Global Times' note: More than 150 officials, political party leaders and scholars from 18 countries in Southeast and South Asia had an open dialogue in the city of Kunming in southwestern Yunnan province recently. They affirmed the achievements the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has brought to their countries, expressing expectations on expanding cooperation areas, as well as concerns such as China-United States rivalry and the debt risk hyped by some Western media.

Global Times (GT) reporter Zhang Changyue interviewed John Ross, a senior fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China who was also invited to the dialogue, on the characteristics of the BRI, the so-called debt trap and China-United Kingdom relations.