With the current trend toward globalization being challenged by rising protectionism, the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative provides insight into building a new mode that better suits world development, Chinese analysts said on Monday.

Though the progress of globalization may have been set back by surging isolationism and populist sentiments in the West, its general trend will not change, said scholars of international relations at a forum held by Xinhuanet.com, the website of Xinhua News Agency.

At present, it is impossible for any country to live in a closed system any more, said Wang Yiwei, director of the Center for International Studies at Renmin University of China.