates the plan could funnel investments worth as much as $502 billion into 62 countries over five years.
Chinese officials have said previously the initiative is purely commercial, though Xi's comments Sunday indicated Beijing sees that as including a broad array of regulatory and other coordination with potentially far-reaching consequences.
Some diplomats and political analysts say Beijing is trying to create a political and economic network centered on China, push the United States out of the region and rewrite rules on trade and security. The United States and Japan, which Beijing sees as rivals for influence in Asia, are not part of "Belt and Road."
Closer economic integration "should change the very political and economic landscape of the continent, bringing Eurasia stability, prosperity," said Putin.
Referring to Beijing's plan, Erdogan said, "This is going to be the kind of initiative that puts an end to terrorism."
Xi called for regional cooperation in finance -- a field where China's state-owned banking industry and $3 trillion of foreign currency reserves would make it the dominant player.
"We should establish a sustainable financial system that keeps risk under control," said Xi.
The president also announced additional Chinese financing for "Belt and Road" totaling $113 billion.
Pakistan's government announced it had signed memoranda of understanding on Saturday with China on possible projects worth a total of $500 million. That is on top of railway, power and other projects announced previously in an "economic corridor" linking China's far west with the Indian Ocean that Pakistani officials have said are worth up to $55 billion.
Other leaders at the gathering included Premier Paolo Gentiloni of Italy and President Michelle Bachelet of Chile. No major Western leaders attended, though Britain, France and Germany were represented by top finance officials.
A U.S. delegation was attending the meeting, led by Matt Pottinger, special assistant to Trump and senior director for East Asia at the National Security Council.
The United States and other governments have said "Belt and Road" is a natural outgrowth of China's status as the biggest global trader, and U.S. officials have said they want to work with Beijing on infrastructure. But they also have expressed concern that Beijing might undermine human rights and international standards for lending or leave poor countries with too much debt.
Chinese state-owned lenders have put up most of the money for "Belt and Road," but Beijing says it wants projects to attract private investment.
Speaking at Sunday's event, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Beijing needs to make its initiative more transparent to attract partners.
Also Sunday, Hungary's foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, said the Chinese government's Export-Import Bank presented a financing proposal for a railway line from Budapest to Belgrade in neighboring Serbia.
The line would be China's first major rail project in the European Union. The ability to supply such financing has helped Chinese builders land contracts abroad, but the rail project faces hurdles after EU officials said they would look into whether Hungary improperly picked contractors without competitive bidding.
The 20-year Chinese loan at 2.5 percent annual interest would cover 85 percent of the rail line's estimated cost of $1.9 billion, according to a statement by Szijjarto posted on a government website.
Information for this article was contributed by Joe McDonald, Christopher Bodeen, Matthew Brown, Gillian Wong, Muneeza Naqvi and Zarar Khan of The Associated Press; and by Xiaoqing Pi, Kevin Hamlin, Andrey Biryukov, Miao Han and Yinan Zhao of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 05/15/2017