On 20 Sept local time, Premier Li Keqiang meets with prominent representatives from the US economic, financial, academic and media circles in New York. (Photos provided to chinadaily.com.cn)

Responding to a question on the Belt and Road initiative, Premier Li said: China and the US are respectively the world's biggest developing and developed countries. A growing and stable China-US relationship is in the interest of the people of both countries. It is also conducive to global peace, development and stability.

There were Silk Roads both on land and at sea for interactions between ancient China and countries in other parts of the world. In order to enhance connectivity with other countries, particularly countries in our neighborhood, and facilitate the flow of goods and people, the Chinese government put forward the initiative of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (the Belt and Road initiative). “Silk” is the very key word in this new initiative. This means that the initiative is about exchanging commerce. It is about interactions between countries in a peaceful and stable environment. And it is about the flow of goods instead of fight between soldiers.

This Belt and Road initiative is mainly oriented at China having closer interactions with neighboring countries and those on the Eurasian continent. And an important principle guiding this initiative is for China to align this initiative with the development strategies of countries participating in this initiative, instead of for this initiative to replace the development strategies of others. The advantage of doing so is that it will make it much easier for the countries involved to link up their transportation infrastructure such as railways, roads and ports to facilitate commerce, and naturally that will bring greater benefits to people of both sides.

The initiative is first and foremost about China aligning its development strategies between neighboring countries. If countries further away are interested in taking a part, we are open to cooperation, but certainly on a voluntary basis from both sides.