Legendary investor Jim Rogers delivered a keynote speech at the 2021 T-EDGE Conference organized by TMTPost Group.

By Huixia Sun

BEIJING, December 22 (TMTPOST) – Jim Rogers, the famed U.S. investor, has hailed the Belt and Road initiative (BRI) adopted by China as a “genius” vision, comparing it to the rise of San Francisco.

In his keynote speech at the 2021 T-EDGE Conference organized by TMTPost Group, Rogers noted that San Francisco, a major cultural, commerical and financial center in California, would not exist without the transcontinental railroad that spans from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast in the United States and ends at the city.  

The BRI, known as One Belt One Road previously, is a global infrastructure program, launched by the Chinese government in 2013, to invest in nearly 70 countries around the world.

He noted that geographic changes did not occur often in world history. “Five hundred years ago, the Spanish and the Portuguese started sailing around the world and changed geography. The railroad came along and changed geography. A couple of hundred years ago, you’ve heard of San Francisco and the United States,” he said.

He went on to describe the BRI initiative as “the most important project in the 21st century”.

“In my view, it is genius. You will help bring together Asia and Europe,” he said, adding that many people are going to make huge amounts of money from the One Belt One Road program.

“It’s not a secret. Get out of a map, you can see where it's going to go, and you will see that the places where the railroad reaches will be prosperous. Other places will be left behind. But don't worry about it because there's going to be enough prosperity for everybody going forward,” said Rogers.

The famed investor said that China has been the most successful country in the last 40 years and there will be a great future for China.

“The 20th century was the century of the US; the 21st century is going to be the century of China. A lot of people don't like that, but it doesn't matter whether we like it or not. China's on the rise again and it's going to be a very great year, a great century for China,” he said.

The big-picture worldview has guided his investment style and he is known for a long-term approach to investment. At the turn of the millennium, Rogers and his wife Page Parker spent three years driving across 116 countries in six continents, breaking a Guinness World Record.

His next personal experience happened to be in line with a policy shift in China: from limiting children births to encouraging more births. “When we got home, we decided we would stop and rest for a while. Well, one result of resting for a while is we now have a baby girl …I was very much against children. I thought children were a terrible waste of time, money and energy. I felt so sorry for my friends who had children,” he said, adding that his attitude has totally changed later. “But I want you to know I was completely wrong. Children are fabulous. Everybody should have children,” he said.

Contrarian investment philosophy

Rogers is also known as a contrarian investor. He buys when most others are selling and sells when others are buying.

In his speech, he mentioned the Chinese phrase weiji, which consists of two Chinese characters – “wei” and “ji”. The first character “wei” means crisis and the second one means opportunity.

“I want to repeat there will be some setbacks along the way... But remember Weiji, we've recently had a big collapse in the world economy because of the virus. But that is also an opportunity not just in China but all over the world. Because when things collapse, somebody is going to benefit,” he explained the contrarian investment philosophy.

“And in the last few years, Beijing has made some big changes in your economy. They cut back on some of the lending to the real estate sector. And in my view that is fabulous. It was something that was definitely needed. In China, they changed education. In my view that's very good. You know I live in a country where if you have the money you can hire tutors. But that's not quite fair to the other people if you ask me,” he went on to comment on recent economic policy changes in China. “So China's changing the education system, which in my view is very good.”

“When a government changes something, they spend a lot of money and a lot of effort. But somebody is going to make a lot of money. It might as well be you who makes a lot of money. Just see what governments do. One Belt One Road, to mention that again. Or some of the changes in property or education or other things that are happening in China lead to opportunities. And also whenever there's new major crisis, it leads to great opportunities,“ he said.

Rogers is one of the world’s most successful investors. With George Soros, he created the wildly successful Quantum Fund in 1973. He has lived in Singapore with his wife and two daughters since moving away from the United States in 2007 in order to be in Asia and closer to China, the future center of the world economy.