On 21st March, Ambassador Liu Weimin attended and delivered remarks at the thematic session on "Collaboration & Partnership" of Tonga National Development Summit. The transcript of the remarks is as follows:

It's really a great pleasure and honor for me to join this high level discussion. I'm very honored to be involved in this national development summit. I want to congratulate you for hosting this event, which I think is very timely and important. I've been following the discussions for 4 days, even though I'm not on the ground every time. But I've been following that very closely. I must say that I am very impressed and even touched by the discussions at this forum. People were with passion, with enthusiasm, of course, with a lot of complaints but that's constructive, isn't it? That's what we conduct the Talanoa.

First of all, I want to say that we have a lot similarities between our two countries by hosting this kind of event. We just concluded the Two Sessions in Beijing last week, which is an annual political event bringing about 5,000 representatives, including people's deputies and members of political advisory groups, two very important institutions. And they were in Beijing to have a thorough discussion, I would categorize it as a Chinese Talanoa. That's a national event, we have it annually. And it's a kind of a practice of reviewing the achievement of the past year and formulating the policy and action plans for the next year or even for the next 5 years. And it is a happy coincidence that this year is the end of China's 14th Five-Year plan, and we are going to come up with another the next 5 years plan this year, so what a coincidence that Tonga is also formulating its next 10 years plan, which is a longer term. China has always been praised as with a long-term perspective. But I think Tonga should be given high credits for its longer term view.

Secondly, we need to have more policies and strategic synergies and coordination. I think the two countries should understand each other more than ever, because the cooperation we are now conducting needs to be tailored to both countries. I will strongly recommend you to read our government report, which was announced by Chinese premier in the Beijing last week. I want to give you a more detailed briefing on that, but I understand there is a time limit here. Probably we can make it more detailed in the later stage, but I want to stress some priorities for the Chinese development for next year.

Firstly, we want to expand trade, we want to open up Chinese market for foreign products. I just heard of kava, I think that's a good product. We have too much alcohol in China, probably we should introduce kava to China. 

Secondly, we are trying to expand the Belt and Road Initiative. It's not just about flagship event, which I mean infrastructure projects, but also on small but smart, well-being related projects. So I think that's another area where we can collaborate.

Thirdly, science and technology innovation. That's something that we put among our top priorities. And I'm very happy to listen to the thoughts about the R&D ( Research&Development ) in this country. So this is somewhere we can collaborate. I am happy to see that China is probably among the advanced group in terms of science and technology and innovation. We've seen so many AI new models, not just in the US, but also in China. 

And fourthly is about cultural exchanges. We want to expand and collaborate more with other countries because this is the foundation of people-to-people exchanges. Cultural exchanges are the foundations of our development of bilateral relations, and I'm happy to see that this afternoon someone mentioned the film industry. I think China is catching up in this area. Of course the US Hollywood is still the number one in terms of the box office revenue, but China is catching up. If you look at the recently released the animated film produced by China, Ne Zha 2, it was released in the united European countries as well as Australia, New Zealand, and even Fiji. I'm sorry that we don't have a cinema here, otherwise we will strongly recommend people to watch that, especially the young kids. So there are many more areas where we can collaborate. I'm happy to be here to understand the priorities of Tonga’s future development.

And it’s also my duty to recommend the priorities of China's development for next year as well as for the next 5 years. We've been on this modernization drive for a long time since 1979,  less than 50 years, I must say that we actually started from scratch, the national circumstance and conditions were not better than Tonga at that time.We were hungry at that time. We didn't have bread fruit, We didn't have taro and yam at that time. So people were hungry. And I think for my generation, we still remember those bad old days, but we were very quick to catch up. 

And recipe for Chinese success is that you have to be finally self-reliant and hardworking. And of course, there are also other recipes we want to recommend we want to share with you.

First of all, of course you need to have a strong leadership in the process of modernization, especially for developing countries.

Secondly, you need to have an effective governance. I think these days we had a lot of discussions on effective governance. You have to be people-centered, results-oriented. That's what I heard from this forum. And that's what we are doing and we did in the past in China. And the development has to be coordinated and balanced. And no one should be left behind. So far we still have some regions which are richer than some other regions, that’s something we want to change.

Thirdly, you've got to have reform and open minded. Reform means that you have to acknowledge you have your own shortcomings, you have disadvantages. And you want to learn from others, from other developed countries as well as other developing countries. And I think protectionism and isolationism are not the right recipe, power politics, block politics, trade war, tariff war are not the right choices. It only backfires, it hurts others, but it doesn’t give you credit. And it runs against global trend and people's aspiration. So I think blame game and finger pointing don't make yourself better but only backfire. You need to reform and be open-minded and improve yourself in a constant manner.

Another one is that you need to follow the trend and take advantage of the opportunities. I think it was not an easy path for China. And we actually condensed our development into less than 50 years. In other countries, such as the US, it took them almost two hundred years to get to the developed stage. So it's not easy for us. You need to catch every opportunity you come across, for instance, high tech, the digital economy, Artificial Intelligence, green development and energy transformation. That's something we can further talk about.

And another one, of course as I say is to be hardworking. Chinese people probably are working too hard and saving too much, which has become a problem. It used to be a good point, but now people don't want to spend. To stimulate the economy, you have to encourage them to spend money. So I think as Chinese, we need to be a little bit more relaxed. But of course we don't have the luxury to be on the beach every day and enjoy the sunshine. I think that's the same with the Chinese community in Tonga. They are working very hard and trying to make a good living, but of course at the same time, contributing to the local development of Tonga. Many of them are actually Tongans, they've got Tonga passports. They are busy running the grocery stores and restaurants, planting vegetables and fruits, some of which are very welcomed, for example the dragon fruit here is becoming more and more attractive. We hope that it can become a kind of a product for you to export.

And I think the hardworking people should not be blamed, however, of course they should abide by the local rules and regulations, respect the local customs and traditions, be it the land lease or house building. As for the pesticide spray, if people have concerns, you have to accommodate those concerns. Pesticide spray might be helpful to the growing of vegetables, but you need to follow the guidelines, which I understand they probably are not properly informed. And I'm very happy that we got a manual from the Ministry of Agriculture and we informed all the Chinese farmers here to follow the guidelines, especially about the spray of pesticides.

And of course there is also private sector's role. I understand it was discussed a lot here. And I think in China, private sector， private companies are very important. Their employment accounts about 90% of the total employment in China. So this is somewhere the government is working very hard. 

It was not easy for China, but we make it. And I think for other developing countries, including Tonga, you can also make it, you've got the people, and you have no less wisdom or are less intelligent than others. So if you find the right path, the right opportunity and be hardworking, I think sooner or later, you're going to fly.

Last but not least, I will not review on what we are doing here in Tonga. I think it takes too much time to cover that. But of course the policy guiding our development cooperation with Tonga is four full respects. I'm very happy that the Prime Minister just now talked about Tonga development cooperation policy and I think our policy are in line with the Tonga foreign policy. Firstly we respect the sovereignty and independence of Tonga. Secondly, we respect the intention and will of Tonga. Thirdly we respect the cultures and traditions, and finally, we respect Tonga’s efforts and of course including other pacific countries to seek strength through unity. So these are the principles guiding our collaboration in terms of our aids to Tonga. And we also believe that the collaboration should be Tonga-led, should be development as the priority and should be people-centered. And it should be inclusive. Our relations with Tonga is in very good shape and the collaboration is undergoing well, we will continue our effort in this regard to accommodate Tonga’s needs where we can fit in, and we are trying to play our role here.

But also we believe that China benefits a lot from its development partners when it began to fly. And I want to thank all those partners who are present today because I think most of them all contributed to China's development when we started our reform and opening up, Japan, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and some other European countries, Britain included. So we are very grateful for their contributions. We wanted to continue to have that support, but they have canceled all those development aids to China. I think we are at this stage, probably those aids should go to other developing countries. And as a major country in the world, China has an obligation to offer our help to other developing countries, in Africa, Latin America, or pacific countries. That's something that we need to show our responsibility, and we want to do it in a bilateral way, as well as in multilateral way. We hope to work together with other development partners to play a kind of complementary role. Each country has its own advantages. So if we can collaborate and join together to work with Tonga, I think that probably will be more effective. And that's something we are in favor of. It's 21st century, the notion, or the concept of backyard, back garden or sphere of influence is outdated, right? The collaboration should be inclusive instead of exclusive and I think that's the way that all the development partners should bear in mind.

I think that's all I want to say. Probably I can continue to share my views at later discussion.

China is not newcomers, we are not, we are not the aliens from the outer space. We've been here since 27 years ago. Probably you didn't notice that we've been working with Tongans for almost 27 years and we are determined to work together with Tongans in the long term.

We have no interest at all in the geopolitical competition. And we just want to make our people have a better life and within our capacity help other developing countries to have a better life. And that's what we do in Africa, that's what we do in Latin America, and that's what we are going to do in the pacific. Thank you so much.