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Dzhennet-Mari Akhmatova Faculty of Law, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia DOI: 10.24411/2520-6990-2020-11565 THE BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE IN PROMOTING RIGHTS AND DEVELOPMENT OF YOUTH
Abstract
This article examines the significance of the participation of youth generation in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) adopted by the Chinese government in 2013. The engagement of young persons in the programmes of the BRI is analysed from the essential perspectives, such as maintaining human rights scope, motivating youth employment, and facilitating innovative development. It is strongly suggested that the BRI should provide a basis for seeking a consensus between the projects' stakeholders, authorities and young people to ensure sustainable joint development.
Keywords: BRI, OBOR, human rights, youth employment, innovative development.
Introduction
Nowadays, the development of the worldwide economy cannot be considered without the initiatives aimed at globalization and integration of processes, contributing to the well-being of society, enhancement of industries' performance, and promoting engagement of the young generation to activities on the improvement of world sustainability. With this regard, in 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as the development of a Silk Road Economic Belt and a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (One Belt, One Road or OBOR) [3, 2].
Generally, the Belt and Road Initiative is dedicated to ensuring the beneficial, open, inclusive, and balanced relationships in the framework of regional economic cooperation [19]. Thus, the BRI could help China to meet some of its most pressing economic challenges, such as encouraging regional development through a mutual integration with economies of neighboring countries, upgrading the Chinese industry while exporting Chinese standards, as well as tackling the problem of excess capacity [3, 6].
The presented statements suggest that the BRI as a large-scale international project cannot be considered without the involvement of youth in developing programs and policies to contribute to performance through promoting education initiatives, knowledge cultivation, and sharing, maintaining the effective working environment for specialists from the different countries, etc. From this, this article is aimed at revealing the role of youth generation in further expanding the BRI initiative and defining the opportunities for young people development under the comprehensive processes of worldwide globalization.
Human rights scope
The problem of youth development has always been relevant [4], [ 5], [9], [10] and associated with the rights and freedoms of young people. The earliest records highlighting the relevance of issues on specific rights of youth are referred to the V - VI centuries BC. These issues have become an integral part of the concept on human rights and reflected in various historically known documents, such as Magna Carta Lib-ertatum [14, 258], United States Bill of Rights (17891791), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966 [16], etc. Thus, the development of young people as members of society
who have specific rights has a significant historical basis, determining the future of different countries.
Most of the young people are targeted at identifying ways to meet their basic needs and acquire knowledge, skills, relationships to confidently participate in their future life. Human rights concerning all human population and young people "are indivisible, interrelated and interdependent because the improvement of one right leads to the advancement of others" [17]. By contrast, failing to meet one core need of young person could undermine the adequate fulfillment of the others [1]. For instance, plenty of 10-to 14-year-old girls in several Belt and Road countries are affected by the human rights violations that often harm their health and mind and undermine their lifelong economic productivity [1].
According to the Article 29 of Universal Declaration of Human Rights "everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible" [18]. In the context of the BRI, the directions of youth policy are focused on creating conditions, guarantees, and incentives for young people to exercise their rights and effectively involve them in the system of social norms to provide individual self-realization and long-term benefits for the society. According to Zhao and Kirilova (2016), "...the young people are responsible for the realization of the Belt and Road Initiative" [21, 163], acting as absorbers, participants, implementers, and successors of the BRI's ideas. It is crucial to support activities and achievements of youth associated with social, legal, political, economic, and scientific areas, as well as to facilitate social integration.
Thus, the BRI by connecting the people over the whole world facilitates various opportunities for global peace [15, 623] to be legally seized by young persons, demonstrating the wisdom of youth in achieving world sustainability.
Youth employment in the context of the BRI
At the start, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) involved 64 economies, however, its scope has since broadened over 100 [12, 9]. In most of the countries participating in the BRI, "young people aged between 10 and 24 years make up about one-fifth of the population and are a critical group within their societies" [1]. Accordingly, the participation of the young people in the BRI's projects is associated with the emergence
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of new jobs to seize the accumulated scientific potential of the adolescents and young men and ensure knowledge and experience sharing between the older and younger generations.
The BRI has already provided more than 160 thousand jobs in the world [11]. The further implementation of the initiative may contribute to increasing employment opportunities for young people and level of cooperation in international projects.
In this context, the involvement of specific regions of the Russian Federation in the BRI would be a potential action to be performed for expanding the BRI in the historical areas of the Silk Road.
For instance, the historical Silk Road regions in Russia are Dagestan (North Caucasus), the Caucasus, the lower Don region, Azov, Taman, and Kalmykia. Furthermore, the territory of Dagestan was an ancient trade route, associating with specialized handicraft centers near the Caspian Silk Road branch [7]. The Dagestan's villages and towns have still preserved the handicraft traditions and masters in the artistic processing of metal on wood (Untsukul), jewelry processing (Gocatl), gold processing, jewelry, and weapons processing (Kubachi, Botlikh, Khunzakh, Ku-mukh, etc.), clay products processing (Balhar), artistic wool processing (Ahty, Derbent, Rutul), Tabasaran carpet weaving, etc. Thus, for such regions as Dagestan, the BRI can be considered as a possibility to establish beneficial relationships concerning youth policy. As the average age of the population of Dagestan is about 29.5 years in 2017 [8], there is a real platform for the implementation of the policy of involving the young people in the BRI projects that would accelerate the social, economic, and cultural development of Dagestan and play an important role in the development of local young persons by granting the opportunity for open access to the new cultures and connections.
Youth in innovative development
The BRI is not only a way for the trade or economic cooperation between different countries but also an opportunity for sharing knowledge. Young people are joining together to demand a voice in the decisions that have an impact on their lives [6, 27]. The significance of participation of young men in the BRI for facilitating innovations in the various industries could be highlighted by relevant practices.
For instance, in 2017, Hong Kong involved in the global projects called the BRI and the Greater Bay Area [2, 77] requested to expand the role of youth generation in Belt and Road countries to ensure bringing 'population dividends' with rightly channelled education and training. It was highlighted that failing to create local young talents could negatively affect social stability due to high youth unemployment, as seen in some Western countries and interfere with enhanced productivity [20]. Thus, youth is a significant factor in future innovative development, being considering for creating a sustainable base for further improvement of the BRI at local levels.
Referring to current practices, a relevant example of scientific and cultural exchange between the young people of Russia and China is a joint program of development of the wide-body twinjet airliner CRAIC CR929 by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, Ltd. (COMAC) and Russia's United Aircraft
Corporation (UAC). The special Joint Double-Degree Master Program was launched "to create a new foundation to implement joint projects more effectively and to promote a cooperation between Russia and China" [13]. The education for the Russian and Chinese students is carried out at Moscow Aviation Institute (NRU, Russia, Moscow) and Shanghai Jiao Tong University (Shanghai, China) on specific directions, such as the design of composite structures, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), engine design. The accomplishment of the project objectives would contribute to the active involvement of young people in innovative development of Russia and China, performing research and development in the context of the aviation industry, generating ideas, and supporting interaction between the two countries on the world stage.
Conclusion
Dynamically changing conditions of modern society pose serious challenges to the participants of the BRI. This article has revealed the significance of youth generation as a crucial resource of the BRI. Achieving goals of the BRI is strongly associated with the engagement of young persons in the programmes and policies to create a basis for sustainable development of countries, improve levels of schooling levels, ensure self-development, promote well-being and human rights realization, and contribute to the reduction of poverty.
Investing in education, improving living standards, and cultivating the knowledge and relationships of the younger generation would be an optimal way to support further expansion of the innovative potential of the BRI.
One of the most essential challenges is to implement such approaches that would focus on the direct involvement of young people in solving problems of the BRI. Building a balanced dialogue between project managers, authorities and young people would help to encourage their participation in the programmes as actors and beneficiaries who seek to yield positive effects to the development of their countries and the global international environment.
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