Good afternoon, Nenad! -Good afternoon, Stefan!
Welcome to the New Magazine's podcast.
Thank you.
I'm glad that you're the first guest we're going to host...
In this series composed of twelve podcasts.
Thank you for inviting me.
The pleasure is all mine, really. For a start, I would like to say
few words about you. You are a Research Fellow on
the Institute for International Politics and Economics.
You're also engaged in the Center for Belt and Road Studies (CBRS),
you have been a CBRS associate for some three years now, while
you're engaged in the Institute for International Politics and
Economics for five years. What I find most important,
you're intensively dealing with the issue of China,
on the global level, as well as with bilateral relations of China
and Serbia, you're also heading some of the projects
we would be delighted to be introduced with in more detail.
I noticed another interesting detail in your Curriculum Vitae,
namely, you have been learning Chinese language,
so how's it going and are you making progress?
Yes, that is rather specific. Coronavirus is to blame for that.
There is five or six levels in mastering Chinese language,
I am currently on the third level, that is to say, I have passed
HSK level III proficiency test, and I am now taking HSK level IV.
Can we greet the viewers and listeners of our podcast
in Chinese, as we would like to do that right now?
Given my knowledge of Chinese, this is the only words of Chinese
that the listeners would be able to hear in this 12 episodes...
But I am glad that we had a chance to greet our audience in Chinese.
So, we designed this podcast to bring the topic of China closer,
as well as the issue of cooperation between Serbia and China to our
audience, and this is such a complex topic.
Having in mind that you're dealing with the issue of China for a longer
period of time, how challenging is it to deal with such a complex topic
in an objective way, what are different aspects that
a researcher has to cover in order to be able to say that they at least
partially understand China and China's actions on a global level?
I believe that if you devote your whole academic or research career
to China, it wouldn't be enough, if someone devotes his whole life
to it, it will still be scarce, as you would only partially
get to know Chinese civilization. As you mentioned, I've spent
several years researching this issue, so I had an opportunity and I was
fortunate, so to say, that China happen to be my very first
research orientation and focus. Namely, as I enrolled in doctoral
studies, I've got in touch with China, I was invited by a Chinese Professor
to attend some conference held in Beijing, organized by a Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), so in that way, after my getting a job
at the Institute, and engagement in doctoral thesis, I've contiuned with
this research committment. Within the Institute itself,
as you said, we have several research centers, which cover
the entire world, from the geographical aspect, so
one of those centers happen to be Center for Belt and Road Studies.
I am engaged in that Center from January, 2020, more than 3 years now.
Although coronavirus hindered us to quite an extent, we still managed
to realize projects, monographs, works and so on and so on...
But let's return to yours question, what a researcher must possess
to be good researcher, at least in this one sphere...
As you said, knowledge of the language attracted your attention,
I might add that this is the key, that it really is essential in
understanding Chinese civilization and ways China perceives world,
reality and the whole system of international relationships.
I think there arises a big problem, especially if we consider professors
of prestigious West universities. When they talk about China as
an entity and a stakeholder in international relations,
they are truly unparalleled, and the best.
However, when we touch the domain of political philosophy, let's say,
or contemporary political theories, the political thought of the leading
Chinese researchers, wherever they might be, not necessarily in China,
then we have faced a problem pertaining to the translation of
some terminology which causes major inconsistencies between researchers,
the international community and professional and general public.
So I think the knowledge of Chinese language is crucial for understanding
the ways in which Chinese institutions, its government,
other bodies, and the Communist Party in the final instance,
perceive the world. So, that comes first.
Second, I think it is important that researchers actually stay in China.
So, it is important that if you deal with an entity, state, region,
to be present there, it doesn't have to be a study stay for
several years, but you should really get to know
your colleagues and, if possible, enter into cooperation with them.
So, you do collaborative projects, some joint research, and so on...
You should have someone in team who really speaks the Chinese language,
not like me at the learning level, but really, who is a native speaker,
or someone who is a philologist, who can help you in that sense,
to help you understand acts, documents and strategies...
China simply doesn't have the tendency to do the translation.
In the last few years, there is a Chinese state body called
State Council Information Office of the Chinese Government,
and they translate, I would say, more randomly, some decisions
or acts of the State Council, even from the Chinese National Congress.
Do you mean from Chinese to English? -Yes, from Chinese to English...
Those translations aren't authorized, they emphasize they're not authorized,
so even then you can't use those translations, taking them as relevant,
especially because they cover large number of strategies, documents and
policies in every sphere, not only in sphere of security and foreign policy,
they use philosophical terms, that is, terms from political philosophy,
Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought, and so on.
So, it is really important that you logically match all those concepts
into some coherent system, in order to understand them better,
that is, to understand the intentions of the stakeholders, the government,
the parliament, Communist Party and so on... In order
to understand what they want to convey with those documents...
So I think that a serious researcher has to be dedicated solely to China,
if he wants to be respectable in that area and really have some
kind of breadth and objectivity to see not only the positive but also
lots of the negative aspects that are present in the whole story.
How we stand in Serbia, both in academic and in this NGO sector,
when it comes to the researchers dealing with China?
I come from the non-governmental sector, so I can say that we started
dealing with the topic at about same time, you from academic perspective,
my research is a little more from the think-tank aspect,
or something that we could refer to as policy research.
What was actually challenging for me at the very beginning is
that some comprehensible or accessible literature in English or
in the Serbian language, considering that, well, I don't speak Chinese,
was not available, it was scarce. There weren't many people or
literature dealing with this topic. Now, over time, that has changed,
and more and more people are dealing with China on a higher level, or on,
let's say, rather superficial level, but here, what's your
assessment, how we stand with the research community,
currently in Serbia, if we talk about China as one complex, coherent topic?
I think that, not only in Serbia, but generally, on the global level,
we have this tendency, that is, this process until ten, fifteen years ago,
China was practically a kind of marginalized research field.
So, nobody practically dealt with it.
Or people dealt with some, let's say, parallel topics,
when they deal with, say, some global security, or global economy and so on.
Then China is simply mentioned as an actor that exists in the Far East,
and that all changed in 2010, 2011, 2012.
At that moment, I would say that older generation of researchers,
that was transferred to Serbia and I am speaking now in general,
in the entire academic world, generation of older scientists,
older researchers, simply shifted the focus to China from some other topics.
We belong to the first generation of academic researchers, at least
in my case, with academic way of studying and focusing on China,
so there is that generational gap, even in that field.
That is good that we can learn from older professors, and that some,
for example, methods that they applied in research 10,15 years ago,
to other aspects of international relations are now applied to China,
and vice versa, so they can learn from us about new practices,
about insights that, for example, they could not acquire,
because they didn't devote themselves to it professionally for many years,
I think there is a similar variant even in Serbia, the first distinction
between researchers of the younger generation and older ones,
not necessarily older by age, but by the years that have dedicated to
to this research topic.
At Institute for International Policy, we organized a format called
Dialogues on China, we can talk about that a little bit later,
but as contribution to your question, I will answer that we organized
an annual conference with the intention of gathering,
in the first place, it was still the time of coronavirus pandemic,
the initial idea was to gather local researchers, mainly from academic
community, we edited anthologies, we tried to work on one anthology.
However, we were not able to find not only in Serbia, but even in the region,
academics who would be ready to write articles, scientific articles for us,
and then we were forced to publish one collection from two conferences,
meaning we have to wait for the second edition of the conference
in order to collect adequate materials.
So, that can be an indirect answer to your question, maybe it's a bit of
a contradiction, it's counterintuitive from what we see in public world,
in public discourse, that now really all the experts are experts on China.
Then, when it should be translated into a specific scientific publication
then it's really a bit more difficult. That was one of the motives to
transfer this format into English, actually to the international level.
You have recently started implementing another project,
if I'm not mistaken, which concerns not only China,
but the relationship between Serbia and China,
if I interpret the title of the project correctly.
Yes, that's right. We have two projects, one of which has already
been realized. It is a bilateral cooperation project, financed
by two ministries, that is, of China and Serbia.
Our Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation has had
a similar project for several decades, with all the countries
of the world, on the basis of bilateral agreements.
We had the pleasure of being the only project in the field of social science
that received funding during the coronavirus pandemic.
However, as the project is oriented towards the mobility of researchers
and for obvious reasons, we couldn't realize it in full capacity,
because China was opened for international travel only a few months
practically in February or March 2023.
So we successfully completed that project as much as we could,
in that online domain, but what is more important and what we are
really proud of is the project that started a few days ago,
actually, and which is financed by the World Bank and the Science Fund
of the Republic of Serbia. Project will last two years and is oriented
towards mapping the risks of Serbian foreign, economic and security policy,
towards the European Union on the one hand, and on the other hand,
towards People's Republic of China because, somehow, we believed in
the team when we applied, we believed that the two poles are still main
focus of our security and foreign policy, at least in the near future,
so we have an ambitious idea to map all the objects of the reference
points of Serbian politics, our policy in these three areas, that is,
security policy, economy, according to these two actors, we are making a kind
of risk assessment for our foreign- political action, which I hope will
consequently contribute to our decision-makers, and above all
to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of European Integration
in the further creation of policies.
So, we should meet again in two years to get to know your main
findings of the project, including conclusions and recommendations.
That's right. We will have lots of recommendations, numerous
conferences, an online platform where all the data will be gathered,
a kind of data base, maybe it would happen somewhat earlier...
It will be publicly available, it will be open access regime,
this was the request of our Science Fund, along with the World Bank.
This data base will be available to all the researchers and institutions.
I hope it will happen much earlier than you had envisaged it.
We will finish the project in two year time.
Great! I am really glad to see some of the results...
What seems to be lacking while studying China is cerainly easy
access to all relevant information, especially when we deal with the
security or economic issues. Particularly economics is dominant
issue of research of the people who deal with this theme.
I would like to go back to your first address, that is political philosophy.
Ideology of Contemporary Chinese Communist Party is being considered
close to the thought and action of Xi Jinping and his ideological
allies, or someone who creates direction and further action of
the Communist Party of China. If we talk in the domain of foreign
policy, what is recognizable, the embodiment of that new ideology
of the Communist Party in China for the last decade,
is exactly The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Could you share with us some of your views on the very beginning
of the Belt and Road Initiative, what made this initiative successful
or less successful in different parts of the world, and in general,
what seems to be the main goal when we say Belt and Road Initiative.
All right, it's an initiative launched by a certain country, but what was
main idea back in 2013, when Chinese leader announced first
initiative in Kazakhstan that was knonwn as One Belt One Road,
that was later on rebranded into the Belt and Road Initiative.
Yes, you started in a good way, mentioning political philosophy,
actually, all that we now witness and have been witnessing for decades
coming from China, on the level of political spectre of decision-making,
has its foothold in the Chinese leaders, so this is part of their
political ethos, if we can say so, not only Xi Jinping but also his
predecessors, it all started with Mao Zedong, actually,
from cultural revolution, followed by Deng Xiaoping, the policy of China's
'grand opening', so every Chinese leader tried to shape his thought
in a way to be deeply embedded into official policy of People's Republic
of China, this is also the case with the incumbent president of China,
Xi Jinping, if we look into the governance of China, that is to say,
ruling or managing China, we could see in what ways his thoughts can
be considered a DNA of Chinese foreign and security policy.
It is present in other domains as well but those two are most dominant.
This initative, first called One Belt One Road, and then
the Belt and Road Initiative presents China's opening up to the world.
This opening up has been on hault since Deng Xiaoping,
when he announced it pompously, at the end of 1978, more precisely,
it stagnated during the nineties, there were lots of problems...
Due to diverse reasons, I would say due to the state of international
system in this particular period, the peak of unipolarity, and so on,
only since the early 2000s, and the pompous Opening
of Olympic Games in China in 2008, we have been able
to witness more practical opening. For instance, I wasn't visiting
Beijing back then, but my colleagues could testify that you haven't got
a single word written in English on the Beijing Airport, as well as
in subway, all the signs and captions were writen only in Chinese,
so Olympic Games triggered the internationalization of the cities in
China, so we now have signs in English in the markets and subways,
at the airports and so on.
As you said, back in 2013, in Kazakhstan, Xi Jinping announced
a grand project, and I believe that this Initiative represents actually
the embodiment of the idea of China truly opening up to the whole world,
and as this is a circular process, it should not open up only toward
the outside, but also on the inside, to reform itself in economic aspect,
primarily, later on, it spilled over to the political and security level.
Now, I would like to focus on the fact that Belt and Road Initiative
is not a dominant Chinese tool in the hands of Beijing, that is to say,
in the hands of the Government of the People's Republic of China.
This is just one of several instruments as there are many
much more powerful instruments. In the book I've recently written,
I have reviewed the layers of Chinese security policy,
and there is several groups and subgroups of those layers out of which
Belt and Road Initiative is just one so called spacial orientation.
I have proposed the analysis of Chinese security policy broken into
functional ones, the ways in which China responds to some challenges,
there is the issue of containment in Indo-Pacific Strategy, then the
responds pertaining to Taiwan, the race for semiconductor supremacy,
and so on... Then we have spatial or hierarchy components, when it
comes the the security sphere, there is international security,
the way in which China perceives the whole humankind, then there is
national security, how China treats its own national interests,
how it perceives the issue that we refer to as national security
in the Western discourse, and finally, human security, in what
ways China treats the individual human beings, how is a human
perceived in a Communist, and now Socialist system, in what ways is he
protected, i.e. what are the values that have been protected...
Not just the ways, but also what are the values, that significantly differ
from the Western values. Finally, we have spatial,
so called regionally tailored policies so Belt and Road Initiative is just
one of these regional policies. Surprisingly, China has much
better developed cosmic politics, Arctic policy, policy pertaining to
Australia and Oceania than for Road and Belt Initiative.
So, RBI is just one example of China's economic efforts to establish
itself as a significant economic stakeholder on the territory of
Central Asia and Central Eastern Europe.
Serbia is more inclined towards this form of cooperation of China
with the states belonging to the Central Eastern Europe,
which was earlier the 16+1 format strategy,
followed by 17+1 format, and it started to crumble.
We have already witnessed a kind of skeptical standpoint
when it comes to cooperation with China, so called Sino-skepticism,
particularly on the part of some of the EU member states,
that are encompassed with this format, so Beijing decided, due to
promotional reasons, not to call it 13, 14 or 15 format, but simply...
It is not good to witness the decline in the numbers...
That's never a good sign.
Before we cover regional approach, which is rather significant for us,
as we had lots of evidence in our case, that it is still
operational in certain way, but rather specific way of
cooperation, but let's leave it for later discussion...
As for Road and Belt, and in connection with what you've said,
this is just a part of a very complex system of Chinese activities on
a global level, there are diverse models of cooperation that we
identify with BRI, and what I find particularly interesting is that we,
looking from the side, we see BRI only in the infrastructural projects
that are being implemented in Africa, as well as in our region.
However, Belt and Road Initiative also includes Sea Belt and Road,
Digital Belt and Road, and those are diverse aspects of this Initiative,
so what was main idea in launching the Belt and Road Initiative as such,
and what has BRI bring to China to make it so different from China
in 2013, but to be China that we now perceive as dominant,
if not the most dominant stakeholder on the global level, having in mind
all the events since COVID-19, where we witnessed a kind of
paradoxical situation, that China was much more active globally, but
rather closed on a national level from 2020 to the end of 2022, early 2023.
Yes, if we consider this decade long continuum that you've mentioned,
if we consider great strategy of the People's Republic of China,
I believe that coronavirus has been a kind of turning point in China's
so called fourth and fifth stage in the development of China's
great strategy. Let's see why it presents a turning point.
Well, after ten years, or nine years, initial problems in the perception of
Belt and Road Initiative become evident, Chinese infrastructural
projects, not only in Europe, but worldwide,
so China seems to use COVID19 pandemic to justify the legality and
legitimacy of the existence of Belt and Road Initiative.
The skepticism which we refered to in our region presented a kind of
challenge for the official Beijing, resulting in three sub-initiatives:
Global Security, Global Development and Global Civilisation Initiative.
There are several more, now. I think, there is also
Artificial Intelligence Initiative, Global AI Governance Initiative.
It is important to mention that China tends to present all those initiatives
through the United Nations system. China insists on that.
Especially Global Development Initiative represents the future
of academic research of China, and treating the issue of China.
Apart from GDI being linked to UN Agenda 2030, for example,
it is truly supported by large number of countries,
even numerous Western states, international organizations,
forums and bodies, etc. This is actually the right way,
together with Global Civilisation Initiative for the China to show
that all its initiatives seem coherent, that all those projects
are turned to the benefit of the entire mankind.
This is the expression that they use: shared future or
Community of common destiny for mankind,
that means that every project that originates from China has to be
perceived, as the Chinese want to hear, as common destiny for mankind.
I think that China for the last nine to ten years, and also on annual
level, experienced incredible progress on the internal plan.
We are talking about digits that are inconceivable on local level,
starting with infrastructure projects within China, length of high-speed
lines, that are improved by million percent, just in a few years period.
Reduction of dirty technology, transitioning to clean technology...
Beijing couldn't be imagined without smog in Decembar, but now, the
situation is similar to the one in Serbia, with a clear blue sky.
Not only Beijing, but other cities as well. We are not a good reference
point, not such a fortunate benchmark for comparison...
It's better than it used to be. -Yes, it is much better.
I believe that Beijing is less polluted than Belgrade sometimes.
There are applications that could prove this, but on a serious matter,
they really had a pollution problem, and it is not the same when you
had a city of 30 million inhabitants, i.e. several cities that commonly
have some 200 million residents, and when those cities are so polluted
that you cannot go out. Remember images of Chinese wearing masks,
it happened prior to coronavirus. -Prior to the masks becoming cool.
Yes, even prior to that, and now, it is behind them, and they have
already forgotten all about it. Believe it or not, nobody
mentions that anymore. So, on the internal level,
China made quite a progress, and it is questionable to what
extent is that progress transferred to the international level.
China has that intention, and it is one of the ideas of global, dual
circulation, meaning that world circumstances affect China,
and vice versa, in the economic aspect,
so we are talking about positive synergy between external and internal
world, as China likes to refer to. To make it a coherent and concrete
value, that it is globally benefitial if China developed certain
technologies for air purification, so that it is being used by some
other countries. It is now just the issue of local governance
of some third world countries, whether their local authorities
would do it in a transparent way, and then big problems arise in
perceiving what China has been doing through this initiative.
Here we come to the point which is in Western liberal democracies
maybe a dominant narrative when it comes to cooperation with China,
and that is the fact than nobody says that it is forbidden to cooperate with
China, but that anyone should be extremely cautious in doing so.
You mentioned the cooperation of China with the countries of Central
and Eastern Europe, earlier known as 16 or 17+1 platform,
and we had witnessed for the last couple of years that three countries
dismembered themselves from this initiative, those are Baltic states,
Lithuanina, Latvia and Estonia had left this initiative.
Now, the Czech Republic is also on the verge to leave the initiative...
I have visited the Czech Republic in October for some ten days,
as part of some fellowship program, so I met with members of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, so I think that there are indications
that show that the Czech Republic will continue to be part of this
initiative, but similar to some stakeholders from our region,
for instance, in Albania, this is just a communication channel with China,
while what seems to drive Czech apart from this initiative with China
are several scandals that on the national level grow into corruption
scandals, followed by certain accusations of taking certain
actions on the national level, but also concrete lack of results
on the part of the initiative. So, Serbia is here such a
specific example as we had implemented large number of
infrastructural projects with China, in cooperation with Chinese companies,
but we also have significantly higher foreign direct investments than
other states from this region. When we consider critical remarks,
do they, and in what way, redefine Chinese activities
both on the global level, and on the regional level, let's
focus on this region of Central and Eastern Europe.
How do you perceive this initiative for cooperation between China and
the CEE countries, given that this is rather specific platform,
primarily, this is not multilateral platform.
This is actually fourteen bilateral relations crammed
into one cooperation modality, with a rather restricted level
of cooperation between European countries that are gathered here,
while on the other hand, there is a sharp division between EU member
states and non-EU member states, followed in the end by the results
that are significant in some of the countries and less successful in
others, so let's bring our conversation to an end.
What is the future of this platform and generally,
in what way China defines, that is to say, redefines its policy based on
some of the critical standpoints that China faced with due to its
activities on the global level?
Yes, you've nicely noticed that it is not a multilateral format,
I would call it a kind of soft multilateral format,
so there is a secretariate which practically is not a regular body,
representing China in this part of Europe, and there are
national coordinators, whom every country appoints, being usually
in the capacity of foreign affairs ministers, or speaker of parliament.
In our case, the minister of finance. -Yes, yes, minister of finance...
In the past, that was not the case. So, they gather on annual summits,
so this represents a kind of soft communication in the multilateral
format, and you've also noticed that there is no cooperation established
on the part of European countries, there is cooperation of the EU states
on the one, and China on the other hand.
That is why this mechanism is rather specific and special...
In first years of this mechanism's implementation, there were even
joint projects, invitations for joint cross-border projects,
as well as bilateral projects, this is not the case now,
at least judging by what we had the chance to see on the website
of this mechanism and based on the information we got from China.
The level of cooperation actually varies from country to country,
as well as the level of skepticism, being caused by diverse reasons.
In case of the Baltic states, we have clear geo-political effects,
it is not just economic aspect. On the other hand, Serbia,
Hungary and Romania are in a way the mini champions when it comes
to attracting investment from China. It is another matter whether those
are investments or loans, it should be covered in a separate
podcast, perhaps... -For the next episode...
If we consider total share in GDP, and given total number of population,
those three countries, apart from Poland, which is an exception,
are really mini champions when it comes to cooperation with China.
The biggest problem is to find out whether China is ready to learn.
Meaning, wheather Chinese companies are ready to learn, to adjust to local
market principles and the principles of open economy, transparency of
budget spending, tenders, and so on. In that sense, the bridge on Peljesac
is a kind of turning point, or at least I hope so, we'll see.
So, it is about EU tender which a consortium of Chinese companies got,
for the first time, based on European rules.
Just to get it clear, Peljesac is a bridge in Croatia...
It happened that Chinese companies built a huge infrastructural
project from EU funds, on the territory of European Union.
I believe that this was a kind of message, not only to Europe,
but to the whole mankind, as China now could become a competitive power
in accordance with EU or western liberal rules.
When it comes to the critical opinions which are coming from
some western countries, we should consider every single case,
for example Sri Lanka, which is being considered as an example of
non-transparent spending of funds, as well as whether those
infrastructural projects are directed towards local communities,
whether local communities possesses certain, especially in a post-conflict
areas, process called positive peace building,
whether this newly constructed railway is really helping local
community or for transport for the sake of some Chinese company.
We should treat every single case, but general criticism on the part
of some of western countries does not call for non-cooperation,
you noticed that in your comment, they only call for a ceratin dose
of caution, as I would like to mention that last year US and China had
the most successfull bilateral exchange, the same goes for
the Netherlands, where China is one of the dominant foreign trade
partners, not political, and now, then it is questionable whether
there is certain sarcasm in criticisizing, having in mind
that they are also attracting large numbers of Chinese projects,
which are not being mentioned, at least in this part of Europe.
So, I believe that every single country within CEE region can
be treated individualy. Our Serbian foreign policy agenda is still based
on several pillars that Boris Tadic used to introduce back in 2009,
out of which China represents one of the four pillars we turn to.
So, it doesn't matter which political structure is ruling in Serbia,
as it is present in Serbia for some fifteen or sixteen years.
This is something that China recognizes with us, in our case.
In case of Hungary, there is certain revanchism, given that
Hungary currently is not among the best EU student.
So, China goes there for a lot of direct deals,
and between those two countries, there is, or will hopefully be,
the first cross-border project within this initiative.
Whether it turned out to be rather late, after 10, 12 or 13
years after the initiative's launch, can be also part of discussion,
but this is a concrete outcome which links the two countries,
one EU Member, and the other is not full-fledged EU member.
It remains to be seen what will be the future of the highest level of
cooperation within this initiative, having in mind that the summit
wasn't held second year in a row... -That's right...
There were some indications that summit could be held this year,
however, the third summit of Belt and Road Initiative took place,
so this is left for next year. Anyway, what we could conclude...
Apart from the fact that we have to invite you at least once again,
or twice, to be our guest as we go through all relevant
elements of this very short introduction of Chinese
foreign policy. It is true that China does not intend to
leave the project in CEE, nor on the global level,
especially those three new initiatives that represent the foundation
to see how China will redefine the order and manner of global governance
as such, but if we talk about our region, Serbia is often
regarded as a leader in cooperation with China.
The collaborative intensity with Bosnia and Herzegovina is also
strengthened, along with Montenegro with appointment of new ambassador,
followed by slightly less intensive cooperation with Albania and North
Macedonia, which clearly show that China has just rolled the dice,
and that the results of the game are yet to be seen.
However, what you've said and what I would like to underline is
that the results will largely depend on our internal governance,
our democratic capacities and our willingness to implement certain
processes, aligning with the rule of law, along with
competition rules and market rules.
As we are nearing the end of this episode, I just want
to thank you for breaking the ice in our podcast,
as well as for the insight and advice that one who wants to
deal with these issues must regard as elementary principles,
and as I asked you to greet our audience in Chinese at the beginning
of this podcast, I would appreciate if you could finish this episode by
saying 'goodbye' in Chinese. -We could just say, for instance,
Dear friends, goodbye, something like this...
Exactly!
Thank you. -Thank you.