Endgame with Gita Wirjawan - Zhang Weiwei: “Leaders Must Deliver, Meet Demands of the People”

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

Get your copy of Gita Wirjawan’s book, “What It Takes: Southeast Asia”, NOW:https://books.endgame.id/Also available on Amazon:https://sgpp.me/amazon/Leave your review here:www.goodreads.com/book/show/241922036-what-it-takes------------------------------------------------------------Is democracy the only path, or simply just a method?Many of us believe that democracy is the only path—if not the best path—to nation-building. Yet, drawing on his expertise in international relations and his experience as an English interpreter for senior Chinese leaders (including Deng Xiaoping), Dr. Zhang Weiwei tells a very different story from his homeland, a story that stands in sharp contrast to the historical experience of Western civilization: China.China's historical experience suggests that the large-scale development of a nation can be achieved while remaining deeply rooted in its own cultural spirit. From his account of how Deng Xiaoping set China on a path of transformation through a process of self-correction, to his critique of political paradigms that divide the world into the binary categories of "democracy" and "autocracy," Zhang invites us to consider the successes of alternative models of political and developmental order.There are parts of the world that have progressed, prospered, and come to terms with their own troubled histories without democracy serving as their vessel.Find out more about The China Academy:https://thechinaacademy.org/‪@thinkersforum4149‬

Democracy versus autocracy. This is totally wrong. I call it good governance versus bad governance. State must deliver, leaders must deliver, meet the amount of the people. Looking back to the early 50s and to the 78th, are you surprised with how quickly China has grown? Indeed, even for Chinese, at the three critical moment of China history.

Ben Thielping made three strategic decisions which have changed China forever. If you look at Chinese language, every idiot having to do work. Working is always positive. Work hard, work diligently, work day and night. Civilizational state is an amalgamation of hundreds of states into one with long history. This unified ruling entity was a back. was backed up by system of meritocracy. Starting with culture system, invented by China in the Sui Dynasty,

about 1,500 years ago. If you sit for the exam, you did well. You can become as high as prime minister. They seek truth from facts. Hi, friends. It's a pleasure to tell you that my book, What It Takes Southeast Asia, has been released in English and Bahasa Indonesia.

You can buy it through Bookst, endgame.id or at any of these stores. Now back to the show. Hi friends. Today we're honored to be graced by Professor Zhang Weiwei, who is a professor of international relations at Fudan University, and he's also the director of the China Institute over there. Weiwei, thank you so much for gracing our show.

Thank you. With such a pleasure, thank you. I've heard so much about you, and I've had the opportunity and honor of speaking with other Chinese scholars, I'm just curious as to your views about so many things. But first off, I want to inquire a bit more about how you grew up in Shanghai and how you made that decision to go to Geneva and explore the world thereafter. Please. Well, you know, I experienced a bit of the cultural revolution.

What happened was at that time, Chairman Mao felt that Chinese youths. somehow were losing the revolutionary zeal. So he said, let's abolish the college entrance exam, which is practiced for many, many years. It's a long tradition of Confucianism. So after high school, I went to factories. That was Chairman Mao's instruction. or young people should first go to either countryside or factories or army to have themselves tempered and sharpen their whatever, you know, mind and courage and become more revolutionary.

So when I were there in a Shanghai carving factory working as apprentice for exactly three years, all of a sudden with Ben Zalpins coming back to power, he said, we should restore the college entrance examinations. So I applied for Fultan University. I was eroded into a foreign language department, majoring English-American literature. That's how, you know, I came with my college education and later became a senior interpreter in China.

And, you know, amazingly, at least, you know, I took the exam in the year 1977. And then this is later called the Class of 1997, Class of 77, and also Class of 78. Essentially, because in the Cultural Revolution of 10 years, there was no college entrance exams. Yet all of a sudden there were this kind of exam. So the competition for entry college was fierce. It's roughly 1% to 5% enrollment. depending on which province you belong to.

And so we were the lucky ones to have been admitting to universities and received formal college education. In the end, this two classes, class of 77 and 78, and really played a very pivotal role in China's transformation, many than among China's top leadership. So this is how, you know, the history involved. On my part, you know, because I was working as apprentice for Jade carving, which is a very tough job, but also artistic. Yet my own real passion was foreign languages that began to learn English, French, and Japanese, through radio programs. And in the end, you know, I was lucky enough to successfully pass the college entrance exam. And I found that all my classmates or schoolmates then, 1977, 1978, were those who work very hard by themselves, self-taught students, because no we expected any college entry exams.

That's also one reason why this generation was tempered in the countryside, in the military, and it's a unique generation. So that's how I came to, in the end, this whatever job working as a senior interpreter, and later I went to Geneva working for the United Nations, and that's how I lent myself in Geneva. I got a contract from the UN to work as simultaneous interpreter. But my hobby is to pursue some academic studies and my interest in this whole political science international relationship. Having to do with the rise of China at that time, as how I have the chance to work for

Chinese top leadership for five years. I thought, you know, where's the idea? can do something to summarize whatever China has done, to distill whatever good aspects, bad aspects, successful experience, non-successful experience. In the end, I find this is about the study of Chinese divine model I call it. So one of the earliest scholars who talk about and discuss the China model in the 1980s and then 1990s. And so what I did that, Importantly, was that while I was studying in Geneva University, you may know, the Graduate School of International Studies. At that time, it was part of the university and later became independent.

And I also traveled extensively. So I had a dream and objective to travel to 100 countries. So by the year 2006, I completed my ambitious goal. I traveled over 106 countries. And then, you know, it's also part of Chinese philosophy. You have to what's called the read the 10,000 books and travel 10,000 miles, something like that, you know. And the idea is to combine book knowledge and practice knowledge. and then you have the real sense and the overall grasp of the trends and powers of the society in every country, every continent.

I think that was my ambition. Maybe I achieved half of it, but that's also very useful. Amazing. And tell us a little bit about your experiences with His Excellency, you know, the late Lee Pang and the late, Thank you, Chopin. It must have been something else. I mean, we're talking about two personalities that are giants that have helped shape or reshape the narrative of China as to be so consequential to humanity all across the world. Yeah.

And for Deng, you know, he's, of course, extraordinary leader, a statesman and not politician. What impressed me most was his vision for the future of China and the world. And when I began to work for him, he was in his 80s, you know, 81 years old, 8, 2 years old. But he was confidently talking about China in the next 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 40 years, 50 years. So he had this long vision for China. At that time, he was discussing the idea of quadruple in China's economy, four-time increase, four-fold increase, from the level of 1980 to the year 2000. And then he said by the middle of the next century, 21st century,

China should become a full-flat developed country. And then he talked to Li Penh. said if our economy was to quadruple, four-fold, and what will be the power supply? And he said, you have to really work on this. If the economy is going by such a percentage increase, what about the power increase? So this is also this kind of vision for the future. As a result, now China is the most safest country in terms of energy supply and power supply, despite the crisis Iran in the Middle East, but it's very solid energy foundation. That's to do with this long-term planning and its execution.

And furthermore, you know, Deng's slogan, it's also a slogan of Chairman Mao. It's called Seeking Truth from Fulner. facts, not from dogmas, whether it's from east or from the west. So when you are pursuing a reform and open-door policy and guided by this philosophical framework, and this is very important. And I remember, you know, when we talk about this importance of power, how Chinese leaders perceive the power. There is a famous saying from Confucianism, that is, water can carry the boat and can also overturn the boat. So boat represents power and top leadership, and water represents the people.

So to what extent a top leader can feel the powers of the society, powers of the people, powers of the people, and then guide people towards their whatever, wish and objectives for better life and more. So that's what Densalping did in 1978. Later, as a scholar, I try hard to study his thinking and his theoretical arguments. I came to a conclusion that at three critical moment of China history, Ben Thielping made three strategic decisions which have changed China forever. The first was 1978. He decided to open up China and carry out economic reform.

At that time, there were other choices. Because in the 1960s, following the failure of the great leap forward, there was also some modification of radical policies, etc. But then said, no, we should change the course. We should embrace something entirely new. Just something having to do with Southeast Asia. In 1978, he visited Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan. And he found that one is more developed than the other one.

And he was in Singapore back in year 1920, when he was on his way to France as a work-study student in this kind of program. And he had stopped moving in Singapore. At that time, it was better than village, but it's very poor. So when he was in Singapore again in 1978, he was deeply impressed. And he said we should learn from Singapore. But he also said back, he said, we should try to see whether we can do better. This is the vision of Chinese leadership. Well, we are obviously backward, behind many other countries,

but we already think whether we can learn from them, eventually, trying to do better. I told this story to Kisholmabubani, my great friend from Singapore, and he said that's the reason why the West is afraid of China. You are from an age-old civilization. You were used to be top in the world. So this is so natural, can we do better? So this is a kind of English. Yeah. I have a few follow-up questions on this. This is fascinating. But, you know, if we were to go back to the five-year plan, okay, right, that was set up in the early 50s, right? Chairman Mao had set out, like, within 75 years, or he calls it 515s, right?

15 or five-year plans, you know, they would, they should, or China should be able to catch up with the U.S. That's the second one. By way of what you witness in 1978, in terms of the audits. the conviction with which Deng was adamant on opening up China. Looking back to the early 50s and to the 78th, are you surprised with how quickly or how more quickly China has grown? Indeed, especially when you look back from today's perspective, I would divide China into two periods,

period under Mao and period since then-sulpin. Period under Mao, what we call it the first three decades, from 49 to 76 something. And Chairman Mao laid a important foundation for China's economic takeoff. Whatever mistake he made, yet China achieved almost I would see China has laid a very solid foundation for its economic development. Literacy campaign was very successful. Public health was carried out. And women's liberation was completed.

And land reform was carried out. So sometimes when I was in India four or five times, you know, so India problem is they did not have a chairman of now. They did not have a social revolution to lay this kind of foundation in terms of women's liberation, internal land reform. For developing country, without land reform, peasants could not become better off economically. And without women's liberation, the wisdom of half of population cannot be brought into play. So these foundations were laid during the year of Chairman Mao.

And also, importantly, you mentioned five-year plan. In the first five-year plan, China tried hard to learn from the Soviet Union. And the Soviet experts, experts said, well, China's economic foundation was so weak, your first five-year plan was a bit too ambitious, but more insisted. We have to be ambitious. We have to have eventually every branch of industry. Of course, with a priority given to heavy industry. It's understandable because China will be.

was carrying a war out of this war with the United States in Korea. And heavy industry was important. They learned a lesson without heavy industry, without enough steel. You were humiliated in the battlefields which have to develop heavy industry. So this kind of foundation was laid, yet, you know, China was still very poor by the time of Densselping came to power. There's another story of Chairman Densselping. When World Bank sent a tin to China to study China's total GDP,

before that China did not use this GDP to measure its economy, the Soviet-style economics. Yet with GDP, the conclusion was very simple. China's overall GDP, and in particular per capita GDP, was so low, was lower than most African countries. Nothing lower than most ASEAN countries. Yeah. And then the question was whether China should make this public or not.

And then said, of course, make it public. If you are not handsome, just you are not handsome. Don't worry about this. In other words. Problem recognition. Yeah. He faced squarely to reality to facts. And in his heart, I think he has confidence.

China can catch up. So, don't worry, we review this story to the outside world, China's per capita GDP lower than Zimbabwe or many other African countries, lower than Indonesia, than Malaysia for sure. So that's the case at that time. And then from that basis since 1978, I said China has achieved what I call leapfrog development. completed four industrial revolutions in one. China missed first two industrial revolutions, coal-based light industry, textile industry, etc. And also second, power-based, you know,

heavy industry. These were led by European countries, and second by United States as well. But China missed both first and second. But yet, roughly, you know, beginning from 1978, China complete the first industrial revolution in one decade, China began the largest textile producer, exporter, 10 years after reform started. Then another 10 years, China's power generation was larger than the United States, with heavy light industries in full display. Of course, the qualities, etc., are still below the international standards. Therefore, the third industrial revolution, revolution, the internet revolution, China not only catch up, also became a leader on the

power of the United States. Europe is somehow lagging behind with the internet revolution. If you look at this internet revolution or telecommunication revolution, the top 20 companies are either Chinese or American. And then with the fourth industrial revolution, the ongoing, the AI, big data, quantum technologies and more, China definitely is in the full frontier. In many ways, perhaps even slightly ahead of the United States. If you look at this ASPI report, Australian Strategic Policy Institute,

it said that out of the 64 most critical technology, China leads the United States, China leads the United States, United States in 57, it also leads the world. So this is how this institute, this think tank, views China's advancement in technologies in the new industrial revolution. So this indeed, even for Chinese, deeply impressed. So we say, you know, China successfully, within a few decades, have gone through, what the European countries United States have gone through over

1 to 300 years and then came to the top so this is indeed amazing It's an amazing story What do you think In retrospect Could have been some of the more

structural risks That perhaps Chairman Dang Would have calculated But was convinced That he could manage them Because just to open up a nation. And then to be sending, I think, the last figure that I saw,

cumulatively China has been sending more than 9 million people all across the world to study, most of which have studied STEM in Europe, in the U.S., Japan, you name it, right? And then most of them would have gone back to China as to help catapult China's industrialization. I would have thought that perhaps the team in 1978 would have thought of some risks that they would have been exposed to. What do you think would have been some of those risks

that they thought and believed they could manage? Indeed, you know, this is a risky strategy by opening China to the outside world, especially to the West. And at the time of the late 1970s, when Dunn said we should send the students to the West to learn their sciences and technologies, they are more advanced. There was concern, you know, the brain drain will happen.

But Dunn said something really with a lot of courage and long-term vision. And he said, don't worry about this. He said, if one out of ten can return to China. our policy of sending citizens abroad will be a success. So this kind of courage. And I was on occasion with Lee Pund when he was vice premier. We went to Washington, D.C. I had dinner with George Bush at that time vice president of the United States.

And he was at that time in Beijing as a liaison officer. director of the liaison office for the United States in Beijing. And he said he once asked Chairman Densselping, how many students were allowed to go abroad from China? Dens said no limit. Because there was a sharp shortage of enough trained experts, scientists and technicians, For one reason is because cultural revolution.

There was for 10 years no college entrance exam. And so the disruption of the college university education and research, so then was in a hurry that we should try to catch up. So in the end, you find in long-term perspective, this is brain dream became now brain gay. And this is already happening, as you said, now 85% to 90% students return home. And many more want to return home, but it's a bit difficult.

Or not you have only people in their 60s, 70s. They have medical insurance in the United States, but that cannot be used in China. So that's the kind of problems. But on the whole, the trend to return to China is there. Now, what? made him decide to send disproportionately more STEM students or students disproportionately to study more STEM than the others. Because it has turned out to be a genius stroke for purposes of industrializing China.

And this is something that I know South East Asia is lacking for the most part. There are one or two countries that are, I think, you know, winning. on this front, but what made him decide on sending most of the students as to study STEM at that time? It was definitional and foundational. You know, I describe China as a civilizational state. A civilizational state is a melanching of age-old civilization and modernity. So China is a of the super long traditions with modern state. And then, you know, in this aspect, since 1949, Chairman Mao and Chairman Deng and all China top leaders

gave priority to stand education. So from early 1950s, the slogan was advanced in science and technology. knowledge. So this tradition has always been there. As a result, even today, China is perhaps the only country in the world where most high school students prefer to study STEM. And this is the case up to now. The tradition has been entrenched in China today. And this tradition developed from 1949. Before that, it's more in a classical literature, literary texts, etc. From from 1949, the leadership said we should focus on science and technologies.

So this tradition is still there. And then with the cultural revolution disrupting this education science and technology and then said we should make up for this losses by sending students going on abroad and it turned out to be very, very important and successful. So this is how the combination of history, in China long history, Confucius said, you do Giao Wulay, education for all, irrespective of a class background, you are poor, you are rich, education for all over 2,500 years ago. This tradition is always there.

And then since 1949, this education priority given to stand. So this is a new tradition. Yeah. The one vivid cultural element of China is their desire to work hard. Yeah. And I've always made the comparison between the entrepreneurialism that I'm witnessing in Silicon Valley, which is where I'm spending quite a bit of time in. Yeah. It is entrepreneurially successful because it seems to be the perfect intersection between an academic domain.

There's a couple of great universities here and entrepreneurship. That makes entrepreneurialism somewhat robust. Whereas if I go to Shenzhen, which I've been spending quite a bit of time, as of late, there is no dominant university in Shenzhen. But if I meet with the entrepreneurs in Shenzhen,

these are people who would have migrated from other cities in China, where if they would have been working in Wuhan 8 or 9 hours a day, if they would have moved to Shenzhen, they would have desired to work 12, 13, 14 hours a day to make things cheaper, better, and faster. How do you get a nation to attain that sort of a mentality?

Well, you describe this, what we call the internal competition. It's fierce, and the Chinese are used to that. For one thing, for instance, the primary test of competition is college entrance exam. It's fair for all. Whatever your family would grab background, you have sit for this exam, and your score decides which university you will enter. And then, you know, with China reform and opening up,

There are so many other opportunities. So going through university is only one channel, but going through other ways to become better off is wide open. So many entrepreneurs who were not well educated yet, they became very successful businessmen, including many who are investing in Indonesia. And they are really full of entrepreneurial spirit. That has to do with the Chinese cultural tradition. If you look at Chinese language, every word or Indian having to do work, working is always positive. So you just work hard, work diligently, work day and night, whatever.

All these idiots carry this positive tone. So this is something unique in Chinese culture, obviously. The Chinese are among the most industrious people in the world. And same with entrepreneurship. What I dislike a lot is the Western propaganda. Chinese have no capacity for innovation and they are depending on road memory, etc. And so I said seek truth from facts. This is a country of civilization which was the head of Europe for thousands of years, up to early 19th century, China was the largest

economy in the world. And Chinese made so many inventions, thousands upon thousands in Asian China up to, you know, 500 years ago. And so, but it didn't matter. As you know, the Western media's coverage of China, Islamic world, Russian. they call the Russophobia, Islamic phobia,

a cyanophobia. It's so stereotyped. So I said, you know, we live in darkness. We don't care. In the end, they realize now

China is a vast country with tremendous sky-the-limit capacity for innovation. Every day there are innovations. Well, I can speak of one or two sectors, you know, a prominent, one of which is the EV space, which has, what, 99 brands in China.

That's true democratization of market. That just means bloodshed amongst the competitors. And this is something that I think the Americans and Europeans need to understand a little bit better. You know, in the U.S., there's only like a very finite number of, you know, EV brands. the competitive landscape is just not as intense as what one might see in China, and that allows for, I think, further or more intense technological innovation. I want to put this in a context of comparison between China and Southeast Asia.

We take a look at the last 30 years. The economic growth rate of China has been about 10 times. whereas that of Southeast Asia about 2.7 times. This would have been underpinned by four ostensible factors. The first one is really infrastructure. The second one is education. Just to peel the audience a bit on education. China has only around 3,000 universities with about 40, 50 million students,

whereas Southeast Asia has 10,000 universities with only 25 million students, but China has placed more universities in the top 20 ranking, whereas Southeast Asia, two universities in the top 20, both of which are in Singapore. So that's on the education front. The third is really governance, the intersection between power and talent, where China doggedly has been recruiting more

on the basis of meritocracy as opposed to patronage and or loyalty, whereas paradoxically, many democracies around the world, you know, they recruit now increasingly more based on patronage and or loyalty as opposed to meritocracy. And the last bit is competitiveness. And I measure this on the back of the number of licenses that any particular nation issues. China issues 10 business licenses on a per 1,000 adult people basis where Southeast Asia only one business license on a per 1,000 adult people basis. would feel free to continue explaining what you were explaining earlier, but try to take that to how people around the world could better understand how Southeast Asia or any country around the world could pick up, you know, some speed as to catch up with the kind of stuff that China has been able to be good at.

Well, if you look at the Chinese model of modernization, It is indeed in many ways unique. Politically, it has a what I call holistic political party, holistic interest party. From civilizational perspective, China was unified in 221 BC. Since then, in most of the time, China was ruled by a unified ruling entity. Otherwise, the country disintegrated. Because the civilizational state is amalgamation of hundreds of states into one with its long history. It is always ruled by a unified ruling entity.

And this unified ruling entity was backed up by system of meritocracy. Because I started with culture systems invented by China in the Sui dynasty. So it's about 1,500 years ago, which recruit people disregarding whatever, family background. If you sit for the exam, you did well, you can become as high as prime minister and for minister as well. So China invented civil servant examination system. So today's Chinese political system, if the Western system is called election, the Chinese one, is called from my, point of view, selection plus selection. But selection is always first. Your performance at different levels of governance. If you look at the top action of Chinese leadership, seven members of

Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, most of them worked three times as the number one of a Chinese province, party secretary or governor of a province. And they've literally governed over 100 million people before they came to current positions. Take Xi Jinping Pei as an example. He was number one in Fujian province and Tzajang province and then Shanghai municipality, it's provincial level municipality. So he governed over 100 million people and economy larger than India. And then he became vice president. And then he became top leader after five years. So this is a kind of vigorous process of selection plus election.

So there's not much doubt in the Chinese leadership is about the most competent in the world. And then economically, it's a mixed economy. Officially, we described this as socialist market economy. In other words, there is the role of market, the role of the state, the planning, and market for they are combined organically. And if you look at China's internet development, China is very strong in internet applications throughout China. The state sector is responsible for infrastructure. Digital 5G, 4G 5G, place in every village. There's a human living there, 4G5s, whatever cost is the mission of socialism.

And then private companies, non-state sector, has made best use of this availability of first-rate digital infrastructure. So whether you go to Tibet or Xinjiang in a remote village, you have better Wi-Fi access than many center of European cities or American cities, first-rate. And then if you look at Xi Jinping's economic thinking, supply sometimes creates demand. And with this availability of first-rate digital infrastructure plus speed train, highway, whatever, then a dynamic new economy somehow emerges, whether it's TikTok, it's, you know, EVs, And by the way, EV is also a product of a mixed economy. Intel State planning, it's 20 years, four five-year plans. So back in 20 years back, there was already planning for EVs.

Then with each every five years, there was a readjustment of these five-year plans. And then many, many, including BID, they are private companies. The problem in China is fierce domestic competition. Over 100 EV companies in China competing with each other. In the end, those successful become internationally competitive. And also as a civilizational state, it's a super large size of the market, which allows you to test each and every technological path for a relatively small, small countries, even like Japan, for instance, they will bet on hydrogen energy.

And the Chinese will say, let's try lithium battery, let's try hydrogen energy, let's try other types of technology paths. In the end, we focus on the most, the best one. So small economies cannot afford this kind of all-rounded approach, but China can test all these different parts of China, different region of China. And then we pick up the best and then channel more resources from the state, from private sector and support. So this is a part of Chinese model. Socially, we encourage positive interaction between the state and society, rather than pitting society against the state.

It has to do with the Chinese cultural tradition. It has to do with commonly. We value that and we think with this positive interaction between society and state, you achieve better results than locked in confrontations. Would you make the argument that the harmony between the state and society speaks of the accountability of the leadership to the people? And this has helped with respect to the democratization of public goods. Whereas some democracies around the world,

we've kind of been witnessing how the accountability is more with respect to a certain class structure. And that has somewhat been deficient in distributing public goods within the society. Is it fair to make that sort of an observation? Yeah. In terms of theoretical construction, I advocated since many, many years ago, I said from the Western political science, the paradigm was so-called democracy versus autocracy. And as a result, they encourage color revolutions, regime change, to adopt Western-style political system.

I said this is totally wrong. It's outdated. We must shift from this democracy versus autocracy for a new paradigm. I call good governance versus bad governance. So when I was debating this with my Western counterpart, I said, so as Chinese, you do not discuss democracy? I said, no, this is real democracy. I said, in the Chinese cultural tradition,

we divide everything into Dao and Shu. Dao means overall purpose, overall objectives, high-end objectives. Shu means specifics. In your paradigm, democracy or autocracy, democracy defined by the West, by you know, that's problem. It's based on the Schumpeter's 1942 formula election of leaders by votes. I said, from a Chinese point of view, this is a procedure democracy.

Democracy in form at the best, one of the forms of democracy. I said we must first establish the objective, the doubt. What's the objective of democracy? That's good governance. State must deliver. Leaders must deliver meet the amount of the people. We come back to Denzel Pink. He said in early 1980s, he said three criteria to judge what a political system is good or not.

Number one, can it ensure political. political stability. Without stability, no economic development, no life, better life for the people. Number two, keep improving people's living standards and keep people's unity. He put unity very important. China, a vast country. At that, 1.2 billion people, now 1.4 billion people. Number three, keep productivity moving ahead. this productivity is a Marxist concept that had to do with advanced science and technologies as well. So this kind of, I call it, approach from DAO or from overall objectives.

And then you try to design procedural democracy in the Chinese political system in the light of Chinese traditions and institutional arrangement. So if you compare the, say, the annual report of Chinese Prime Minister in March, what we call the two sessions, the Sessioner People's Congress and the Sessional People's Political Consultative Conference, every line of his report had to do with the livelihood of millions of the people. It's very substance. And last year we made a promise this and that, and this year fulfilled this 100%, 90%. So it's very concrete. If you compare this with the state of union edges by U.S. presidency, it's really campaign rhetoric. But the Chinese one is very down to us.

The quality of decision making is also different. We can produce five-year plans. It's all very sophisticated. You have three types or four types of five-year plans. Five-year plan for economic and social development. That's the main planning. And you have spatial planning for development, whether this area is for agriculture, this area for natural preservation, and this area for special economic zones. And then there are also what called special target plans like AI development, like EV development.

So three types. Several levels, top level central government and provincial government, municipal government, and then county government. So all these are the very sophisticated arrangement of plans, and they have been all carried out on the whole very successfully. So the quality of making these plans, it involves 100,000 of rounds of consultations within the party, outside party between sink tanks and through the internet. So any Chinese, if you say I live in Shanghai, I will check Shanghai's five-year plan.

So I will know, you know, in the next five years, there will be underground railways, there will be whatever, a new park, etc. And then, again, supply creates demand. So there is economic activities. It goes with it. It's already in the cycle of China's Chinese daily life. So democracy in the end becomes something that you can deliver to the people. This is very important.

The Xi Jinping hates an empty talk. Yeah, yeah. Do you sense that there is enough of an inertia within the institutions in China that it's not easy to change for the world? going forward. The way the Dow is being embraced, the way public goods are being distributed. That's my first follow-up question. But the second follow-up question, in the interest of our friends and, you know, democratic countries, how do you see them being able to change from a procedural type of democracy to a different kind of democracy that will allow them to better distribute public goods. On the first question of whether people have discovered inertia, and indeed it happens,

it's only natural, you know, there are always those who work better, work harder, and more successful, less successful, less working harder. Now, the point is, there is, if you look at China economy, there is the saying, you have to look at the internal competition between counties. It's such a vast country. They have five levels of government, central government, provincial government, municipal government, county government, and township government. And at all the five levels, there are competitions.

Foreign at provincial level, yes, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zerga, we are all clued together, Yanzi River Delta, which is already a larger economy than Japan or Germany in terms of official GDP exchange rate. Yet, they're also internal competition. So it's, you may call benign competition, but this pressure is there. If you see at the level of county, the county is the basic unit. In many ways, it's like a mini-state. Because if you are county chief or party secretary for a county, you have to go through all political, economic, social, foreign trade, military affairs. You have run all these.

So in Chinese saying, you know, if you want to become prime minister, You have to start it with a county chef. So it's a long time saying. It's still true today. All Chinese prime ministers have worked at grassroots. And then every year there is competition, Chinese government, central government or provisioning government will say this country has done better than that country.

There's a ranking. It's ranking made the public. So those who are lazy, less hardworking, less performing will have tremendous pressure. You may be removed from your post. So they have to change. But even with that, you know, this 20-80 rule, golden rule, only 20% of the people or companies or governments creates 80% of whatever success stories. It's universal. Yeah, it's always. But with competition, so the country as a whole become very competitive. Now, on the on the, on the The second one in terms of procedural democracy in the West, changing towards something

that's hopefully less procedural but more focused on the distribution of public goods. With regard to those countries that have adopted Western political model, multi-party system, universal suffrage, that's fine, that's their choice. But the problem is the design of this system in the West have no thought about development. So the fallacy is if you have a Western political system, so you're not automatically become developed country. The economy will become better. Of course, things turn out to be the other way around.

Very often it lands in chaos, less development, and all kinds of problems. Politicians and populism, the country are not running very well. So I said when I put forward this idea of good governance versus better governance, I said, you know, Western system can deliver good governance, but the non-Western system can also deliver good governance. China is the case. Likewise, bad governance can also be the result of Western political system. I can cite a hundred examples of into 100 countries. And the same, it can also come from non-Western political systems. We go beyond Western political model.

Now, even with this kind of model, I will discussing where we are receiving friends from developing world. They read the same question. I said, you know, in the Chinese philosophy, when you are faced with so many problems or contradictions, you have to grasp what's called the main contradiction. For you mentioned the challenges facing by face by ASEAN countries, education, competition, infrastructure. But you have to get fundamentals right.

And first, you know, I identify one crucial issue and then try to get a ball rolling. Otherwise, if you want to handle all the issues simultaneously, it's very often not easy. and even counterproductive. So from my point of view, the Denzel Psy's message is more or less like this. If you cannot have long-termism,

in the case of China, if you cannot have long-term stability, China's modernization was inconceivable. The problem with the Western political model is you cannot carry out long-term plans either without plans or even with plans, one government represented by one party and replaced the previous political party and then plans destroyed. So I'm thinking of whether in this kind of countries adopting Western political models

can produce a long-term plan, a kind of vision that has been thoroughly discussed with all political parties. and then all agree to this kind of plan. And they are hopefully part of your constitution or part of your school textbooks, high school universities, about whatever national rejuvenation or other grand objectives, so that whichever political parties in power, they will pursue this kind of plan. Otherwise, it's very difficult. Ben Shopin said for a country like China, as big as China, we need 100 years stability. Otherwise, no chance.

So China pursue this objective. Stability and their unity and keep people living standards high. To the eyes and minds of the Chinese, the political cyclicalities in the West, or the inability to think long-term. Do you think those would have been fundamental in the fact that this universal suffrage is or has not worked the way the West would have intended, right? I mean, there is this, I think, clear observation

that the West has somewhat embarked upon an ill-camped as to spread liberal values and loss, I would argue, 20 to 30 years, right? Do you think those would have been driven predominantly by the fact that there's political cyclicalities and their inability to think long-term? Or is it just the idea that universalism cannot be applied in the way any nation would like to globalize? In the first place, you know, I don't think that. there is this kind of universalism.

If there is universalism, it should be based on, say, a key message from a Chinese experience, that is each, every country should find its own way to success in the light of its own national conditions. That should be universal. Rather than Western model, which is universal, da-da, then apply them to other countries. This is sometimes even suicide for many developing countries. And this reminds me of my debate with Professor Fukuyama. Exactly this time, 15 years ago, June 2011, at that an Arab Spring occurred,

and he saw this is really a manifestation of the end of history. Even Arab people want to embrace Western-style democracy. So he said to me, in the debate, China must go through its own political race. with its own political reform. Otherwise, China may experience the own Arab Spring. And I said, no chance.

I said, you know, Arab Spring from my knowledge of that region, into that region many times, will soon become Arab Winter. And then became Arab Winter. Because Chinese philosophy, civilizational wisdom is very clear. It's called whether

something can be accustomed to local conditions. It's called this local soil and local water. So if you go to place, a problem with stomach, whatever, it had to do with incompatible with local soil and local water. That's a Chinese Indian. So water means culture. It permits everything.

Soil means political soil, cultural soil, economic soil. In Arab countries, there are so different from the West. So you have this kind of prescription for Egypt, for Syria, for Yemen, of course, it will end up in disasters. In the end, it becomes winter. And then I also said, make sure that the United States carry out your own political reform. It's more urgent than China. I said this to him. I said, my concern is without substantial political reform. you may elect a leader worse off than George W. Bush. I said this back in 2011.

At that time, George W. Bush was, I think, a full rate is about 20%. Very low. And then I also said you have what are genetic flaws in the Western political system or Western political model. One is this one person, one vote, based on the idea of rational human beings, we can think rationally and cast a vote. No, in real practice, today's elections are really involving money, involving social media, involving AI technology, etc.

As a result, rational thinking becomes very costly, very difficult. So populism prevails. almost everywhere. And then second problem, weakness is this whole idea of rights are absolute. I said rights and responsibility must go hand in hand by Chinese point of view, Chinese philosophy. And number three, procedures are all that important. Your procedures are right, then everything is okay. But we say in Chinese philosophy, we have Dao and Shu. Procedures are Shu. Dao is more fundamental. So I said, I warned him very clearly.

I said the Western model of democracy will end up in extreme populace, low-minded populace, which was destroyed the West. I said this openly, clearly, face to face to him. I said, it's not the end of history. It's the end of the end of history. And I met to Professor Jeffrey Sachs, and he said, you won the debate. Why do you think the U.S. did not or didn't seem to come up with a geostrategic plan

that would have accounted for its own power attrition? You mean just, you mean in terms of its geopolitical partners, geopolitical partners, Jarticle Airlines, self-defeating. Well, you know, I mean, it's pretty ostensible that their power, economic power, geopolitical power, are attritioning. Yeah.

Right? One would have thought, with an intuition, that some smart people, when they were planning, they would have thought about this and accounted for this within their geostrategic, geopolitical planning

20, 30 years ago. No, the point is... Especially on the back of the rise of China and other countries. Again, I said the Chinese philosophy is seeking truth about facts. When China was behind the West, behind the United States, we tried to learn whatever is good, positive, from the United States, from the West. That's why we send so many, millions of students going abroad, not only learning STEM but also other subject.

I was studying in Geneva, learning political science and international relations. So they are useful. Yet, you know, the political system is built in such a way, you know. When I said you are going to elect a leader, worse than J.I.W. Bush. Basically, it's about whole election about showmanship, not statemanship.

So it's not leader. So it's a showmanship. So it's a showmanship. It's about performance. It's, it's, how do you perform, act, you know? So this is the problem with the Western political system. Can they get rid of this kind of disease, or I call the genetic flaw? I have a lot of doubt.

You know, even George Cannon, the designer of Cold War said, if you nicely want to beat Soviet Union, United States must first of all ensure domestically, it's very successful. You remember the famous kitchen debate, you had between Nixon and Khrushchev in 1950s. The United States was waning in terms of improving people's living standard at that time, compared with the Soviet model. And Soviet Union, as a failure and broke up from Denzel Pins perspective because the Soviet Union mainly lost its competitiveness. economic competitiveness with the West.

That's the main reason. So Soviet people said, well, people there live much better life than us. So this is a key. So then said, we will focus on people's livelihood, make sure that we can be a successful economic model. So today, you know, Chinese live longer than Americans. And even daily per capita trends, intake of protein, Chinese have high intake. Oh yeah. And same with vegetables, et cetera. And so this is really a fundamental

transformation. Yeah. Having looked at history, which is only about 250 years worth of history for the United States, they seem to have the inner strength and ability to re-architect itself. I sense that within your tone that at some point the U.S. is going to be able to bounce back. Well... Is that the right way of looking or reading your tone? Yeah, many people say so. I would be more cautious.

Perhaps, you know, the empire goes by its own cycles. and 250 years is really the maximum lifespan of the empire from historical perspective. If you look at the, it's almost surreal, the United States being a country that cannot overcome problems. For instance, you know, I checked, you know, United States presidency began to advocate for medical insurance for all 100 years ago in the time of China's

Dr. Sunya-San, Republican Revolution so it's 1911 yet even today it's not achieved gun control so many people said the gun control is so important but nothing can be done

same with drug addiction etc and the political system is such As I said, I advocated a kind of balance between three powers, between political power, social power, and capital power in favor of the vast majority of your own population. The Chinese model. The U.S. model, the other way runs, in favor of the field, in favor of the capital power. And this is entrenched.

The lobby groups are institutional. organize, organize, there's no other way to really check and stop it. Yeah, it's pretty staggering, especially if we take look at the inequalities of not only income but wealth. We hope that this will do well, but it's not easy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the inequality of wealth is not very healthy, you know, with 1% of the population controlling, you know, a disproportionately much bigger portion of the economy or wealth. wealth. I want to go back to what you alluded to earlier in terms of China is not a

temp but vision of globalizing. Intuitively it seems to be wanting to globalize with pluralism respecting the cultures of its partners, collaborators and all that, right? And if I take look at the trade data in the last few years China is export to the US as a ratio to its total export has dwindled from 23% to like 12 or 13%. It seems to me like a conscious rotational behavior to focus more on the global South. And I come from a global South country, right? And the Global South represents only 84% of humanity. It's about $7 billion. So China is vested in the 7 billion people and the 7 billion people are invested in the 1.4 billion. in China. How do you see pluralism being effective in making sure that the collaboration

allows for the global South to also move up the value chain, move up the global geopolitical order, but also to some extent expand upon its pre-existing strategic autonomy? Talk about that. Okay. First, with regard to globalization, what we have seen is in the West, both Europe and United States, there is obvious trend of de-globalization. And from my point of view, United States and the West have benefited a lot from globalization. They are companies, their whatever, capital power. Yet, the problem is with their internal distribution system, which is unfair. As a result, the profits gained from

large companies fail to deliver trickle down for the people. Then China is the other way around, actually we are also beneficiary from the globalization. But if you look at typically like a company like Microsoft or Apple, they reap maybe 80 to 90% profits. Chinese workers less than 10%. Even with 10% profits from working for these companies, these workers have improved their life a lot. So, most Chinese even today, embrace globalization.

But we cannot help if United States said we don't want globalization. So China started way back, 13, 14 years ago, this Belt and Road initiative, which today is the largest platform for common development. And of course, Southeast Asia, ASEAN is a pivotal area for China's. China's BRI project. I'm glad about this. And because there are a huge demand for infrastructure and there's neglect of infrastructure in the Western design political institutions, whether it's UN or other institutions. So as a result, it's already over $2 trillion invested and 150 countries and more participating. And so this is a very good sign. I would say, you know,

And despite your modesty about ASEAN, if I compare China and ASEAN with the United States and the EU, we are doing much better than U.S. and EU. For China, I said we have three pillars, a pillar for development, common development. And ASEAN, China both give top priority to improve people's living standards. That's pillar for security, which is China said, ASEAN should be the driver of the change, and China supports it. So, where's a nuclear-free zone and China supports ASEAN in this respect. And then culture and civilization dialogue is another pillar.

We talk about ASEAN wisdom, Chinese wisdom, Asian wisdom, strategic patience, two step forward and step back. Negotiations, the best way for resolving disputes. But if you look at the United States and the EU, it's the other way around. Keep Russia out, keep germinate down, and keep America in. That's NATO philosophy applied to whole Europe. So this is not in the interest. As a result, European were talking about lose, lose for Europe. And in Asia, especially China, ASEAN, together to billion people, we have experienced win-wing.

I hope this trend will continue. I even think this is a possibly good model for the multipolar world order to come. And I just follow up a bit. The world is changing so fast. It's in a way fascinating one way or another, from unipolarity to multipolarity. And this is already there, because if you look at the size of the bricks, 11 members, it's already larger than G7, much large, 40% GDP world, GDP versus 30%. And then all from modern civilization, western civilization, to multi-civilizations.

It's also a new trend. More and more countries describe themselves as civilizational states. I think Indonesia could eventually also call itself civilizational state. You have thousands of years of long history and you have this coexistence, more or less harmoniously, the Islamic civilization, Chinese civilization, and the Western civilization. and other civilizations. So this is very important. And eventually, I think, you know, ASEAN also needs a kind of, you know, higher Tao,

which could be a civilizational community. And then with this kind of Tao, you can do better and resolve, you know, problem at the show level, technical problems, procedural problems, whatever. So that's my fancy ideas to share with you. No, that's fascinating. I want to follow up on your line of thinking. I mean, on the presumption or the premise that we are living in a multipolar world, revisionism is already taking place. Right. But also intuitively within a multipolar world, there is a greater degree of proliferation, which would make the, basically creates an argument that we have to collaborate even more. And I want to take you back again to the global south, which Southeast Asia is a member of. With the exception of Singapore and Brunei, of course, because they're developed economies.

But there is a political economy argument here for the global South members. Without their ability to get technological transfer from China, the collaboration will be finite. But to the extent that there is technological transfer so that they can move up the value chain, they can move up the global geopolitical order, the collaboration will be, I think, somewhat infinite. And that, I think, is a compelling argument for a sustained collaborative undertaking between China and a global south. I don't know if that's a logical extension of your line of thinking. Yeah. If you look at the Chinese formula of philosophy for BRI initiative, it's called the discussing together, contributing together, benefiting together. So this contributing and benefiting together means share of technical know-how, but it should be mutually beneficial as well.

because today most Chinese companies working in BRI are already private enterprises. So make the whole project viable these companies should also have commercially viable. So you cannot just be state-owned enterprises driven. It had to be driven by many more other actors. There are also another problem, you know, I remember in 1978 or 79, I was in Shanghai and China

said we want to import technologies from a Swiss company, elevator company, Schindler, I think, yeah. And this Swiss company said we can transfer technologies. but you have to pay a reasonable, decent price. So China said we can do that. We pay the price. And then, you know, they shipped tons of documents in German language. So the Chinese in Shanghai will have the capacity to host, to hold all this document,

translate them into Chinese. So this local capacity is also very important. So I would say this is a case where you have the first three decades of China on the mound. We trained enough translators who understand German language and who have enough engineers who can read this even without linguistic competence. They understand these graphs, whatever, you know, maps, whatever, designings. So there is technical know-how and local capacity training. This is also important.

So I think it's, let's go step by step. You know, I remember when Denzel P. met with foreign dignitaries, you know, from the West. He said, we hope you will transfer technology to China. And then Zalping said, you know, if you transfer technology to China, you will find eventually you will benefit from this because you will create a larger market and more consumers, etc. So it's mutually beneficial. This will be the way to look at the issue. And I think we could discuss with Chinese companies about that.

You have their way of reasoning and whether we can find a common ground. But China has so far trained so many. I was in Africa once or twice a year. year. And I remember when China had this honeymoon relation with the Soviet Union in 1950s, Soviet Union helped train about 20,000 engineers and scientists who played a very important role in China's economic development. And we have already trained more, I think more than 20,000, perhaps 50,000 engineers and scientists for Africa. and the process is still going on.

So how to make best use of the talents trained in China is also very important. And so within the BRI, this human capital development is also a key project. Absolutely. Just a touch on that, South East Asia, most countries, about 80 to 90% of the households are headed up by people without the University of Education, university education. And the only hope is to really invest in great teachers in the absence of parents that have good education.

You are a teacher, and I try to spend a bit of my time teaching in classrooms. This is where scalability takes place. And I'm in a camp that strongly believes that investing in teachers or good teachers It's not great teachers. Something that Deng invested in, Lee Kuan Yu invested in, and a few other great leaders have done so. This is something that I think Southeast Asia needs to pick up on, with the absolute exclusion of Singapore, of course, because they've doggedly invested in great teachers since the early

60s. Perhaps, you know, China-Arisian can have far more cooperation than it is today for educational, you know, whatever opportunities. I think perhaps another part of education is professional training, which is vocational training, which is so important, you know. And for instance, we help build this railway for Laos and the Shanghai Vocational School for Railway, da, da, da, they trained a lot of Laosian technicians and they went there to work and very well. So when the project completed it's taken over by the Laosch engineers and the workers so this is our training the goal with the Chinese projects also very helpful yeah you know just to touch on what

you alluded to earlier in terms of collective trade between Southeast Asia and China it's already a trillion dollars yeah where Southeast Asia's trade with the US would have been about five hundred forty billion dollars so I tell my American friends the train has left the station as it relates to the economic cooperation between China and Southeast Asia. But I'm also a believer of Southeast Asia's having to invest in its educational attainment. At the moment, the economic attainment is so divergent. You have a country that earns $91,000 per capita per year. You have others that earn less than $2,000 per capita per year.

And this is, I think, largely attributable to the fact that the educational attainment is also divergent. This is something that needs to be remedied. And this is probably where China can also take a look in terms of how they could help, you know, vocationally, tertially, or educationally in general. Because if you've done a tremendously good job in getting education as a priority. Yeah, I think, you know, there is a vast area of opportunities for educational cooperation. And as a university professor, we should encourage that. And we're also sending our young scholars to ASEAN as visiting fellows. Young students study Aishang Culture and ASEAN, whatever expertise.

We won't have more people in China who know. Southeast Asia. But on the whole, you know, this overall feeling on the part of Chinese towards Southeast Asia is very positive. And I remember when Zhurongji, China's former prime minister at a signing ceremony for the free trade agreement between ASEAN China, which year I forgot, he made an opening statement. He said, if our ASEAN friends find this agreement is unfair to ASEAN, say, in five to ten years, we can renegotiate it. Oh, you remember that one? Yeah.

I remember that. So really, the Chinese civilization is very broad-minded. We think will help others. We also receive help from others. It's always mutual. You don't make, not directly or indirectly. So it's, even with the country like the Philippines, many Chinese think it's a troublemaker for China.

Yet we have a long-term view. I say it's the United States, it was destroyed the Filipino Navy. But for the Chinese, we say we use water kind of a bit. But the idea is long term, because Filipino policies goes ups and downs, and the people are nice people. So I said the key difference between Chinese culture as a civilizational state,

state and American culture is for United States, it's a friend or phone. But for Chinese, it's a friend or potential friend. It's a long-term game and we can see with vision. Slightly long-term, you can do much better international relations. Wait, wait, we're almost at the 90-minute mark. I've got two remaining questions. I'm sensitive to your time. The first one is India. I was hardly responsible for concocting the RSEP, the regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement, when I was still a policymaker a long time ago. And we purposely left an open-ended window

for anybody that was invited but not joining. And India, until today is not joining. I'm just curious as to what your take is on India and how China and ASEAN and India could collaborate better? Draw the picture for us. Well, on the whole, I share your perspective on this future possibility of cooperation between China, ASEAN and India. In this process, one major problem is China-Indian-related. How to reach approachment between the two great civilizations.

And from my knowledge of India, the problem perhaps is mainly with India. On the Chinese side, we have far less problems because we have leadership which are composed of really still statesmen who have long-term vision. The main problem is border dispute. We said many times we can put border issues aside and develop other relations. And we can even put the issue of sovereignty aside and we seek joint development in the region. In the end, at Densopin said, our future generation will be more enlightened and find a way to solve dispute, whatever. whatever. So we are trying to be flexible and then find a solution for two great civilizations. But from my knowledge of India, there are two major problems on the Indian side, which is very

difficult. One is the Indian military, which, as you know, lost a battle in the 1962, battle, border conflict. So you still remember this hard lesson. They have a kind of mentality, which is somehow, you know. The other problem with India media. The media is very hostile to China. As a result, given the nature of India's political system, with the military and media play such a role, Unless you are extremely bright statesman, courageous statesmen, we can find a solution immediately. Otherwise, it will take time. And so this is the reality. We have to face it. Hopefully, Indonesia and other countries can also work on India.

On Chinese part, we have far less difficult. We are very open-minded. For instance, we have problems. We have solved border. issues with all China's neighboring countries except India and Buda. And for Bhutan, we can solve the issue. It's built within 24 hours, but it's blocked by India. So this type of things. Yet the point is India should realize, I said India made a huge mistake this time. At the time when Gaza crisis disaster was condemned.

by all the crimes committed by Israel against humanity. Yet India decided to embrace Israel and develop this strategic partnership in a way to close its relations with Donald Trump. India again lost. This is a poor strategic judgment. You offended Arab countries and Donald Trump does not care of India anymore, etc. So really you need visionary statesmen to

really make this kind of approachment and also cooperation between China, ASEAN, India is success. It's not easy. But for China, ASEAN, no problem. Interesting. Well, hopefully the Southeast Asians can be the best interlocutor between these two giants. The last question would be with respect to what has just happened a few days ago, the summit, the meeting between President Xi and President Trump.

In your assessment, are we already in a Thucidus trap? If so, are we going to be able to get out of it peacefully? Well, we're in good shape. For this, you see the trap, it's based on Greek history or Western history. The philosophy is zero sound gain. If you look at the a dozen cases by Professor Gwanson. It's either Western countries or Japan, which follow the Western suit, pursue militarism. It did not, you know, embrace the Chinese philosophy. Chinese practice win-win every day in daily life. It's part of culture.

So why zero-sum gain, you know? You take one step back and then we, you know, can have a rich agreement on this and that. As I said, our philosophy friend and potential friend. So what's good is, on the one hand, China understand the real politics. As a result, we say very openly, we hope United States will not provoke China, say, on the issue of Taiwan. And I said openly just yesterday to R.T. I said during the Cold War era, there was no hot war between Soviet Union United States, but there were hot wars, two Korean War and Vietnam War between China, United States. Both involved direct military confrontation between China and United States.

In other words, when China is 100 times weaker than today, if United States or any other country cross the red line, we have no other choice. but to fight back. We hope we'll never go to that degree, especially with the United States. It will be, you know, affecting the whole world. But the Taiwan issue is really the red line of the red line. We see this repeatedly. And this time, I think Donald Trump got the message. He said, we're not going to fight, you know, 9,500 miles away, whatever. So this is a positive. Yet there are still other issues. in the relations, bilateral relations. But I think eventually, I said,

the world come to turns with reality, the rise of China. And I said, it's like the typical case with a psychopathic patient, you know, we go through four stages, denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance. So now China cannot rise. Angry, how China, the coming country can rise. And now it's bargaining. In the end, they were accepted. It's coming faster and faster.

I think so. I'm with you. I'm with you on that one. Well, this has been fascinating. Thank you so much, Wei, for your time and the discussion. Could I add another point? Because at the very beginning, I mentioned that Den Xiaoping made three strategic decisions on three occasions. I only mentioned one.

I quickly go through the three. So you can have a complete picture of Dan Shalping's contribution to rise of China and changing the world. In 1978, he made a decision to open China up to carry out largest scale economic reforms. At that time, there were other choices. As a result, China became different. And in 1989, in the Tianan question, then was the leader who had the courage and guts to stop this, whatever, color revolution in a forceful way.

Otherwise, people's Republic of China, that become former people's Republic of China. And then in 1992, he went on a southern trip to Shenzhen and other cities. At that time, there was a huge dispute as to why and how China were open, or maybe China should close door because Soviet Union broke up. Communism in Eastern Europe's Soviet Union failed. So whether China can continue its socialism and then went to southern China. He was in a hurry. He said, this is a crisis, but this crisis is also an opportunity for China.

And Chinese socialism or socialist Chinese way will work. At that time, the major dispute is what market economy. Can the market economy be used by socialism? Since that the market is something new to, ideologically neutral. It can work for capitalism. Capitalism can also work for socialism, social-embraced market as a tool. So as a result, we began even larger scale of reforming

and opening up to the outside world. So that's how the lens has been, three decisions at three critical moment change China forever. That's the China we see today. This might be a stretch, but I'm sure he's pretty happy with how China has turned out, but you think there would have been anything

that he may not have been happy with? It's okay. I think he should be happy, right? How China has turned out. Yeah, we could have another round of discussions when we are in Jakarta. Thank you. much Wei Wei. Thank you very much, guitar. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

That was Professor Zhang Wei Wei from Fudan University. Thank you.