China’s Global Times daily has called attention to thoughtful calls coming from two European leaders, urging Europe to change course and adopt a policy of cooperating with China as opposed to only competing, or worse, attempting to block China’s development.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán argued strongly on behalf of this policy shift in a March 25 interview with Lebanese-Australian “influencer,” Mario Nawfal. Chinese “netizens” avidly discussed and welcomed his stance, Global Times reported on March 28. Nawfal then posted the China discussion segment of his longer interview with Orbán as a separate item today. It is worth watching.
Orbán explains that he sees China “as one of the two main parties of world politics.” Westerners who think that somebody could destroy or beat China, misunderstand the situation, he argued. China’s energy and culture are “very, very strong, so they are back, as they were, 500 years ago. Because prior to the dominating period of the West, China was always the most ancient and most successful civilization. And now they are simply back.”
Therefore, “we have to find a way how to live on the same globe…. Competition is not the only element of how we can imagine the future of the globe; cooperation is also” needed, he insisted. (An incisive discussion follows on how “the European empire, headquartered in Brussels” is what has destroyed the real energy of Europe, which lies in its nations, not “empire.")