by Xinhua writers Yan Liang, Xuan Liqi and Zhu Yubo

BRIDGETOWN, June 25 (Xinhua) -- Countries worldwide should put their differences aside to work together to tackle common global challenges and spur development for the people, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley has said.

"In spite of differences and size, the commitment to a number of key values allows us to be able to work cooperatively together," Mottley told Xinhua in an exclusive interview recently, stressing the importance of Barbados-China ties.

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which marks its 10th anniversary in 2023, is a global development plan that "is able to help countries across the world bring greater levels of development and greater levels of connectivity in working and helping each other," she noted.

"Barbados is happy to have signed that agreement," said Mottley, whose country has already benefited from stepped-up cooperation with China, with repairs made to a number of roads in the Scotland district, representing one-seventh of Barbados' land area.

People-to-people exchanges have led to fruitful cooperation between the two countries, especially in the fields of health and education, said the prime minister.

Chinese teachers at the Confucius Institute at Barbados' University of the West Indies "are not only teaching Mandarin, but also the culture and the history of China," she said. "There were a number of Chinese doctors ... working here and providing critical services to our population."

China's vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind resonates strongly given the current state of international relations, Mottley noted. "The world is in a very precarious position. And the one thing I know is that we are bound by being human and by living on the (same) planet."

"We have in common the fact that we are human. We may look different on the outside, but our bodies function the same way. We live on the (same) planet Earth. So we start from that perspective," said the prime minister, calling on nations to learn how to live together.

Nations need to put aside the "differences that separate us" in favor of "focusing on what we must do together to save the planet," she said.

"So we have the climate crisis; we have the pandemic; we have food and water and security (issues). And there are too many regions in the world where people just simply do not have access to the appropriate food or safe drinking water," Mottley said, adding the solution is to "work together to make the world a better place."

Although "Barbados may have a small land area," the prime minister noted. "We are a large ocean state at the very time when oceans will be the next frontier that has to help save the planet."