Youth on the move for Belt and Road Initiative

The opening ceremony of the field research project themed "Silk Road and Chinese Dream" at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing on July 9. [Photo by Zhu Xingxin/asianewsphoto]

The Central Committee of the Communist Young League (CYL) launched a field research project among college students nationwide on the Belt and Road Initiative in Beijing on Thursday.

Li Ji, a senior official of the CYL, said the project, themed “Silk Road and Chinese Dream”, has selected 30 teams of 5,000 students from 348 candidate teams of 114 colleges across the country.

The research teams will pitch their efforts in different directions, with 18 sub-topics set against the general background of the Belt and Road Initiative, including policy communication, infrastructure, trade, monetary circulation, and people-to-people exchanges. Experts will take the lead, designing research plans, guiding students, and writing reports.

Li said it will be the first field research project on a national scale seeking crowdfunding through social media platforms such as Sina Weibo, and 59store, a popular O2O platform targeting campuses.

Li said that crowdfunding will help draw attention to the research and the Belt and Road Initiative, and win support from all parts of the society.

At the end of the two-month study, all participating teams’ findings will be compiled into a white paper on youth observation of the Belt and Road Initiative. They will also shoot a documentary recording the whole progress of the research and exhibit the findings in colleges nationwide.