The Practice of Bridging the Belt and Road Initiative and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals - The Case of SDG11 Sustainable Cities

In 2013, China proposed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a Chinese solution to sustainable development. Based on the original BRI, the emphasis on green and sustainability has become a new trend in recent years because of environmental concerns, especially climate change. In this context, the idea of promoting the BRI to connect the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), integrating regional infrastructure projects with the international sustainable development agenda, and realizing the integration of sustainable development concepts and practices have become the main focus of BRI. As the field to conduct sustainable-related activities and actors for growth, the role of cities has been highlighted in BRI in this process. However, less attention has been paid to this aspect. This paper aims to explore current attempts to achieve sustainable urban development in the background of bridging BRI and SDGs. This paper draws on the theories of urban sustainability to explain the role and main issues of sustainable urban development in the current sustainable development agenda based on the practice of SDG11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. The paper explains the background, implementation status, and development trends of BRI and SDG in this area. This paper argues that related practices of achieving urban sustainability are underway as a solution for developing countries. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, China has introduced more policies and experiments to enhance sustainable urban development, testing to apply successful experience to the transformational development of the BRI.