Hello, welcome to visit Shanghai Forum
Thank you for your introduction. To save timefor polite formula, please allow me to start my speech directly. My theme isAsia Development under BRICS cooperation. I will discuss from two aspects: oneis the vitality of BRICS cooperation, and the other one is BRICS countriescooperation and their diversified development strategies in Asia based on firstaspect.
BRICS countries have much diplomaticcooperation, but they have many internal conflicts. Therefore, it can not be along-term cooperation. We need to think about the long-term ship and validityof BRICS countries cooperation. I would like to propose my opinion and idea toshare with you. We might need to consider three aspects of factors whenmeasuring that if a country or national group can become a strategic force ininternational society. The first one is the internal stability; the second isits relation with external environment, which refers to the confliction orcooperation with current international system and traditional internationalrelation. The third one surely reflects in the fact that if it can takeeffective counterbalance in local area.
Firstly, let’s see the internal stability ofBRICS countries cooperation. I think the internal stability can at least embodyfour common characteristics. BRICS countries not only have common characters,such as that they all want transformation and development, but also have commoninterest to the international society. There are two more important aspects,namely they have sent common voices and adopted common actions. No matterviewing from inside or outside, they show the four common characters. Firstly,let’s view from inside, BRICS countries’ cooperation mechanism and theirinteractive practical cooperation are developing constantly. When viewing fromoutside, BRICS countries have established effective dialogue mechanism withexisting international system and traditional large nations. Firstly, Let’s seethe cooperation mechanism of BRICS countries. I think there has emerged such adevelopment trend of joint promotion by government and civil society in BRICScountries. Viewing from government leading aspect, annual Leadership Summit andministerial conferences of all circles, finance ministers conferences andcentral bank presidents conferences have been formed. Meanwhile, there are manyworking teams in charge of practical implementation works. There has been nearly10 years of effective operations. Two more are formed based on this, one is theThink-Tank Union consists of civil think tank, and the other is Business andIndustry Council which is composed by the most influential entrepreneursselected from 5 BRICS countries to jointly promote the governance of BRICS. Theparticipated 5 large enterprises from China are mostly private enterprises. Oneof them is even a high-tech enterprise located in Shenzhen with short history.That is to say the joint promotion by civil society and government is a commoncharacteristic of the vitality and cooperation mechanism of current BRICScountries.
Secondly, we can see in many internationaloccasions, no matter in the United Nations or the G20, or in other aspects,BRICS countries’ leaders or ministers gather together to hold meetings tocoordinate their positions and take a common stand with a common voice. Asregards to some specific common actions, it’s very pleasant to see that thepreparation of BRICS Bank has acquired decisive development. I think BRICS Bankis not a substitution to the World Bank under the leadership of Mr. Zoelick,but a supplement to it, enabling developing countries to have more choices andgiving the world more vitality. Meanwhile, BRICS countries also established ajoint forex reserve pool which not only helps to reduce the impact on BRICScountries by international financial risk, but also helps stabilize globalfinancial system. Furthermore, BRICS countries are promoting tradefacilitation. All of you might know little about trade facilitation. Let metell you a number. The so called trade facilitation mainly refers to thedecrease of international trading costs. That means if the trading costscomposed by our customs, our transportation and commodity inspection decreaseby 1%, the entire world will get 40 billion USD of benefits. Considering theBRICS system, and different degree of bureaucracy in BRICS countries, thepromotion of trade facilitation has significant meaning to BRICS cooperation. Meanwhile,in terms of the development of economy and trade, the growth of interactivetrade among BRICS countries in last decade was 28%, nearly 1/3 every year. Inpast 10 years, the entire trade volume has doubled for 15 times, approaching toover USD300 billion, and this number might be closing to USD500 billion afteranother decade.
If we take a systematic view on the fiveSummits of BRICS, we can clearly see that the target system of BRICSparticipating in global governance has been formed very clearly. It can beconcluded into 4 points. First, hope to establish a more democratic, fairer andmore diversified international order; Second, reform international financialsystem and establish a more stable, more predictable and more diversifiedinternational currency system; Third, promote multilateral trading system todevelop towards developed countries, and win-win cooperation among developingcountries. The latest progress is that a Brazilian officer will take office ofthe Secretary-General of WTO. I think that with his background, he can dobetter to realize the balance and coordination on the mutual benefits betweendeveloped countries and developing countries under WTO such a frame thanothers;
And fourth, BRICS strongly advocates to makeprogress through dialogues, that means to actively solve such global problemsas climate, energy and environment through accumulative method. Climate problemis the thing that every one of us has to face with. However, the promises andrestraint to emission reduction actively proposed by BRICS on CopenhagenConference play a significant role on solving global climate problems. I wantto emphasize three opinions: 1. to govern and solve global problems by relyingon existing international mechanism is far more than enough under thecircumstance of outburst of global financial crisis and deepening of suchcrisis. Many problems can not be solved without the participation of developingcountries or emerging economies. Similarly, do not forget that every BRICScountries has maintained close economic, political and diplomatic cooperationwith developed countries and developed economies when emphasizing thedevelopment of BRICS countries. Like Mr. Zoellick said in his speech, theproblems need to be solved, or the negotiation undergoing between China andAmerica is one point. The third opinion is that the international society musthave a diversified consultative mechanism and cooperation mechanism. The UN G20and BRICS make discussions and negotiations to solve the problems according todifferent topics and different choices. All in all, we should not regard thecooperation and development of BRICS countries as the substitution to oneinternational system by another international system. They represent differentinterests. And it is a problem of how to enable different mechanisms to coexistand how to acquire balance.
I want to mention the issue proposed by thePrime Minister Li Keqiang during his visit to India. He wrote an article onIndian newspaper. He sent a very clear signal to the world that China is the beneficiary and vindicator to current internationaloperation and international system. China would like to jointly promotethis system with other countries including India. I think this is a very clearpresentation on the relation between the positioning of China and thepositioning of existing international system by Chinese leader in the last tenyears. The issue that China is the beneficiary and vindicator, and also thereformer to current international operation and international system proposedby Prime Minister Li Keqiang clearly illustrates China’s stand and the stand ofBRICS to the international society.
Speaking of BRICS cooperation, we can not beindifferent to and ignore that there exist many internal conflicts and thereare disputes on such aspects as political structure, economic development leveland religious culture and even territorial disputes. But I think, based oncommon demands and long-term interests, BRICS must walk towards cooperation anddevelopment. Viewing from political perspective, as we mentioned just now, wehope to have democratized international relation and have the idea ofmulti-polarization and win-win cooperation for international relation. Meanwhile,viewing from economic angle, the ratio of BRICS in world economy has beenrising constantly. It was 14% four years ago in 2008, less than 15% Afteranother 20-30 years, BRICS will be half of the entire world economy. This willnot only bring huge opportunities to the entire world, but also to BRICScountries. Meanwhile, when viewing from production factors, and such aspects aspopulation, land, resources and markets, the capacity of BRICS might be largerthan developed countries. Let me give you a number. Recently, Ernst & YoungGroup, one of the largest accounting companies in the world, conductedestimation on the population of middle class in China and India. According toits estimation, China now has about 150 million of middle class, and thisnumber has been increasing at a speed of 10% every year. This is the progressof China’s urbanization mentioned by Director Fang. Every 1% of increase inChina’s urbanization, there are 1300 people come to cities from rural area, andthey turn to be citizens from farmers. Therefore, viewing from long-termeconomic and political angle, we can get a clear conclusion that although thereis fluctuation in the world’s economy, such as fluctuation in macro economy andin exchange rate and export in all countries, of course including BRICS, theselong-term factors decide the effectiveness of the development and cooperationof BRICS.
How is the vitality of BRICS cooperationbeing showed in Asia Pacific Region, especially Asia area? I have proposed aconcept about effective regional governance at the beginning. To put it simply,it means a big nation or a big nation group can make full utilization of itseconomic and political strength as well as international influence to create orsafeguard the peace, prosperity, safety and stability of its area. In thisaspect, I want to emphasize another point. BRICS is never a pure individualnation concept. It represents a region, like Brazil and Latin America, SouthAfrica and Southern Africa, and Russia and Soviet. It is closely related withCentral Asia and East Europe. India is a big nation in Asia, so it hassignificant influence to the economic and political development in Asia. We cansay each BRICS country represents a region, the model of a region’s politicaland economic development or the bellwether of its political and economicdevelopment. On the Summit held in this March, BRICS created a very goodexample. The leaders from 5 countries invited the leaders from dozen of Africanations to jointly discuss about how to promote the development of South Africaand the entire Africa. The same circumstance might occur in Brazil next year.
As a regional concept BRICS country, how doesit show the diversified development of Asia? There are three levels:
Viewing from global point of view, thedemocratization of international relation advocated by BRICS countries is awin-win concept which is consistent with the pluralistic development andeconomic integration of Asia. Viewing from regional level, I specially want youto focus on two highlights, or two focuses: one is RCEP, and the other is APEC.The so-called RCEP refers to that the countries participating in China, Japanand South Korea ASEAN include India, Australia and New Zealand. Theparticipation of India and China enables the idea proposed by ASEAN to getactual support. However, this is not enough. We must also see that currently,the RCEP is reaching a consensus with American TPP. This is an important bridgefor Asian economic cooperation recently. Indeed, China at least has manycriticisms on the strategies and diplomatic intention of American TPP, but manyscholars also recognize the rationality of TPP. The high-level free trade zoneadvocated by it might be a good thing to both China and India. Just now,Director Fang mentioned about the interactive role of reform and opening-up.Chinese reform and opening up require stronger external impact. APEC will beheld in China next year. China, India and Russia will play bigger role on theplatform. It’s not a truth like every one says that APEC has been ended.
In the end, I want to mention the NortheastAsia cooperation in sub-region. The far east development and opening up ofRussia is Northeast Asia cooperation. Now the Northeast Asia cooperation mainlyinvolves with China, Japan and Korea. However, the progress is slow due tohistorical and territorial reasons. The development of Fareast Region of Russiawill bring new changes to the regional pattern of Northeast Asia. Furthermore,it is necessary to establish an Asian economic corridor composed by China,India, Myanmar and Bangladesh. This corridor will connect together the world’stwo largest economies, East Asia and Europe. Under such circumstance, BRICScountries will play a more and more important role in Asian cooperation of andthe pluralistic development of Asia. Asia’s diversified development andeconomic integration will constantly emerge new situations. So much for myspeech. Thank you all.
