CIA The World Factbook

YI: I believe last year, you took part in a future leaders dialogue on which the theme was to build a better Asia. What kind of conclusions came out of that meeting?

Gui Yong-Tao: Actually, that was a preliminary step in our efforts in terms of building a better Asia, the theme of our workshop. So, my impression is that we surely do need to understand the feelings, the emotions of initiatives of other countries. Because although China, or Japan or Korea have good relations with Southeast Asia in recent decades, we still find that we do not understand the situation, in the Chinese case, the situation in Southeast Asia that much. And actually I myself learnt a lot through this interaction with people from Southeast Asian countries, from Thailand, from Cambodia, Myanmar, from Indonesia and Malaysia.

YI: And South Asia, India, Pakistan?

Gui Yong-Tao: India, yes and Sri Lanka. Yes, we had all these people. Sometimes, we only watch the news and find out what is happening in these countries without any personal experience. But through dialogue and person-to-person relationships with people from these countries, we began to understand the real concerns of the people in these countries. For example, what the Vietnamese are thinking about their relations with the United States, might be very different from the convention wisdom about this delicate relationship. And sometimes, we may have the chance to know some people who are active in internal conflicts like in Sri Lanka and India, and we find that there are many people in these countries who are devoting, dedicating themselves to the peace process. What we see on the tv or in newspapers, are always bloodshed and violence. But we find that there are other people who make peace and development as their life work.

YI: How interesting. And these participants were identified as future perspective leaders?

Gui Yong-Tao: Yes, Asian leaders.

YI: We are seeing a different kind of relationship between China and ASEAN, what with China's accession to the World Trade Organization and with this rapid economic growth. Do you see a competition building up for markets between China and Southeast Asia? Would that be a problem?

Gui Yong-Tao: People may have this kind of worry about the competitive relationship between China and Southeast Asian countries. I think it's too early, too premature to judge or give a yes or no answer. What we should pay attention to, is, for example from the Chinese perspective, is the future development of China's economy. The focus of China is economic growth. And recently, I found that Chinese people are more and more emphasizing the development of the domestic market in China. Internal needs in China. So, if we look at the recent world financial crisis, that may have a possibility of that affecting China, and one of the measures, one of the, say, thinking about coping with this kind of crisis, in the future is developing our own markets, so that we do not have to depend our economy on exports to foreign countries. So like the United States, basically the US market is still a domestic. So, it is less affected by happenings in other parts of the world. China should also learn from this, and really China, since its rapid economic growth and the growth of incomes of Chinese people, yes, we think that we have a very promising future of developing a domestic market, which I think will not release the fears among Southeast Asian countries.

YI: I think that is the case, but don't you think there will a complementary relationship as well because with that big domestic market in China is facing you will need energy resources and this is what Southeast Asian countries can offer to China.

Gui Yong-Tao: Yes, exactly. And this kind of thing has already happened and is happening in Chinese domestic market. If you have gone to Chinese supermarkets, you will find many things imported from South Korea, which would actually been unimaginable a few years ago, and not only for agricultural products and industrial products from Southeast Asia. Of course, on focus of China's recent policy is the resources of energy from Southeast Asia. And this of course is complementary. We have admit the fact that during this rapid industrialization China needs to guarantee, secure its resource supplies. And I think in this process, between China and Southeast Asia, can create a sort of win-win situation that can benefit both sides.

YI: But as China becomes strong and bigger, many people may see it as a threat. Like right now, in Southeast Asia, you have Chinese motorcycles, Chinese televisions. It's flooding the market. Is there justification for such a concern, for such a fear for China's power?

Gui Yong-Tao: How do we define justification? I think this is understandable, at least. We should see no only Southeast Asia, even in the US market, you find Chinese products are all over there. I guess that in a few years, US taxi drivers will be driving taxis made in China, cars made in China, no longer just toys or light industry products. So that's a worldwide phenomena and we may find that all around the world, there is this kind of fear about so-called China's economic threat. But I think that in the economic field, basically, it's not a zero sum game. People should not think these kind of things from a critical perspective, from a political perspective or even from an ideological perspective. If we only look at these developments from a business perspective, we may see that both sides may benefit. If one side cannot benefit from this kind of dealings, the benefit simply would not come out. Anyway, I think that it might be a sort of what we call a politicization of China's economic and trade relations with other countries. It is sort of understandable, but not that much justified.