Tibor Eliot Rostas
CEO, Editor-in-Chief of SOFIAN, s.r.o., Slovakia
I wonder, what is the most essential element that has been used to express as best as one can what makes China China China? What is it that can reliably be described as the fundamental, marking difference between China and the rest of the world? What defines this country most convincingly?
Is it just the monumental technological development?
Is it just it’s vast and sophisticated infrastructure?
Is it just the extremely fast-growing cities with state-of-the-art architecture and high-rise buildings towering into the clouds?
Is it just a concern for sustainable development and environmental protection?
Is it pride in the unbroken cultural and historical red thread that has been woven since five millennia ago?
Or is it the enthusiasm for the colossal development of the economy and the increase in GDP?
Is it just clean streets and well-maintained parks in major metropolitan areas?
Or perhaps only and exclusively trade, state-of-the-art hubs, logistics centers and the largest developed ports from where goods flow to all over the world?
I think not.
All that best describes China for me, and I think for the average European, is the ubiquitous smile that burns itself into your memory on first contact. You might not even realise it at first. In European or transatlantic culture today, there is usually an expression of seriousness, too much seriousness without a smile and joy, which I used to see all around me as a young boy. The rushing crowds, the gloomy European stuffiness, the increasingly frequent demonstrations and clashes with the police, increasingly resembling the army, those on the Maidan in Kiev, have finally resulted in the bloodshed in the Donbass since 2014 and 2015.
We have been penetrated to the core by that twilight of Europe, by that stew before the great storm, in the days before the Second World War. And it had horrific and fatal consequences, especially for our Slavic world: more than 35 million human casualties. These dark times were foreshadowed by the disappearance of the smile from human faces.
That’s why it is the first thing that will make you smile everywhere you wander in China. It is the most pleasant and compelling image of how people in China today feel, how they live and what fulfils them.
This image must stay with us.
At the conference on artificial intelligence and its impact on our society in Chongqing, I spoke about the fact that, about a century ago, the world entered the nuclear age, when science and scientists split uranium and penetrated further in knowledge. I put this in the context of today’s era of dynamic development and colossal change.
Among many aspects, we draw attention to the threat of misuse of AI technology in the military-industrial complex. This is also with emphasis on the specific context of the conflict in the Middle East, in the massacred Palestine and Ukraine, where autonomous military systems or cyborgs are already beginning to be used on the battlefield and their use controlled by artificial intelligence.
It is precisely our task to ensure that what has been projected as an enhancement of our lives is never misused against man himself, which could lead to a fatal spiral that could spiral out of our control.
In this context, please recall the letter of the geniuses Albert Einstein and Theo Szilard, who in the year urged President Roosevelt to develop the atomic weapon – ostensibly on the grounds that both the Nazis and Heisenberg already had the atomic bomb.
Please remember Oppenheimer and his thousand Krishna suns of God with which he burned Hiroshima, Nagasaki and life in peace. Albert Einstein later bitterly regretted that he raped science and brought the world to the brink of destruction with his help as well.
It seems that global threats are increasing rather than decreasing, which is why the media, journalists and thinkers in particular should be agitating against the abuse of science against man himself: none other than the Renaissance men are capable of averting the threats emanating from the irresponsible decisions of the world’s politicians. I am glad to be able to say these words in China, which is a leader in the development of artificial intelligence.
We must realise that what unites us is our difference. If we realise this, then we can remain friends forever. Let us develop our uniqueness so that we never invest our precious energy in conflict, hatred and war. We live in one single world, which ancient Greece called “Kosmos oinos”. We have become accustomed to the idea that the world must show itself to us only in its power, through the will to power, as the German philosopher Nietzsche used to say, ‘wille zur macht’.
But this endless race for who has more, who is better, who has more power, who has more money, who has more weapons, who has more arms, who has more soldiers, who controls the world better, can never bring us to peace, tranquility and harmony.
Dear friends and colleagues,
Believe me, it is we, the people of Central and Eastern Europe, who have the historical experience of wanting to turn the enthusiasm of our peoples into a common destiny, but in the end we succumbed to the struggle of hidden forces. What has come since 1989? Coups d’état, colour revolutions, rules imposed by force bombing innocent victims in Yugoslavia, innocent victims in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya, in Syria, and only because they had a different idea of a fair distribution of power everywhere.
That is why, from this place before you all, I appeal to good and wise people: we do not need more and more and more, because having more and more ends somewhere. We need less and less spit, less greed, less struggle and, on the contrary, more understanding that we are all part of a single creation. One creation. We have been brought into this world by a flash, as the ancient Greeks say, ‘pánta oiakidzéi kérainós’, which means: everything is controlled by lightning.
Neither artificial intelligence nor satanic transhumanism created us for this world. We are all beings descended from a man and a woman; we are not misguided transgender mutations or children from a laboratory. We are human beings, and yes, fallible human beings, because mistakes and imperfections make us human. We must not be afraid to make mistakes either. Without mistakes we would never understand this world and this cosmos and this being. We must not be proud and tell ourselves that we are the masters of creation, because that is not true. And the truth, it shows itself in its simplicity.
Dear friends, I am grateful to the People’s Republic of China, I am grateful to the All China Journalists Association, I am grateful to Professor Zheng Changzhong above all for allowing journalists and thinkers from all over the world to meet and ask questions. Friends of God, the supreme consciousness, it manifests itself above all in questions. We need questions, we need to ask questions, we must not succumb to the fatamorphosis of clear answers. China, also because of its continuous five thousand year history, has understood that to be a leader in the world, and China is undoubtedly becoming that leader, to be a leader is to have asymmetrical responsibility. What is asymmetric responsibility?
Asymmetric responsibility means that the teacher is more responsible for his pupil, that the one who has more opportunities but also more economic power and more property must be more responsible for our common home, for our mother earth.
My dear friends, in my reflections, I end by saying that we have proposed to China, on behalf of Slovakia, to cooperate, first of all, on the project of the joint educational institute Silk Road of Consciousness, where we can pass on the wisdom of our ancestors’ generations to our children, who will perhaps tomorrow be sitting at a similar round table, talking together, knowing each other, sharing success. Just as dear Professor Zheng Changzhong puts it: it is not only I who must survive, but also you – that is the mindset of a Chinese.
*The views and opinions expressed in the articles are solely those of the individual authors and do not reflect the position of the Secretariat of the Belt and Road Journalist Network.