China's Belt and Road Initiative has attracted a lot of attention worldwide.

It reminds me of three things, the first being the 1950 Schuman Plan in Europe.

As we all know, European history is full of wars. After the Second World War, French foreign minister Robert Schuman thought that it was time to end the unfortunate history of wars. His thinking was, in order to launch wars, you need coal and steel. So he proposed that major European powers like France and Germany, administer and operate coal and steel industries together – from manufacturing, to marketing and distribution.

In 1951, six European countries, including France and Germany, signed a treaty to create the European Coal and Steel Community, which was the precursor to the EU. The EU is in deep trouble today, but we can’t deny that it has played a very positive role in preventing wars in Europe. Looking to the future, I expect China’s Belt and Road Initiative – given its size and scale – will have a much greater impact on world peace and prosperity than the Schuman Plan in Europe.

Second, since Christopher Columbus discovered – if I may still use this word – the Americas in 1492, European powers started their rise through colonization. The world also saw the rise of maritime and coastal regions and the decline of land-based trade networks, including the Silk Road. The West rose to world dominance through bloody wars in the following centuries, which also witnessed the rise of maritime and coastal areas that are still evident today, as all of the world’s developed regions remain distributed along the coastal areas with easy access to shipping and harbors.

What does the Belt and Road Initiative mean for the world in this context? It is likely to revive development in the interior, as opposed to the coasts. Along the new Silk Road routes, there are over 60 countries and a total population of four to five billion people. If the concentration of people and trade on the coast gave rise to prosperity – however costly – for several hundreds of years, then a revival of land-based development may well generate a lasting impact on growth and an unprecedented level of opportunities for development for at least 30 to 50 years. It will also mean a rebalance of people, power and trade between the interior and the coasts, which will be positive for the world’s economy and for world peace.

Third, discussions on international relations and global governance today are still permeated with the concepts of geopolitics and geo-economics, which unfortunately are mostly thought to be zero-sum games. Hopefully, the Belt and Road Initiative will change that, and shift the geopolitical and geo-economical mindset into that of a win-win mindset for global governance. China’s proposal of “discussing together, building together and benefiting together,” represents a new mindset and approach to global governance and globalization.

Western media has often criticized China for practicing what they call neocolonialism in Africa, but most Africans don’t interpret it that way. In the first place, China does not have a colonial past or legacy. If you are familiar with Africa – at one time, if you were to travel from Nigeria in West Africa, to Kenya in East Africa – you had to transit via London, because the British Empire had built their colonies to pivot around London. But China is different. China listens to Africans and is ready to assist Africans in building an intra-Africa transportation network of highways, railways and airways on the basis of win-win cooperation and mutual benefit.

Behind this is the Chinese mentality for global governance in dealing with some of mankind’s greatest challenges – from fighting poverty and terrorism, to handling climate change and the financial crisis –rather than the “divide and rule” colonial mentality, the Chinese believe in “unite and prosper.” China does this at home and promotes this idea and practice abroad.

In this context, Xi Jinping is right when he says that “the old winner-takes-all mentality and beggar-thy-neighbor approach should be abandoned,” and we should all work hard to push for an open, inclusive, balanced, and win-win globalization in the interest of “building a community with a shared future for mankind.”

This is the right philosophy for the future of global governance, and the Belt and Road Initiative is a major experiment in this direction, and is bound to affect the decades to come.