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Keynote Speech by H.E. Mr. Le Yucheng, China's Ambassador to India at the Round Table Discussion on APEC
Ladies and gentlemen,
Dear friends,
It is my great pleasure to join you in this Round Table Discussion on Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. I’d like to express my heart-felt appreciation for the Institute of Chinese Studies for co-organizing this event. APEC is the largest, highest-ranking and most influential economic cooperation mechanism in the Asia-Pacific region. It is of great strategic significance in the world with 21 members, 40% of the world's population, 57% of the total world economy and 46% of the total global trade. The choice of this topic vindicates the wide range and deep insight of the ICS’s academic focus.
With fond memories of the 2011 APEC held in Shanghai, China is ready to host APEC in Beijing this time. Starting from tomorrow, China will host the 2014 APEC Economic Leaders' Week, including the 22nd APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting on November 10 and 11, APEC CEO Summit and APEC Business Advisory Council Dialogue with Leaders. Russian President Vladimir Putin, American President Barack Obama and many other dignitaries are expected to attend. Celebrating its 25th Anniversary, the theme of 2014 APEC is "Shaping the Future through Asia-Pacific Partnership". Beijing is ready to host the APEC leaders to seek common development of the Asia- Pacific region. At this opportune moment I would like to talk about the future path of development and cooperation of the Asia-Pacific region with all of you.
First of all, allow me to make an introduction to the background and priorities of the 2014 APEC Economic Leaders' Week.
The present global economic situation remains intricate, where the after-effects of the international financial crisis can still be felt. The road to recovery in developed countries is still bumpy. Growth in emerging market economies and developing countries has slowed down. Today, the Asia-Pacific region has become the engine of the global economy with the highest growth rate, the greatest potential and the most active intra-regional cooperation. Its status in the global economy is rising steadily.
Never before had the cooperation in Asia-Pacific been so full of hope and opportunities. Yet never before had we to deal with so many risks and challenges.
First, with deepening globalization and proliferation of various regional free trade agreements, Asia-Pacific economic cooperation now stands at a crossroads that could lead to either integration or fragmentation.
Second, the international financial crisis has exposed the pitfalls and unsustainability of the traditional growth model. Asia-Pacific member economies should accelerate innovative development and reform so as to find new approaches to development and new areas of economic growth.
Third, hindered by the financing bottlenecks, infrastructure is still weak in the Asia- Pacific region. Hence, the effective resolution of financing bottlenecks requires all of us to think out of the box and work creatively.
Taking these challenges into consideration, this year's APEC meeting will focus on three priorities:
Priority One: Advancing Regional Economic Integration. Important items under this priority include promoting Asia-Pacific free trade area, supporting the multilateral trading system, advancing cooperation on global value chain and supply chain, strengthening capacity- building in trade and investment.
Priority Two: Promoting Innovative Development, Economic Reform and Growth. The objective is to promote pragmatic cooperation around “the five pillars” of economic reform, new economy, innovative growth, inclusive support and urbanization in order to leap over “the middle-income trap”, to bring green development and innovative growth, to build a blue economy and an internet economy, and to urbanize.
Priority Three: Strengthening Comprehensive Connectivity and Infrastructure Development. Connectivity has three pillars: first, physical or hard connectivity, which includes transport, telecommunications, ICT and energy infrastructure; second, institutional or soft connectivity, which includes customs, supply-chain, financial and regulatory coherence, structural reform, etc.; third, people-to-people connectivity, which includes business mobility, student and researcher mobility, tourism facilitation, labor and professional mobility, and transnational education. This year we have the mandate to develop the Blueprint, which will address the achievements and challenges of connectivity in this region, as well as the key initiatives for enhanced APEC connectivity and strategies for implementation.
Second of all, I’d like to talk about promoting development in Asia-Pacific through China’s development.
Asia-Pacific is at a crucial stage of development. We should adhere to the overarching goal of common development and build an Asia-Pacific community of shared interests and common destiny. In the age of economic globalization, countries cannot achieve development in isolation from each other, still less can they pursue development as a “zero-sum game”. Rather, with our interests closely entwined, we the Asia-Pacific countries need to seek mutually beneficial cooperation.
Great minds think alike. Ancient wisdom see eye to eye. There is a Chinese proverb, “one plus one can make more than two”. I learnt that there is a similar saying in the Hindi language, “one plus one equals eleven”. That is also the moral of the following story known widely both in China and India. Once an old man gave each of his sons a single chopstick, everyone broke it easily. However, when the old man put all the chopsticks into a bundle, none of the young guys could break them. The story tells us about the importance of unity and cooperation. We the Asia-Pacific countries are brothers to each other as in this story. We need to deepen pragmatic cooperation in all fields, seek development through integration, pursue integration through opening-up, strengthen our economic ties, and thus jointly bring into reality the Asia-Pacific Century.
Asia-Pacific is the region where the home is. As a member of the Asia-Pacific big family, China sees the prosperity of the entire region as the foundation of its own well-being. China’s development is also a driving force for regional growth and cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. China is willing to promote common development through its own development. We desire to live in harmony and work in unison with our neighbors to make the cake of cooperation even bigger so that we can all share the fruits of common prosperity.
Here, I’d like to share with all of you our ideas about the common development in four key words all starting with the letter C, “the four Cs”.
The first word is Creative. China’s reform and opening-up over the past 30 years is a text-book example of creative thinking and large-scale innovation. I remember vividly that when China wanted to accede to the WTO, there was a strong domestic opposition crying “wolves are coming”. However, after dancing with the wolves for years, China not only survives but also thrives. China has adapted to international competition through its opening-up. Recently, Alibaba’s IPO success has become a household story. A lot of friends ask me what is the secret behind the success of China’s private enterprises. I would like to tell everyone that Alibaba might be the star at the moment yet it is just one in the Milky Way of Chinese private enterprises that have made great achievements over many years. Other Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE have embraced competition at home and abroad and have emerged as industry leaders. Their products are highly cost effective and liked by customers as “value for money” in India as well. Nowadays, the ever deeper integration of China's vibrant economy with the global economy not only improves the living standards of the Chinese people but also enhances the well-being of the peoples of all other countries, including India.
The second word is Conducive. We have strived to remove market obstacles and make the market play a decisive role in resources allocation so that everyone interested in starting a business could give full play to her spirit of entrepreneurship. Since its formation, the new Chinese government has introduced reforms to simplify the administrative approval system so as to lower the threshold for starting businesses and remove restrictions on them. This has given a great boost to business development in the whole country. From January to September this year, the number of newly registered market entities exceeded 9 million, generating more than 10 million jobs. The reform and innovation fuels the new wave of mass entrepreneurship at the grassroots level and releases great potential of the market in China. Within next two years, per capita GDP in one-third of the provinces in China will exceed 10,000 US dollars. In the next seven years, China is expected to import goods worth more than 17 trillion US dollars, and the amount of outward Chinese foreign direct investment is expected to reach 1.2 trillion US dollars. By 2020, 600 million Chinese people would be earning middle-level-income, which will create an attractive “world market”.
The third word is Contributive. According to Goldman Sachs’ statistics, China contributed 22 percent to global growth between 2000 to 2010, five percentage points more than the US. The IMF stated that the proportion of China's contribution to the world economy has reached 30 percent, which is even more than the contribution of the US economy. For each percentage point the Chinese economy grows, the economy of Asia as a whole expand by 0.3 percent. Former World Bank chief economist Justin Lin Yifu said that just like the contribution of the “Four Asian Dragons” to the development of mainland China in the past, China's economic upgrading will now create a new growth space for the growth of other developing countries, especially the neighboring ones. Taking into account that the size of China's economy is far bigger than that of the “Four Asian Dragons”, China’s contribution will certainly be more apparent.
The fourth word is Cooperative. China has always been committed to promote the Asia-Pacific development through its own development and provide new opportunities for regional prosperity through its own reforms and opening-up. China has always been thinking about ways to make new contributions towards deepening the Asia-Pacific economic integration and is willing to use its experience, funds and technology to promote the common development of the Asia-Pacific. Infrastructure connectivity is a basic condition for integrated development. China is promoting the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor, the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in order to achieve regional policy communication, connect roads, smoothen trade, encourage currency circulation and link the hearts of people. China’s proposal to establish the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to resolve the financing bottlenecks in the path of regional interconnectivity has been positively supported by various Asian countries including India. In order to benefit the people in the Asia-Pacific region, China is willing to work together with India to promote regional economic integration and interconnection processes, speed up the building of BCIM Economic Corridor and complete the negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) at an early date.
Last but not least, I feel that our discussion would be incomplete without further deliberation on the cooperation between China and India.
President Xi Jinping concluded his historical and very successful state visit to India last month. During the visit, President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached a broad consensus on bilateral ties. It was emphasized that China and India should become closer partners for development, cooperative partners for growth and global partners for strategic coordination, the two countries should jointly pursue our respective dreams of national renewal; and jointly achieve peaceful, cooperative and inclusive development. Now the two sides are stepping up efforts to implement the outcome of this visit.
As President Xi said, development is the top strategic goal shared by the two countries and nothing is more imperative than to deliver a more comfortable, more secure and happier life to our peoples. I believe that Indian people will benefit immensely from China’s development and the cooperation between China and India. Here I’d like to discuss what the Sino-Indian cooperation means from the perspective of the common Indian people.
According to the China- India economic and trade cooperation program, China will invest 20 billion US Dollars in India in the next 5 years in various industrial and infrastructure development projects. The Indian people will soon benefit from more high-quality and reasonably priced goods made by Chinese manufacturers in India; enjoy 24x7 power supply with the support from Chinese power enterprises; and hopefully experience more convenient and comfortable high-speed railway service. China’s investment will create jobs for thousands of Indians. Huawei Company itself has created more than 5,000 jobs in India at present. Its R&D Center with 2000-plus posts will soon operate in Bangalore. Meanwhile, Indian pharmaceutical, agricultural and IT products will find greater access to the Chinese market.
Indian friends eager to attract investment must have gladly noticed that India, along with 20 other prospective founding members of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank signed the MoU in Beijing on October 14. After the signing ceremony, President Xi Jinping met representatives from these countries. He welcomed active participation by all countries that are interested so as to achieve win-win results. He said that the establishment of the AIIB incorporates the desire, resolve and action of all parties in pursuing development through cooperation and contributes to improving global financial governance. The AIIB itself is an innovative mechanism. It complements the existing mechanisms instead of replacing them. The AIIB would facilitate infrastructural inter-connectivity in this region, advance regional economic cooperation and inject new impetus into the Asian economic development. I am sure that through concerted efforts of all parties, the AIIB can be built into an equal, inclusive and highly-efficient platform for infrastructure investment and financing as well as a multilateral development bank that meets the development needs of the countries in this region. India can certainly look forward to benefiting from its active participation in the AIIB.
Indian tourism operators will have the opportunity to increase their revenues from receiving more Chinese tourists. In the next 5 years, there will be more than 400 million Chinese outbound tourists. As a neighboring country, India could expect to be an important destination for the Chinese tourists. The current arrival figure of 100,000 seems too meager. We should make good use of Tourism Years in 2015 and 2016 to promote Incredible India. For example, visa-upon-arrival for the Chinese tourists might be a good idea to boost tourism in India. More Indian tourists are also welcome to visit China. To facilitate the Indian pilgrims, the Chinese side has agreed to open a new route for the Kailash-Mansarovar Yatra through Nathu La Pass, which is expected to be operational next year. By the way, Indian yoga gurus and practitioners would be pleasantly surprised to find that yoga is already part of the popular exercise regimen of the Chinese. .
People with real-life experience understand fully that neighbors may sometimes encounter problems and there are always ways to solve them. Of course the boundary question, which is a leftover from the western colonialists, needs solution. I earnestly believe that both sides have the ability and wisdom to reach fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution through peaceful and friendly consultation. The boundary question must not affect the overall bilateral cooperation. As long as we continue to have sufficient foresight, courage and tolerance, we will be able to dispel these stray clouds and bring our bilateral cooperation forward to the bright future.
Being ancient oriental civilizations at similar stages of development, China and India are both pursuing the great dream of national renewal, dreams that are interconnected and mutually compatible. China and India are now in a crucial stage of national rejuvenation, where they need to become closer development partners that draw upon each other’s strengths and work together for common development. As members of the BRICS and as emerging economies, China and India are two major forces in the process of the formation of a multi-polar world.
Mahatma Gandhi once observed that China and India are fellow travelers sharing weal and woe in a common journey. Prime Minister Narender Modi has likened China and India to “two bodies with one spirit”. President Xi also pointed out that if we speak with one voice, the whole world will listen, and if we join hands, the whole world will pay attention.
Let’s draw wisdom from our great ancient civilizations and our visionary leaders, show sufficient foresight and promote the China-India strategic cooperative partnership to closely link our development strategy. .
Let’s bring more benefit to the two peoples and make greater contribution to promoting the prosperity and revitalization of Asia-Pacific as well as the stability and development of the world.
Thank you.
