A Changing China and Growing China-EU Relations

Dear Rector Demaret,

Faculty and Students of the College of Europe,

It's my great pleasure to visit your college and the beautiful city of Brugge.

I think Voltaire was right saying that a thinker who wanted to study the history of this planet must first turn his eyes to the East, China included. I'm happy to find that his vision was echoed here in this college when you launched the academic programme on EU-China relations, which I highly applaud.

I've been working in Brussels for a little more than a year. I do feel that more eyes from Europe are turning to China, but not always get the focus right. Today, to facilitate your observation of China, I'd like to present you two Chinese characters, which are in fact two philosophical terms.

The first one is HE. There is no exact equivalent in English language. It means both peace and harmony. HE is widely regarded as the core of the Chinese thinking and the crown of the Chinese culture. The notion of HE provides each Chinese intellectual and behavioural guidance. The spirit of HE holds the nation together, particularly in times of difficulty and disaster. The concept of HE runs through China's foreign policy and diplomacy.

HE means peace. The Chinese people cherish peace dearly. Two thousand years ago, it was for defending peace that the First Emperor of Qin Dynasty commanded the building of the Great Wall. One thousand years ago, it was for expanding peaceful trade of silk, tea and porcelain that the Tang Dynasty opened up the Silk Road. Five hundred years ago, it was for forging peaceful and friendly ties that Zheng He, the famous navigator of the Ming Dynasty, led seven maritime expeditions to as far as the Indian Ocean.

HE means harmony. Harmony is highly cherished by the Chinese, but not at the cost of differences. We believe that differences among individuals, ethnics and nations should be respected and accommodated, so people will live together in peace and harmony. Based on this idea, sixty years ago, China put forward a diplomatic principle called "seeking common grounds while preserving differences" and "peaceful coexistence". It is still one of the important norms governing international relations.

Bearing HE in mind, we Chinese stand for equality among nations, in disregard of their size, power and wealth. We call for respect to each country's choice of its road to development. We work for friendly relations with every country despite any differences. We look for solutions to disputes through dialogue and peaceful negotiations, rather than confrontation or use of force.

China is the only one of the five major nuclear states that openly declare not to use nuclear weapon first or against non-nuclear states. China ranks the second in five permanent UN Security Council members in terms of personnel participation in UN peacekeeping efforts. We have dispatched more than ten thousand military and police officers to 24 UN task forces.

The new Millennium once brought us rosy picture for the humanity. But nine years have passed, we find no lasting peace or prosperity as we expected. Besides racial, religious and regional conflicts, we meet many new challenges, such as climate change and energy security. The ongoing global financial crisis is just another proof of how fragile a seemingly stable and prosperous world could be.

And I believe the answer to all these problems still lies in HE. It was in this belief that the Chinese Government put forward the idea of building a harmonious world. We hope by adopting and applying the principle of HE, we'll be able to head towards peace among nations, harmony among peoples and between man and nature. We believe, in this increasingly interdependent world, only by sharing responsibilities and interests and working in harmony, can we best serve our interests and contribute to world's peace and prosperity.

The second character is BIAN, which means change and reform.

According to Dr. Henry Kissinger, the world is undergoing the most profound changes in centuries, and the most dramatic change is now taking place in China.

In fact, China's change over the past centuries was no less dramatic. From late 17th century to late 18th century, China in the Qing Dynasty was at its prime. China's industrial output then accounted for one third of the world, roughly matching the proportion of today's United States. But in the following century, when Europe was forging ahead with steaming bourgeois and industrial revolution, China fell far behind in development, as the ruling reign was so self-complacent and ignorant of what was happening outside. As a result, China not only lost its international prestige but even descended to a semi-colonial status, bullied once and again by foreign powers. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, we missed another opportunity in the sixties and seventies to catch up with the developed economies. Instead of riding on with global technological revolution, China was shackled in a ten-year Cultural Revolution.

Then, in 1978, the turning point finally arrived. China launched reform and opening-up and went on a new road to development. Thirty years later, China successfully hosted the Beijing Olympic Games, which vividly testified China's achievements over the past three decades. I believe the photos displayed downstairs must have presented you a few faces of the changing China.

Let me add some facts and figures. Over the past 30 years, China's GDP grew at 9.8% in average. Today, we are the fourth biggest economy in the world, as compared to the eleventh in 1978. Our foreign trade volume is the third biggest, and the foreign exchange reserve ranks the first.

Thirty years ago, because of insufficient commodity supply, we need to submit ration coupons to buy not only durable goods such as bicycle or sewing machine, but also for daily consumptions like rice and soap. The kids were always expecting the New Year, when they would be given a new jacket or skirt and eat fish and meat that seldom appeared on the table. Today, we see a totally different picture. The abundance of the markets surprises everyone on their first trip to China. More and more families are having their own cars and houses. Fitness club and overseas tour become symbols of trendy living. New Year is still a big celebration, but offers no more gift temptation to the kids.

And look at how people changed their dressing. In the spring of 1979, Pierre Cardin organized his first fashion show in Beijing. The colourful catwalk stretched its way into a sea of boring dark, blue and grey. Today, the young cosmopolitans in Beijing and Shanghai are not a season behind Paris and Tokyo, though most people of my generation are still not that fashion-conscious. Apart from that, typical Chinese elements in fashion design, like silk and brocade, Beijing opera masks, Chinese Red Style have found their places in the European fashion business and also the fashion weeks at New York, Milan and Paris.

Cities in China also take on new looks. Take Beijing for example. In addition to Tiananmen square, the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, there are more modern landmarks, such as the Bird Nest, the National Stadium for the Olympics, and the Water Dome, a high-tech national theatre.

Besides all these physical evidence of economic development, I'd like to call more attention to the enormous changes in the way that the Chinese people think and behave. These changes stand proof to the unprecedented political and civil rights that the Chinese public enjoy today.

Internet is a good example. Ten years ago, it was quite a pride for a Chinese family to own a desktop PC. Today, laptop is widely used as a normal household appliance, and even kids in primary schools are joining the 300 million Chinese netizens. China now has the largest number of net-users and the biggest capacity of BBS forums in the world. With internet as a platform, the Chinese people express freely their ideas on government policies and performances. There are very sharp criticisms on BBSs, blogs and news comments. One month ago, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had an online discussion with the people on the net. In a couple of hours, he was bombarded with more than a hundred thousand questions, mostly on hot and difficult issues of people's utmost concern, such as education, employment, housing, medical service and etc. Many questions were straightforward and sharp. For example. Someone asked him when farmers in the countryside will enjoy same pension service as the city-dwellers. Another asked Premier's opinion on the power of government officials, as he believed in many cases corruption was the immediate result of abuse of power.

Some European friends may compare China with Europe. I admit China is imperfect, just like any other country in the world. But I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the concept of human rights was born in Europe in the 18th century. It took the Europeans more than 200 years to put them in place. In China's case, the People's Republic is only 60 years old, reform and opening 30 years. Whereas the Chinese people are already enjoying human rights and other rights at unprecedented level in history.

Franklin Roosevelt once said, the poor has no freedom. Thanks to economic progress, China's poverty population shrank from 250 million to less than 15 million over the past 30 years. Last May, after the devastating earthquake in Sichuan province, the government swiftly provided enormous funding for infrastructure reconstruction and relocation in the affected area. It would be unthinkable to do that without the solid economic strength built up during the reform years. Our economic achievements have been serving our political reforms well and also facilitated the human rights undertakings. We hope such a momentum will continue.

I want to mention Tibet here. As I believe the overwhelming changes in Tibet in the past 50 years are among the best and most joyful stories in China. You might get your first impression about Tibet from the Adventures of Tintin. But once you've been to Tibet, you'll know that Tibet is not the fairy Shangri-La------a land of beautiful snow mountains only dotted with meditating monks. Fifty years ago, Tibet was still in medieval theocratic serfdom. 95% of the population were serfs and slaves. They had no freedom or property at all and were called "talking animals". Today, the Tibetan people enjoy all the economic, political, cultural and religious rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution. As ethnic minority, the Tibetans enjoy many more preferential policies. For instance, they are exempt from the one-child family planning policy and could be admitted to universities at much lower score requirement.

In sum, all the above changes derive from the policy of reform and opening-up, and I believe the future of China relies on this policy as well. We missed twice opportunities for development in the history. We shall not miss another. We'll carry on with this reform and opening-up effort. It's the choice of our 1.3 billion people.

Having said that, China remains the biggest developing country with 1.3 billion people. Our problems and constraints in the process of development are unparalleled in the world in terms of scale and complexity. China's GDP does rank the fourth in the world. But once it's divided by 1.3 billion, the per capita figure falls down to below 100th. Each year, we need to find new jobs for 24 million unemployed people. That's the population of Holland, Ireland and Finland added together. We need to take care of over 10 million people still stranded in absolute impoverishment. That's a Belgium. And 84 million handicapped people. That's a Germany. So, we will continue to build a moderately prosperous society to offer every Chinese citizen a comfortable life, hopefully matching that of Europe today. But to achieve that, it will definitely take us decades and generations of hard work.

Dear Rector, Faculty and Students,

Let's now bring our mind from China back to Europe, to this College. As the world's first university institute of postgraduate studies and training in European affairs, the College of Europe provides excellent research facilities and exchange experiences to students from more than 40 countries. No wonder Dr. Javier Solana said we can find a microcosm of what Europe is about on this campus.

But what Europe is about?

Different people may have different views. In my personal analysis, there are at least 3 important elements: political cooperation towards common strength, economic partnership for mutual benefit, and cultural diversity with inclusive assimilation. I find there is strong similarity with China-EU relations. Let me explain.

First, China and the EU share a strong will on building political cooperation.

Since the end of the Cold War, there have been two outstanding phenomena in the global system: one is the peaceful development of China, the other is the integration and expansion of the EU. As two major rising forces, China and the EU have identical or similar views on international order, security and many other important issues. Both advocate multilateralism, stand for a stronger role of the UN, support political solution of international disputes through diplomatic negotiations and oppose use of force.

China has always stood firm with Europe in its bid for greater integration and stronger involvement in international affairs, no matter how volatile the global situation evolves and how difficult Europe moves towards integration. The EU reciprocates by, in President Barroso's words, supporting China's reform and opening-up through both policies and actions. It was based on this solid political foundation that China-EU relationship had a triple jump in last ten years, from constructive partnership to comprehensive partnership and to comprehensive and strategic partnership. We set a good example of building relations between countries that have different social systems, development models and levels.

Today, our partnership covers cross-board issues. From bilateral to multilateral, from politics and security to economy and finance, energy, climate change and whatever you may think of. Our leaders meet several times a year. Official meetings and consultations take place several times a month. My colleagues in the Mission find it enviable that some European Commission officers travel much more frequently between Brussels and Beijing.

The history of China-EU relations proves that, despite all the differences in political system and ideology, we are able to maintain and develop good relations by transcending disputes and overcoming difficulties, as long as we share the strong will and profound interest in political cooperation. Such cooperation serves our interest well and is conducive to world peace and development.

Secondly, China and the EU enjoy a win-win economic partnership.

In 1975, China-EU bilateral trade was at 2.4 billion US dollars. Last year, the volume was 425.6 billion, 177 times bigger than 33 years ago. EU is now China's biggest trading partner, export market, import supplier and technology provider as well as the fourth largest source of investment. China is EU's second largest trading partner. We have never been so close in terms of interdependence, collaboration and mutual promotion. I don't think any genius at the time when we set up diplomatic relations could have imagined this.

Many European companies and products are well-known in China. Many of my colleagues and friends are driving a BMW or an Audi, wearing Clarks and Zara, calling with a Nokia, partying with a Gucci bag. When they travel, often they sit on an Airbus. And my European colleagues and friends sometimes are quite excited, telling me how little money they spent on an exquisite Made-in-China product. My friend, former Commissioner for Trade Mr. Mandelson estimated in 2006 that the low-cost Chinese products averagely saved each European family around 300 euros a year. I hope Made-in-China products will save more European families more money at this moment of economic downturn.

Our service trade expands quickly. Eight years ago when I was working in the European Department of Chinese Foreign Ministry, one of my headaches was to deal with a long list of applications from the European financial and insurance companies waiting to enter China. And now the list is getting much shorter. Many Chinese clients are quite happy with the excellent service provided by HSBC, CNP and Allianz, etc.

Let me spend a minute on the financial crisis. The impact of the crisis is obvious, not only on our economies but also on our bilateral trade. Since last November, trade between China and Europe keeps falling. During the first two months of this year, the decrease rate was nearly 20%. China went quickly into actions to confront the crisis, but with full sense of responsibility. First of all, we tried to keep our domestic economy in good shape. A package of economic stimulus was adopted, mainly focusing on expanding domestic demand and restructuring major industries. At the same time, we collaborated closely with the international community, including the European Union, for the sake of global economy.

A Chinese saying goes, we help each other as we sail in the same boat. Otherwise, we don't survive the storm of this crisis. Earlier this month, the Chinese government sent a large trade promotion delegation to four EU member states. They signed procurement agreements with European companies that worth more than 13 billion US dollars. Another delegation is coming soon to further explore business cooperation and trade opportunities. We strongly believe that protectionism is not the answer. We hope to work together with the EU to resist protectionism and work for a continuous development of China-EU mutually beneficial cooperation, so as to contribute to the early recovery of the world economy.

Thirdly, China and the EU embrace the spirit of cultural diversity.

The history of China-Europe relations is, to large extent, a chronicle of East-West cultural exchanges. As two most ancient sources of civilizations, China and Europe have benefitted from learning each other, complementing each other and promoting each other. We've been hand in hand fostering the progress of mankind. Again, we set a good example, that east and west cultures can live together in harmony and flourish and mature in parallel.

Today, living in a "global village", we have stronger desire and fatter chances to promote understanding and exchanges between us. From the ancient Silk Road to dozens of flights that shuttle every day between China and Europe, what has changed is not only distance, speed and time. More importantly, it mirrors how broader scope, faster tempo and greater depth we've brought up exchanges.

Nowadays, over a million Chinese tourists visit Europe each year, and more and more Europeans go to China for holidays, education, business or even jobs. The Phantom of the Opera, Turandot, Sophie Marceau and Justine Henin are well-known in China. Meanwhile, Confucius, Yao Ming and Kungfu Panda, Chinese masters of various skill and character become familiar to the Europeans.

To repay rising interest in China, we set up Chinese culture centres in France, Germany, Spain and Malta, in addition to more than 60 Confucius Institutes in major European cities. And we are very happy that the EU has set up in China 20 European research centres, mostly as joint-venture projects with Chinese university institutes. Recently, we launched a new exchange programme on language and cultural education. From 2007, for five consecutive years, the Chinese Government provides full scholarship to 100 European students each year for language and culture study in China. Our think-tanks are also quite active. There are quite a number of agreed frameworks of academic exchange and joint research.

Today, I'm happy to advertise the EUROPALIA cultural festival that'll start in Brussels in coming September. China will be the guest country this year. The preparations are going on well. I'm sure there will be a great deal of interesting Chinese events and cultural products. I'm sure there will be many more in the years to come.

Dear friends,

Though China and Europe share a lot in common, we do have differences and disputes on some issues. I believe that differences and disputes are nothing to fear, what we fear most are misconceptions and conflicts that result from ignorance. In today's world, there's no shortage of information or information technology, what remains insufficient is candid and in-depth exchange of views, not necessarily face to face, but for the best heart to heart. We need more communications and exchanges to enhance mutual understanding and trust. Differences shall not constitute obstacles in our relations. On the contrary, they could become an attraction, or even a driving force that brings us together for better knowledge of each other. We need more ardour and ability to understand each other. We need more respect and acceptance to deal with the differences. Should we have them, we'll be able to consolidate a stable and healthy relationship.

Jean Monnet, chief architect ofEuropean Unity once famously said, confidence is established naturally among the people who have taken a common view towards the solution of a problem; When the problem becomes the same for all and when all have the same interest in the solution of the problem, the differences and doubts will fade, and then often friendship will be installed.

Dear Rector, Faculty and students,

We are witnessing profound changes in the world's political, economic and security situations. Under current circumstances, China and Europe share more interest in common and enjoy broader prospect for expanding and deepening cooperation. We need to further our comprehensive and strategic partnership, not only for our own interests, but also for the world's peace and prosperity.

We Chinese often say, crisis breeds opportunities. China-EU relationship has come to a new starting point. Now is the time to seize the opportunity and push our relationship to a historical new height.

Dear students,

A good China-EU relationship serves people of this generation and many generations to come. It belongs to 1.3 billion Chinese people and 500 million European people, including each and every one of you present today. You are the future of Europe, and you are the hope of future China-EU relations. Before long, you'll become the elite of European politics. Given your tutoring in this college, I believe you all will deliver an excellent performance. It is my sincere hope that you will also become the mainstay in promoting China-EU friendship and cooperation. I'm confident that you'll not fail that. And I'm always at your side.

Thank you.