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00:10Hello, Telesur English presents a new episode of China Now, a WeMedia's production that showcases
00:16the culture, technology and politics of the Asian giant. In this first segment,
00:21China Currents explores China's export to Europe to China's announcement of two key
00:27superconducting magnets for China's artificial sun project to have passed the major engineering tests.
00:34Let's see.
00:40What's been Europe's hottest product this summer? No pun intended. Air conditioners. One Medina model
00:47that normally retails for about 800 euros has reportedly been resold online for as much as
00:535,000 euros. In Austria, one buyer was so desperate that he built three AI agents to monitor inventory
01:00across Europe around the clock. When one finally appeared 200 kilometers away, he drove through the
01:07night to pick it up. His review afterwards was simple. God bless Medina. Honestly, that may be
01:14the most sincere China-Europe policy statement of the year. Because while European officials are busy
01:20warning about Chinese over capacity, ordinary Europeans are dealing with something much more
01:25basic. It is too hot. Their homes were not built for this climate, and they need affordable machines
01:31that actually work. Only about one in five European households have air conditioning. In Germany, the
01:38figure is even lower, around 6%. A 2023 EU survey found out that 26% of the households could not
01:45keep their
01:46homes comfortably cool in the summer. Among the lowest-income households, that rose to nearly 35%.
01:53So when Brussels say over capacity, a lot of European families are hearing something very different.
01:59They hear, sorry, your affordable cooling option is a geopolitical problem now. And that is not just
02:05about one viral air conditioner. China's strength in consumer manufacturing is exactly in the things
02:11households need when life gets expensive. Air conditioners, fans, refrigerators, washing machines,
02:17televisions, water heaters, induction cookers, dishwashers, rice cookers, and now smart energy
02:23efficient appliances that can be produced quickly, repaired quickly, and sold at a price normal people
02:30can actually consider. In 2024, China exported 4.48 billion household appliances, up more than 20%
02:38from the year before. In the first quarter of 2026 alone, China exported more than 21 million refrigerators,
02:45nearly 9 million washing machines, and more than 25 million televisions. That is not a spreadsheet
02:51abstraction. That is industrial capacity, meaning daily life. And this summer, that capacity arrived in
02:57Europe just on time. In the first five months of 2026, China's air conditioner exports to the EU reached
03:03$3.76 billion, up 43.2% year-on-year. Exports of mobile air conditioners rose by more than 70%.
03:12Medea, Higher, Gris, and other Chinese brands did not need to give Europeans a lecture about
03:18multipolarity. They just gave them cold air. And apparently, that was threatening enough. Because
03:24while consumers are buying Chinese appliances as quickly as stores can stock them, European policymakers
03:29are describing the same phenomenon as a crisis. The EU's goods trade deficit with China reached about
03:35306 billion euros in 2025, roughly 1 billion euros a day. European Commissioner President Ursula von der Leyen
03:43said this is not just about cheap imports. Other officials have called it imbalance and sustainable.
03:49Some lawmakers have even floated punitive tariffs on Chinese air conditioners. So let's translate.
03:54When Chinese companies cannot make enough of something, we hear that China is unreliable.
04:00When Chinese companies can make enough of something at scale, at lower cost, and with decent quality,
04:06we hear that China is dangerous. And when European consumers choose these products because they are
04:12cheaper and available, suddenly the consumer is no longer sovereign. Suddenly the market is no longer
04:18sacred. Suddenly the invisible hand needs a customs officer. That is the contradiction
04:23at the heart of Europe's China debate. Europe wants green transition, climate adoption, affordable living,
04:30resilient supply chains, and protection from extreme heat. But it also wants to punish the country
04:35that can actually manufacture many of the products needed to make that transition affordable. Of course,
04:42Europe has the right to care about its own industries. No serious country should simply give up
04:46manufacturing. But there is a difference between rebuilding industry and making ordinary people pay more
04:52because your own industrial policy arrived 20 years too late. China's overcapacity is easy to criticize
04:59from an air-conditioned conference room. It sounds very different from a hot apartment in Berlin,
05:05a classroom in London, a restaurant kitchen in Paris, or a care home trying to keep elderly people
05:11alive through another record-breaking summer. And that is why this story cuts deeper than trade statistics.
05:17For a European leader, Chinese appliances are a trade imbalance. For many European consumers,
05:23they're a relief. Not every Chinese brand story this week was about success overseas. One of them ended
05:29up in court in China. And somehow a bubble tea logo became a debate about Chinese civilization,
05:35French luxury, trademark law, and cultural ownership, and whether a $2 drink is allowed to look a little
05:42too much like a $3,000 handbag. On June 29th, a court in Suzhou ruled that Chinese tea chain
05:50Mo Li Naibai, also known as Molly Tea, had infringed Louis Vuitton's four-petal flower trademark. The
05:57company was ordered to stop using the design and pay 10.3 million yuan, or about 1.5 billion dollars,
06:04in damages. Mo Li Naibai says it will appeal. Now legally, it is pretty simple to understand.
06:09Louis Vuitton's monogram has been around since 1896, after more than a century of branding,
06:15advertising, celebrity placement, airport boutiques, and luxury signaling. That four-petal
06:20flower is part of Louis Vuitton's commercial identity now. Trademark law does not ask who first
06:26drew a flower in human history. It asks what consumers associate with that mark today.
06:32And Mo Li Naibai did itself no favors. According to Chinese reporting,
06:37the company tried multiple times from 2024 onward to register similar flower marks.
06:42Those applications were rejected. It continued using the design anyway. Its earlier logo was more
06:48clearly built around jasmine and Chinese-style branding. Then it moved toward a black four-petal
06:54motif that, let's be honest, looked a little too ready for duty-free shopping. So yes, a lot of the
07:01criticism of Mo Li Naibai is fair. Chinese brands should not hide behind traditional culture when
07:07the actual business strategy is obviously borrow the aura of European luxury, make it younger, cheaper,
07:13and sell it with milk tea. That is not cultural confidence. That is prestige lingerie. And that is
07:19only half the story. The other half is why so many Chinese netizens were angry in the first place.
07:25Because when Chinese people looked at the disputed flower, they did not see only Louis Vuitton. They
07:31saw something familiar. Four-petal and precious flower patterns appear across Chinese decorative
07:36history. Tainan's demotives, Dunhuang mural patterns, floral lattice designs, traditional architecture,
07:43textiles, and Buddhist-inspired ornamentation. AP reported that Chinese commentators drew links
07:49between the Louis Vuitton monogram and motifs dating back to ancient China, including Tang-era patterns.
07:55whose aesthetic language is alive to this day. Louis Vuitton's parent company has described the
08:01monogram as inspired by neo-gothic ornamentation and Japanism. But Japanism itself entered European
08:08design through an East Asian visual world that was deeply shaped by China's Tang-era aesthetics.
08:14So from a Chinese perspective, the anger is not simply Louis Vuitton bad, milk tea good. It's more like this.
08:21A Western luxury house can absorb Asian visual traditions, turn them into a global status symbol,
08:27sell them back to the world for a fortune, and then use modern trademark law to sue a Chinese company
08:33for using a motif that many Chinese people feel belongs to their own cultural memory. That feels
08:39upside down. It feels like watching someone borrow the furniture from an ancestral home, build a boutique
08:45around it, and then send a lawyer's letter to you for sitting in the chair. It might be perfectly legal,
08:51but it sure feels wrong. And here's where the story becomes more uncomfortable. Just because the
08:56emotional anger at Louis Vuitton is understandable does not mean Wong Li Nai Bai is the hero of Chinese
09:02aesthetics. A Chinese company using a Chinese-inspired motif is not automatically cultural confidence. The
09:09question is, are you building from the tradition or are you using the tradition as camouflage for
09:15copying someone else's brand power? There's a huge difference. Florisys, for example, has built a
09:21recognizable beauty brand around Chinese aesthetic language. Regional embroidery, intangible cultural
09:27heritage, Dunhuang-inspired design, Song-style minimalism, classical color systems. China has an enormous
09:34visual archive to work from. The tragedy is that some companies still look at that and think, what if we
09:41made it look a little more like Louis Vuitton? That is why this case hit such a nerve. Chinese anger
09:47at Louis
09:48Vuitton is about cultural ownership and historical memory. Chinese criticism of Mo Li Nai Bai is about
09:53self-respect. Both can be true. LV can show a little more grace in acknowledging its inspiration from Chinese visual
10:00traditions, but Chinese brands also cannot build real cultural confidence by cosplaying European
10:06prestige and then shouting Dunhuang when the lawsuit arrives. The lesson is not that Chinese companies
10:11should avoid traditional motifs. The lesson is the opposite. Use them better. Study them deeper. Register
10:18them earlier. Design with enough confidence that no one looks at your logo and immediately thinks of a
10:24French suitcase. Because China is not short of culture, it is short of brands, brave enough to trust
10:30that culture on its own terms. Going back to the world of international relations, even as trade tensions
10:35continued between China and the EU, diplomacy kept moving this week. From July 2nd to July 8th, Chinese
10:41Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway. Now, normally, Foreign Minister visits
10:48four Nordic countries is not exactly the kind of headline that makes people cancel dinner plans,
10:53but this trip matters because it points to Europe's biggest strategic problem. Europe wants to be a pole in
11:00the multipolar world, but it still behaves like an admin region inside someone else's security architecture.
11:06Look at the countries Wang Yi visited. Denmark and Norway were founding members of NATO, Finland joined NATO in
11:122023, Sweden in 2024. So these are not countries drifting away from the Western alliance system. They're among its most
11:21secure, wealthy, and institutionally loyal members. And yet, even here, China is unavoidable. Why?
11:28Because Europe's real-world interests do not fit neatly into Washington's China policy. Europe needs green
11:35technology. China is the world's manufacturing center for much of it. Europe needs trade. China remains
11:41one of its largest economic partners. Europe needs a voice in the Ukraine war. China has channels to
11:46Moscow than most European capitals do not. Europe needs options. Because without options, strategic
11:53autonomy is just a nice phrase you put in a speech before asking Washington what to do next. That is
11:59why the Nordic trip is worth watching. The public language was all very diplomatic. Green transition,
12:04innovation, free trade, climate change, AI governors, multilateralism. But underneath that polite language
12:11is a much harder reality. Europe is trying to manage three things at once. Dependence on United States
12:17for security, dependence on China for trade and green industry, and the fear of Russia as a military
12:23threat. That's no strategy on itself. That's just anxiety. And China knows this. Beijing does not need
12:29Europe to become pro-China. That is not the plan. The plan is to make sure Europe does not become
12:35completely absorbed into an American anti-China bloc. For China, every European country that says
12:41we have our own interests, our own industries, our own climate goals, our own diplomacy is already a more
12:47useful partner than one that simply repeats Washington's lines. For Europe, the logic should
12:53be just as obvious. If Europe wants to be taken seriously in a multipolar world, it cannot treat
12:58China only as a threat, only as a market, or only as a problem to be managed. It has to
13:03deal with
13:04China as one of the major powers shaping the system Europe claims it wants to help lead.
13:10That does not mean ignoring disagreements. Norway still raised Ukraine. The EU still has trade
13:15complaints. The politics are still difficult. But difficult is not the same as optional. That is the
13:21uncomfortable truth for Europe. You cannot build strategic autonomy by cutting yourself off from the
13:27countries that make autonomy possible. And whether European leaders like it or not, China is one of those
13:33countries. One theme running through Wang Yi's Nordic trip was Clean Energy Corporation. Back in China,
13:39that ambition took another step forward this week, this time in one of science's biggest prizes,
13:44controlled nuclear fusion. And this story matters for one simple reason. Whoever cracks fusion doesn't
13:51just build a better power plant, they change the economics of the 21st century. AI data centers,
13:57heavy industry, desalination, carbon removal, everything we want more of is running into the
14:03same bottleneck, electricity. Fusion promises to break that bottleneck. That's why China's latest
14:09announcement caught so much attention. Two key superconducting magnets for China's artificial sun
14:14project have passed major engineering tests, including a 582-ton Torodo field magnet, the largest ever built
14:23for fusion reactor. The larger reactor, known as BEST, is scheduled for completion by the end of 2027,
14:30with the goal of demonstrating fusion-generated electricity around 2030. Now, let's be clear,
14:36China has not solved fusion, nobody has, but China may have figured out something just as important,
14:42how to industrialize the race. America still has world-class scientists and well-founded private
14:48startups. Europe still leads the world's biggest international fusion project, but China has
14:53combined something neither side has managed at the same scale. Long-term state funding, national
14:59laboratories, and the world's deepest manufacturing supply chain. The research team says it spent six
15:04years localizing the entire supply chain around these magnets, cutting the cost of key superconducting
15:11materials by roughly 75%. That's the real breakthrough, because futuristic technology races are rarely won by
15:19the country with the smartest lab. They're won by the country that can build the second one, then the
15:24hundredth one, and finally make it cheap enough that everyone else has to buy it. That's exactly how China
15:31wants solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles. Now it's trying the same playbook with fusion. Whether it
15:38succeeds, it's still an open question, but one thing is already clear, China isn't just trying to
15:43discover the future, it's trying to manufacture it. That's it for China Currents, see you next week.
15:56We have a short break now, but don't go away because we'll be right back.
16:12Welcome back to China Now. In the second segment, Thinkers Forum welcomes Shi Guangjin, professor at the
16:19School of International Relations at Fudan University, in conversation with Nurlia Nurdin, professor in
16:26political science from Indonesia, to discuss government capacity and governance effectiveness in a globalized
16:33world. And later, James Galbraith, American economist and executive committee member at the World Economics
16:39Association, will review China's forced entry into global trade. Let's have a look.
16:55My name is Zhiguang Yin. I'm a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs
17:02at Fudan University. Yes. I'm a political historian. I do Global South, Developmental History,
17:09that sort of things. My team also have a particular key interest on global governance, global order,
17:17with a focus on the Global South in general. And would you introduce yourself?
17:24Yeah, sure. Nurlia Nurdin. I'm a professor in political science.
17:26So we're in the same fashion? Yes. And I've been teaching maybe like 27 years
17:34in government. So my institution is called IPDN, Institute of Governance Studies. It's a boarding
17:40school, four-year students. And right after they're done with the study, they become a government
17:44employer. Is it guaranteed? Yeah, guaranteed. Oh, I want to work there. That's why it's very difficult to get in.
17:51Nice. Wow. And my alumni will be all designated to all provinces, all districts, 480 districts. Yeah.
18:02So I won't be lost if I'm Indonesia. Just contact one alumni, come here. Yeah. And just
18:09almost seven years, I'm a director in Istialan, Politeknik Istian Jakarta. It's the same
18:15school also, but it's not boarding, but also train and educate government employers. So it's a spin-off
18:22of the School of Governance? Yeah. My home base is IPDN, Ministry of Home Affairs. Yeah. But more than six
18:29years,
18:30I helped, I become a director in NIPA school. For second term, I'm done. So I'm going back to my
18:39home
18:40institutions. Yes. It's interesting that you're working on training grassroots level of civil
18:47servants, right? What are the biggest challenges that you, over your rich career, what are the
18:54biggest challenges that you think that not only Indonesia, but also Global South countries are facing
19:02in terms of governance? Well, the governance itself mainly have three duties to provide.
19:12Yeah. To provide services, to provide security, and empowerment. There's some very main basic
19:21empowerment. Yeah. It's a government too. It's a government too. And then my school teach these
19:29students for four years. Yeah, for four years to be a government employer. So the challenge would be
19:36in political science, because we're in the political science. Because the head of the regions
19:43is political appointee, which is not necessarily understand how the power should be distributed,
19:49how the power should be meant to be the prosperity of the people. And then my alumni, my students,
19:58serve people in the bureaucracy by the list of political leaders. Oh, right. So this is like
20:06hand-in-hand. So it's like a people-centric, right? So you train the people, make sure the people are
20:11there,
20:11and then you... Yeah. Another side is political leaders become the head of the local government.
20:17Yeah. Yeah. They're not necessarily understand the structures of the government. Right. Yeah,
20:23because they come from private, from business. They're getting elected and lead this bureaucracy.
20:30So sometimes the difficulties of my... When they talk, when I visit them in some areas,
20:36they say, wow, we ask to do this, we ask to do this, but then this is not the government
20:42meant to be.
20:44Mostly politicians go for like personal interest, for example. Right? Yeah. So we need to make this
20:52government employee, our students, really knowledgeable, open, and empower themselves with technology.
21:02Right. So that's why they can connect with these leaders, political leaders, that there's a system,
21:08there's an open system that you have to obey. Otherwise the people, society, will demand
21:17harder if they won't listen. Right. So the moral obligation, as well as the political obligation for
21:25those leaders are to the local people, right? In the case of governance, it's not only just about the
21:32local community that you're taking care of. It's about combining those enclaves of local peoples
21:39together to a bigger community. In this case, Indonesia. But also that bigger community could
21:47potentially reach further, like the case of ASEAN. In many of the cases, only relying on one single
21:56community or one nation development will not be achievable. Yeah. It was interesting a few minutes ago,
22:04I presented my paper. Oh, did you? Yeah. And it raised a lot of questions because I presented that the
22:11capacity building is no longer belongs one and only government. Yes. But it's going to be a decentralized
22:18society that also has capacity to help society. We have these citizens help citizens in the crisis
22:28moment. Then wait a minute, what's the role of government in this case? The role of government is
22:33providing, but it seems like the society go faster, go faster helping the crisis. Right. Because they have
22:45this really decentralized connections. They have this digital adaptive governance. They don't have
22:54hierarchical community. So the government is a facilitator. Yeah. Right. Government facilitates.
23:01So this is like collaboration, partnership, civilians with government. Right. Interesting. Sorry to
23:09interrupt. Sure, sure. No, that's good. And it was question also, why, what is the precaution of this
23:15citizen helping citizens? Yeah. Because we have in the long history, we call it gotong royong. Gotong royong
23:22means people help each other. For example, in the traditional, you're going to build a housing, your home,
23:30you cannot be yourself. You have your neighbors. Yeah. Love you. Right. And then as the house, China has the
23:36same
23:37tradition. Yeah. Yeah. You just provide food, meals, and then they will do that for days. No payment.
23:43Technically, you have the same argument in English as well, right? It takes the whole village to raise a
23:49kid. Yeah. It's a community mutual help sort of idea. Indeed. And talking about a global south, we enlarge this.
24:00I think citizens growing. The community also growing because of the technology. Right. What's happened in
24:09China, in the UK, it's the same time. We heard that. Who knows is that? So the demand of the
24:16agile,
24:17adaptive governance also raises. So the collaboration must exist among them. And a global perspective
24:30is the, I think there's a paradox. The political interest is different. From country to country,
24:38or what do you mean? Yeah. Yeah. The political interest globally. Right. Yeah. Difference. That's divided
24:43the society. Right. The society tend to be more emerged. Yeah. Yeah. But then the political interest
24:56in the other hand, have their own interests. Right. That's divided the society. Oh, I see. Right. Right.
25:03Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. So it's like a widely seen or widely common phenomenon that in a parliamentary
25:12democracy, democracy, different political parties represent different sectors, interests,
25:18and even the politicians themselves form a self-contained class on themselves. Yeah.
25:25And then all the sectors don't agree with each other. Mm-hmm.
25:29Was that the same, what you're saying? Well, probably. I think this is more to like the interest of
25:36empower one to another. Right. Right.
25:39In the global perspective, you know. Right.
25:42Right. But in the society itself, they're more communal, working with other community,
25:49with other, like, we are not actually like representing governments talking here. Mm-hmm.
25:56But like a society expert, you know. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. We understand each other. We can share
26:02each other. Absolutely. That's the beauty of it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. When we eliminate or sort of tend to
26:11look below the state-to-state level, all those non-state actors, the societal represents the true
26:18vital component of the society. Yeah. And the societal exchange between communities or between countries would really enhance... Yeah.
26:30And what we see is like a big country. Yeah. One voice for big countries like... Indonesia or China.
26:41No, no. Like, let's say the five countries who have a fatal voice in the UN, you know. Right.
26:48Yeah. So one voice from them is like cover everything. Mm-hmm.
26:52Oh, we saw the killing. We saw the war. Yeah. This is not what people want. Mm-hmm. I see.
26:59Right.
26:59Yeah. We don't want that. Mm-hmm. But this, we are divided by this global interest.
27:05But at the same time, as you said previously, the state should function as the facilitator to
27:13eliminate all those sort of math dividing elements. Yeah. But it seems that society
27:22go further beyond the state to collaborate. Okay. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
27:30That kind of echoes with one of the themes that this workshop wants to add, wants to discuss.
27:37Yes. It's called the Shared Development. The Shared. Shared Development.
27:42Yeah. Yeah. You must have noticed the sheets on your table. Yeah.
27:47Yeah. Will it be possible like the shared development, we share communities to communities...
27:52Yeah. That's the whole idea. ...not boundaries of countries.
27:55That's what we're hoping. That's what we're hoping.
28:07This kind of echoes with my team's theoretical ambition and intellectual ambition.
28:16And our dean is quite enthusiastic about the notion of shared development.
28:21Shared development, yes.
28:24It's true. On one hand, humankind just needs to live with each other.
28:28Because there's an example. I always make examples to my students.
28:32Back home, we have an award of any hospital who gain better services.
28:39Like your region and my region.
28:42If my region services are better, we got an award.
28:46But then, what's the impact of having my best services?
28:52All patients from your region will rush to your place.
28:55Rush to my place, right? Rush to my place.
28:58And then, supposedly, I only can save 100 per day.
29:02Yeah, yeah.
29:02Then it becomes 1,000 per day. I'm exhausted.
29:05Yeah.
29:06So, the services become lower services then.
29:09Yeah, yeah. The quality will decrease.
29:11So, you have to improve your hospital so your people also can go.
29:15That is like the example of shared development.
29:18True, true.
29:19It should be mutual development.
29:20And then, probably based on that, in many of the cases, developmental cases, right?
29:28It's not the weaker hospital doesn't want to develop itself.
29:33Yeah.
29:34The hospital lacks of means, right?
29:37Either resources or human capacities.
29:41Yeah, human capacities.
29:42Or, it's in a very odd location.
29:45It's very difficult to access.
29:48Whatever, right?
29:48Same issues could go to national development, right?
29:55Some countries, they do want to develop and be the equal partner of the world.
30:01But, their land is barren.
30:04Or, they have very minimal level of natural resources.
30:08Or, they're depleted.
30:09Yeah.
30:10Even though, natural resources is debatable right now.
30:14Yeah.
30:14Yeah, right.
30:15There's a book, right?
30:16The Natural Research Course.
30:18I mean, some countries without really having this natural resource.
30:23Yeah.
30:23They emerge to be a developed country.
30:26Yeah.
30:26So, I think we started with the government.
30:29Good governance should be applied.
30:31Right.
30:32That's transparency, accountability.
30:35True.
30:35Yeah.
30:36Yeah.
30:36Law enforcement, participation.
30:38Otherwise, I mean, you have a budget without transparency.
30:43Yeah.
30:43Without accountability.
30:45Probably, it's not 100 going to the people prosperity.
30:49Yes.
30:49Right?
30:50Yes.
30:50Yeah.
30:51And one thing, at least my team was trying to argue is the government or the political party,
30:57which are ruling party, whichever.
31:00One of their roles is to mobilize people, to group people together for certain purposes.
31:07Yes.
31:08That purpose cannot be self-demeaning, cannot be sort of a self-interest, but it should be
31:14people-centric.
31:15Yeah.
31:16Whatever that you mobilize people for, the outcome needs to go back to physically.
31:21When I was in Bangladesh.
31:23Oh, right.
31:24Yeah.
31:24Bangladesh has a quite lower income.
31:28Yeah.
31:29Compared to the neighborhood.
31:30Hmm.
31:31What's happened that?
31:32The government itself say, we've done a lot of things.
31:34Yeah.
31:35But when we see directly to the really rural area, we see the poor, we ask what the government
31:44have done to you.
31:46Even like the meeting point is really not that good facilities.
31:51Yeah.
31:52And the government side say, no, we have already, there's a missing communication here.
31:56Yeah.
31:56When the government say, we've done this, but the society, that's need the strengthening
32:01society.
32:02Yeah.
32:04So we call it social accountability.
32:06So social accountability would refer to the institution itself, right?
32:10Yeah.
32:10Right.
32:11Okay.
32:11Open up this again.
32:12Good governance.
32:13Transparency.
32:14Transparency.
32:14So it matches the need of the society and then what the government provides.
32:20But on one hand, what you've said just reminds me, Chinese Communist Party's argument
32:27is like, all that is true, but also parties' role should mobilize people to provide the means
32:37for people to regain their own agency.
32:40Yes.
32:41So in that way, human individuals in the society would not be dependent on handouts, on rescues,
32:52but they could truly be independent and acquire their own agency so that they could be an equal
33:04partner in the society.
33:05Yeah.
33:05Yeah.
33:06Indeed.
33:08We learned that.
33:09That is one of gotong royong in back home.
33:12Right.
33:12Right.
33:12That's gotong royong.
33:13Help each other.
33:15Help each other at the same time you help yourself.
33:18Yeah.
33:18Interesting.
33:19Yeah.
33:20That's great.
33:21What you call that self-help.
33:23Yeah.
33:24But you see, I refrain from using that term because self-help is really an early 20th century
33:31American notion that relies on individualism.
33:35Right.
33:36Which is actually different meaning.
33:38Exactly.
33:39We rely on society itself as a collective.
33:42Even like the disabilities.
33:44Yeah.
33:45Yeah.
33:45How do you help this disability to be self-help?
33:49Exactly.
33:49Not only feeding them.
33:51Yeah.
33:51But how do they…
33:52We gain the confidence to be an equal partner of the society.
33:56Yeah.
33:57That idea.
33:57Yeah.
33:58Now, if you come to Jakarta, you find in a hotel, some mute not speaking.
34:04Oh, I see.
34:05Yeah, yeah.
34:05Servicing in the hotels.
34:06It's like requirements.
34:08You have to give them a pride that they can work actually.
34:11They have the opportunity to work.
34:13Yeah.
34:13In a position where it is suitable for the organization.
34:17And then same principle could apply to, I presume, to national development.
34:23Right?
34:23The current world is facing the problem of huge unequal unevenness.
34:29Although we're combined together as one world, but every country is hugely different
34:34and hugely uneven.
34:36How can you ask, is this a nation that is disadvantaged in many aspects to develop on their own without
34:46any sort of community, global community assistance?
34:51Indeed.
34:52So, the capacity building that we just…
34:54This is a good symposium, you know?
34:56Yeah.
34:57It's like image what country's experience in building the capacity buildings.
35:03Yeah, yeah.
35:04Again, it's the society-based capacity buildings.
35:10It's no longer government only.
35:12Yeah, we have to strengthen the capacity of the society.
35:17Of the society.
35:18I completely agree.
35:19And my team is working on the same theme.
35:22And the shared development agenda is also trying to disseminate that from ideal.
35:29We should work together.
35:30Sure, sure.
35:31Yeah.
35:31Join research.
35:32Yeah, let's do that.
35:33Join publication.
35:34Let's do that.
35:37And arguably, some of the building a bigger community so that we could live a much prosperous
35:44and sustainable life is already being practiced pretty much everywhere.
35:50China, like ASEAN, is a bigger community.
35:52Yeah, yeah, yeah.
35:54And then African Union, Pan-Africanism.
35:58China in itself is a bigger community.
36:01Yeah.
36:02Yeah.
36:03Yeah.
36:03We see China right now, like really different 20 years ago.
36:07It's really much.
36:08Yeah.
36:08Much economic power.
36:11Yeah, yeah.
36:11Yeah.
36:11The US really compete, you know, the economy.
36:14I saw my background also in international relations.
36:18Okay.
36:18My bachelor.
36:19That's why we get along with each other.
36:23So, it's about interest actually.
36:26Yeah, it's about interest.
36:28No permanent friends.
36:29No permanent enemies.
36:31Yeah.
36:31But interest.
36:32Yeah, that's too utilitarianist.
36:34Yeah, yeah, yeah.
36:35Which is, I think utilitarianism would solve small problems, but it wouldn't help us in the long run.
36:42Yeah, indeed.
36:44That's why we as scholars, this is a part of our duty.
36:50Yeah.
36:50Yeah.
36:51To develop and handle this community and share development.
36:56But it should not be only in China or any other part.
37:01Yeah.
37:01Exactly.
37:02Yeah.
37:03The Southeast should become like a movement.
37:08Yeah.
37:09Oh, I like that.
37:11That's ambitions.
37:12You know what the conference, Asia-African conference, occurred in Bandung.
37:17Yeah, yeah.
37:18With Sukarno.
37:19I wrote a book about it.
37:20Ah, Sukarno is like the main idea of having this after the war.
37:25Unity in diversity.
37:26Yeah.
37:27After the war too.
37:28The two.
37:29Asia and Africa really left behind.
37:32Yeah.
37:32So, we have to unify.
37:34I always, both in my books and in my teaching, I always quote Sukarno's opening speech,
37:41unity and diversity.
37:42Yeah.
37:43That applies not only to Indonesia's case, but the whole world.
37:46Oh, that's why we become a UN.
37:48Yeah, yeah.
37:48UN word, right?
37:49Yeah, yeah.
37:49It's unity and diversity.
38:01Bineka, tunggal, ika.
38:04Ah, so Bineka, tunggal, ika.
38:07China also has a similar expression.
38:09Because I think, compared to other countries, Indonesia probably the most diverse country.
38:15I would, yeah.
38:16Not only because we are islands, archipelago 17,000, you know?
38:20Yeah, exactly.
38:20But the tribes, it's really like hundreds, even hundreds, hundreds, language, food, anything.
38:31So, you have to stay 10 years, you haven't really tasted all the Indonesian Christians.
38:36Probably, yeah.
38:37I wouldn't doubt that.
38:39One thing, well, I mean, it's not unique to see huge diversity within a country, right?
38:46Ethnic groups and tribes and so on.
38:48But Indonesia's case is quite intriguing because it's not only ethnically diverse, but it's also divided by land, like archipelago.
38:59Yeah, we are really amazed how the, maybe like our age is 28, 1928, when these young people of Indonesia
39:14say,
39:14we cannot be win over the colonization if we still separate.
39:21Yeah, exactly.
39:22Because what's the Dutch at the time, colonized Indonesia by divide and conquer among the kingdoms, because basically we are
39:38kingdoms.
39:39And that's the youth oath at the time, 28.
39:43Three statements, we are one nation, one language.
39:47Right.
39:47And one people.
39:48Oh, yeah, yeah.
39:49One tanah air.
39:50Tanah air means our land.
39:52Yeah.
39:52Yeah.
39:52One land, one language, one people.
39:55One land, one nation, one people.
39:56You imagine if all these languages by tribes know Indonesian language, how difficult to go to one, two places to
40:05another place.
40:05You do see the historical counter movement, right?
40:10The empire, the imperialist initiative is to divide and conquer.
40:14Yeah.
40:14Whereas the counter movement for that is these Afro-Asian and Latin Americans solidarity movement.
40:22Solidarity movement, yeah.
40:22We want to unite together.
40:25Yeah, yeah.
40:25We need to bring people together so that we could have…
40:28The shared developments.
40:29Yeah.
40:30It's really lovely.
40:31Yes.
40:47China's engagement in world trade, of course, goes back…
40:51By world trade, one means basically trade with the European powers.
40:56It goes back to, you know, five or six hundred years, let's say.
41:01China was, of course, a major trade partner, at least as far as the aspirations of European powers were concerned,
41:08in the 15th, 16th centuries.
41:11When trade opened up, and particularly following the discovery of the Americas and the discovery of silver, China became a
41:21major sink for silver mined in the Americas and carried there by the Spanish and, to some degree, the Portuguese.
41:31The entrepot for that trade was manila.
41:34Of course, the Chinese products that the Europeans sought after were silk and tea and ceramics and other matters.
41:42And this, of course, this led to a transformation of the Chinese monetary system toward a silver-based system that
41:49had previously been paper and copper coins.
41:52Okay.
41:54So we're looking at a country which has had a long history of trade engagement, and one which let the,
42:02let's say, territorial conquests were involved here, were carried out by the European powers and not by the Chinese.
42:09And one can go back even earlier to the great tribute fleets to see that that was an established pattern.
42:18The second major wave of globalization occurs in the 19th century, and it happens at a time when the then
42:27rising European empires, the British and the French, were industrial empires.
42:32And as everybody knows, they used the power that had been imparted to them by industrialization, in particular military power,
42:40to force open markets in China.
42:42In a grim history, Europeans wanted markets for industrial textiles, for opium.
42:49And they acquired those markets at the point of the gun.
42:53So China, in this period, was essentially obliged to accept European doctrines of so-called free trade, which were, in
43:05fact, colonial doctrines and doctrines that were driven by the desire of rising industrialists to be able to dominate the
43:16markets and industrial products around the world.
43:18Well, I think it is a capsule summary of the long-term trajectory here.
43:24It was well known in Europe by, let's say, for example, in particular by Adam Smith, the great voice of
43:32Western economics, that China's reliance on external trade in the 17th and 18th centuries was not all that great.
43:44And the reason it didn't need to be great was that China had a vast internal market that was tied
43:51together by rivers and by the great canals.
43:54And so it had all of the capacity to develop on the basis of its internal cohesion as a vast
44:05empire tied together by the most effective means of transportation that was available at the time, which was internal waterways.
44:12Therefore, its great wealth, and it was recognized to be much wealthier than any other part of the world at
44:21that time, was largely not based on external trade, but rather on the capacity for development that had been pursued
44:29internally.
44:31This is, of course, another characteristic which has long-term historical implications for China.
44:36Well, if you're looking at the 19th century, then you're looking at a period where the major military technological advantages
44:44were on the side of the West.
44:46And this is obvious from the fact that the West was militarily, politically present in China, and China was not
44:53militarily or politically present anywhere outside of China.
44:57So this is a great asymmetry in relations.
44:59Did China need the trade with the West?
45:02No, there's no reason to think that it did.
45:04There's no reason to think the Chinese empire wanted that trade.
45:08It was forced on them, as I say, by an extremely violent process of essentially semi-colonization and, in fact,
45:18concessions, as we all know, in territory and in diplomatic rights within China.
45:26So this was a very one-sided business.
45:32And this was another episode of China Now, a show that opens a window to the present and future of
45:39the Asian giant.
45:40Hope you enjoyed it.
45:41See you next time.
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