by Helena Kočová
Editor of Domestic and Foreign News of Naše Pravda, Czech Republic
China is a truly magnificent country with a fascinating culture, a long history, a beautiful diverse nature, rapid development, smart modernization and incredible potential. Although these words may sound overly exaggerated, every day I get to spend in this country continues to convince me of their truth.
This week that I was able to spend in Chongqing also showed me that there is always more to discover in China. Each part of the country has its own distinctive charm. Every city and small village is developing rapidly, and the days when the countryside was backward, for example, are a thing of the past thanks to the development of tourism. Cities are growing into modern metropolises at an incredible rate, yet they are welcoming to the lives of the local people. It is not only around the big cities that new modern factories, hi-tech centers and logistics centers are springing up. Prosperity is brought to the people and the country by the dedication of the people, but also by clever planning, the promotion of modern technologies and practices, innovation, and international cooperation through China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which is expanding international trade opportunities and bringing innovation, modernization and prosperity to all the countries involved. It is gradually connecting the world through land and water trade routes, but also through human exchanges, student exchanges and cultural programmes.
And although I have visited many places in China, it continues to surprise me in many ways. It is events like this international journalistic exchange that bring fresh perspectives not only on China but also on world events, on the perception of China and the international situation from the perspective of participants, journalists and experts, and allow for the exchange of views, insights and supporting ideas. Information that I think we will all use for a long time to come.
But let me also bring you a fresh insight into the situation in the Czech Republic, which in many ways mirrors the situation across Europe.
This year, the Czech Republic will celebrate 75 years since it established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China and was one of the first countries in Europe to sign cooperation with China under the Belt and Road Initiative nine years ago. The Czech Republic officially joined the project on 26 November 2015 by signing a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding. Since then, the two countries have come a long way on the diplomatic, economic, commercial and cultural levels of cooperation. The biggest expansion took place between 2016 and 2022, when Miloš Zeman was president. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were at such a good level that the Czech Republic was personally visited by President Xi Jinping on 28-30 March 2016.
Unfortunately, in 2022, after the parliamentary elections, the direction of Czech diplomacy changed, and the prevailing right-wing politicians and their pro-Western mindset led to a shift away from promising contacts with the world’s second largest economy. Unfortunately, some projects have been put to sleep and many precious contacts have been cut off because of this. However, because I sense the dissatisfaction of the citizens of the Czech Republic with the current direction of our government, but also of many businessmen who cooperate or would like to cooperate with China, I believe that next year, after the new parliamentary elections, we will return to a sensible step and resume multilateral cooperation not only with the Republic of China within the framework of the BRI.
And since in an indirect democracy the voters, the ordinary people, elect their political representatives, it is interesting to see how their view of global events and of China, which has become the main locomotive of growth not only locally but globally, is changing quite rapidly.
During my stay in China last year, I had the opportunity to visit many interesting places, logistics hubs, modern factories, hi-tech centres and universities that were part of the BRI project. And I could fully understand what a huge leap China has made in development and modernisation, but also in improving and introducing its own know-how. And in these weeks my knowledge will expand even further. At the same time, through the exchange of information with other journalists, I perceive what benefits BRI brings to the countries involved, how it improves their living standards, industry, energy and infrastructure.
Yet, there has been relatively little awareness of China’s actual prosperity and growth rate in Europe. Especially in the Czech Republic, many people have not been able to realise the current condition of China. Only a few insider economists and scientists warned that China had embarked on a truly spectacular development path and that Europe might fall asleep. And in many ways it has already fallen asleep… The more courageous ones claimed what I perceive, that China is practically ten years ahead of us in development. And that is why I have been one of the few Czech journalists who has tried to give readers a realistic picture of China through many articles. Unfortunately, the mainstream media, which copied the Czech government or the European Union’s policies, presented a rather negative view. It recognised the importance of China in terms of international trade, but at the same time condemned China for its policies, which it did not understand.
This year, however, the situation began to change rapidly. With the increasing introduction of green energy, solar power plants, but also alternatively powered cars in Europe, all the media had to recognise that China is the leading country in green energy production and has far outstripped all the countries that are also trying to gradually introduce alternative energy sources. And with the arrival of alternatively powered cars on the European market, and also thanks to the criticised taxes on these cars that the European Union wants to introduce permanently, it has become more widely known that China is indeed capable of producing high-quality cars at a high technical level at an affordable price. And people started to ask: How is it that this, according to the media, underdeveloped, developing China is now able to ‘threaten’ the European market? How is it that many major European car companies are cooperating with China, selling on its market, but also producing directly in China? If it is the car companies that are cooperating with China, as one of the largest markets in the world, and which are the driving force behind the industry and economy of our country, should we not also? While the Western countries, led by the hegemonic USA, are draining our national treasury with the conflict in Ukraine, and threatening the security of the Czech Republic, other countries like Hungary are not involved in the conflict, they are not raiding their treasury by supplying weapons, but on the contrary, thanks to the active cooperation within the BRI, they are investing in development, building factories for batteries or cars on their territory, which will transfer know-how to their territory, but also thousands of jobs possitions, better infrastructure and profit for the whole country.
But in order for this to really happen here, we need to bring more and more information about China to the Czech media world, showing its real image, vision, and initiatives that can bring mutual benefit in a win-win way, prosperity, but also peace and understanding between nations. But for this, we need journalists, experts and politicians with an open mind.
*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.