Aerial view of the zero-carbon demonstration zone in Boao on February 24, 2023 (XINHUA)

In just a few days, the quiet resort town of Boao in China's southern island province of Hainan will be fully awakened, as thousands of delegates arrive for the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) annual conference, which will be held on March 26 to 29.

The BFA, sometimes referred to as Asia's equivalent of the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, every year, is an annual event that brings together national leaders, government officials, heads of international organizations, entrepreneurs and scholars from across the globe to offer the world an Asian vision of shared prosperity.

First convened in 2002 in Boao, then a small, sleepy fishing village, the forum was born at a time when China had just joined the World Trade Organization and when Asia was slowly recovering from the Asian financial crisis in 1997. Over the past two decades, it has stayed true to its mission of responding to challenges unique to the changing times and promoting economic integration across Asia and beyond.

This idea of countries coming together to address shared challenges is at the core of this year's forum, which carries the theme "Asia and the World: Common Challenges, Shared Responsibilities."

"In today's world, security risks, both traditional and non-traditional, have coupled with growth challenges to reshape the global economic and political landscape," BFA Secretary General Li Baodong said in a press conference in Beijing on January 16. He highlighted major challenges and uncertainties such as a sluggish global economic recovery, geopolitical tensions caused by wars, elections and polarization, the climate crisis and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI).

"The world is gravitating toward rivalries and divisions," Li said. "We hope that, through the BFA, countries can collaborate, rebuild confidence, and promote peace and development."

The venue of the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA)annual conference in Boao, Hainan Province, on March 30, 2023. This year's BFA will take place from March 26 to 29 (XINHUA)

A new coast

For the first time in three years, the word "pandemic" has disappeared from the BFA agenda. However, as the world finally emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, the pace of global economic growth remains slow amid old and new challenges.

In January, the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released their respective economic forecasts for 2024. All three institutions predicted that the global GDP growth will continue to be sluggish. While the IMF remains slightly optimistic, forecasting a global growth rate of 3.1 percent, the other two predict a mere 2.4-percent growth.

The global economy is also feeling the effects of the rise of a new narrative arguing for fragmentation along regional or geopolitical lines.

"The 'polycrisis' in geopolitics, public health, the environment and the economy have led many to argue that globalization exposes countries to excessive risks," Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director General of the World Trade Organization, wrote in the 2023 World Trade Report. "They contend that greater economic independence—rather than interdependence—would better serve the wellbeing of their constituencies."

"Trade protectionism has returned, with the U.S. trying to block China from its supply chain and regional conflicts creating new divisions," Lu Hu, Executive Director of Zhigang Think Tank, one of China's most influential non-governmental think tanks and strategy consulting companies, told Beijing Review.

Having listed global trade fragmentation as one of the topics for discussion, this year's BFA is set to examine how Asia's economy will continue to rise in both scale and global influence in a turbulent world.

Despite the challenges confronting the world today, the Asia-Pacific region continues to be a major engine driving global economic growth, Li said.

According to an IMF report published in October 2023, the GDP of the Asia-Pacific region was expected to grow by 4.6 percent in 2023 and by 4.2 percent in 2024, which accounts for two thirds of global economic growth.

"This steady growth is not only fueled by economic resilience and structural reforms, but also rooted in the region's strong commitment to international cooperation," Li added.

China, the largest economy in Asia, saw a solid 5.2-percent year-on-year economic growth in 2023, successfully hitting the official target of about 5 percent.

However, the country's economic rebound still faces many challenges, including weak demand, overcapacity and complex external factors, Li observed.

"Since 1980, the Chinese economy has undergone three decades of rapid takeoff and one decade of stable growth. And now the country has entered a new phase of natural economic slowdown. We are so accustomed to miraculous growth that structural slowdown has generated great discomforts," Lu said.

Nevertheless, Lu remains confident in the country's economic outlook. "The future of the Chinese economy lies in innovation. A slew of Chinese tech giants have begun to form highly integrated global supply chains, and that will be our core competitive edge," he said.

Going green

In his address on January 16, Li brought up the landmark climate deal reached at the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) as an example of how the world is moving forward.

Held last December, the COP28 approved for the first time a global pact that explicitly calls for transitioning away from fossil fuels and reaching net-zero carbon emission by the middle of this century. "Thirty years—30 years!—we spent to arrive at the beginning of the end of fossil fuels," Wopke Hoekstra, the European Commissioner for Climate Action, told the New York Times newspaper.

With COP28 ushering in a new age for the transition to renewable energy, this year's BFA offers a wide collection of panel sessions that center around the theme. These discussions will explore numerous facets of green growth, including the future of new energy vehicles, carbon pricing and green finance.

"China is a world leader in basically everything green. It has the largest area of planted forests in the world. It is leading globally in solar and wind energy, as well as electric vehicles," Erik Solheim, former Under Secretary General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, now President of the Green Belt and Road Institute, told Beijing Review.

In Solheim's view, China's most important contribution to global climate actions is the decision to stop all overseas coal investments and increase investment in green infrastructure projects under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a China-proposed initiative to enhance connectivity along and beyond the ancient Silk Road routes.

"We see the need for change. The BRI, by far the biggest investment scheme in our time, can be a prime vehicle for change," Solheim said.

During this year's BFA, one panel discussion will delve into the specific measures China and partner countries can take to finance a greener Belt and Road.

While green development continues to open up a world of opportunity for Asia and beyond, the 2024 BFA will also explore ways for countries to overcome political hurdles to jointly address the climate crisis.

"The starting point is to accept that we all have different systems and different ideologies," Solheim said. "Let's focus on what we can learn from each other and be curious of each other, and then we can work better together."

Pushing the boundaries

While the majority of the panels focus on geopolitics, the economy and the environment, AI has emerged as one of the major topics for this year's conference.

The BFA's new emphasis on global AI governance reflects the technology's rise as a global phenomenon. Launched in March 2023, GPT-4, the latest model of the ChatGPT chatbot, has sent the world into a frenzied AI boom.

"AI can profoundly reshape people's everyday life, global power dynamics and the future of humankind," Li said. "The global community should strengthen cooperation to strike the right balance between innovation and safety, and to engineer advanced digital minds for the benefit of all."

Apart from the hot topics mentioned above, a relatively niche theme has also appeared on this year's agenda, "The Health Equity Frontier—Closing the Rare Disease Care Gap."

Data published by Rare Diseases International show that over 300 million people live with a rare disease worldwide. By creating a panel on rare disease reform, the BFA hopes to raise awareness of this vulnerable yet often neglected group of people inflicted with such diseases and promote international cooperation for closing health equity gaps, which has been a long-standing public health challenge facing humanity.

"We are a community with a shared future. Instead of letting it degenerate into a combat zone where everybody loses in the end, we should together build a ground for shared prosperity. And facing up to challenges and shouldering shared responsibilities is not only in the common interest of all, but also the only way forward," Li concluded.

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson

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