May 13-14, 2017 9 COMMENT OPINION ChinaDaily chinadaily.com.cn/opinion Jean Pierre Raffarin and Xu Gai A new growth point for world economy In Europe, the Belt and Road Initiative does not get the attention it deserves. However, the history of the ancient Silk Road has fed our imagination for centuries. Today, China speaks for reality while Europe is limiting itself to curiosity. But newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron can accelerate Europe’s interest in the initiative. President Xi Jinping surprised the rest of the world when he announced the Belt and Road Initiative. As often happens in China, the idea is the result of a deep strategic reflection. China is seeking big markets for its industrial products. Marginal gains of globalization are shrinking, and growth needs a new revival. In Asia, this new revival is called connectivity. By helping the economies along the Belt and Road routes to develop and improve their infrastructure, hard and soft, China is reinforcing its openness and the upgrading of its manufacturing sector. The initiative will also help the internationalization of its currency and, in the long run, the transformation of its growth toward quality. Europe should find interest in this. Under the initiative, cooperation with China on its two aisles, Eurasia and “Eurafrica”, can allow the European Union to reach its economic growth and employment targets. That big geostrategic region must become “a community of interests, of responsibility and common fate”. As Premier Li Keqiang has often said, “today, no nation can succeed alone”. Therefore we must invent international engaging projects. This perspective is definitely pacifist. And by serving development and prosperity, it serves peace. China’s analysis needs to be studied. In the past, the East was the place where goods were born, and the West where they matured. Today, the West is standing still or even going backward while the East initiates reforms. Asian dynamics must reach Europe. As