Li
Keqiang Speaks to CCTV News about China-African ties
Let’s get the full interview now
with Li Keqiang in our headquarters in Nairobi. The Premier spoke to CCTV News
about the close cooperation between China and Africa, and how he especially
values the importance of objective media coverage on African affairs.
I first and foremost felt
strongly the friendship from you and your colleagues towards China and the
Chinese people. I am happy to give this interview at CCTV-Africa as I am about
to conclude my trip to the four African countries. Talking about my impression
of Africa, I believe Africa is a continent on the rise.
Throughout my trip to Africa, I’ve
visited Ethiopia, Nigeria, Anglo and Kenya, as well as the AU headquarters. My
impression is that Africa is an important pole on the international political
stage. It’s an important driver of global economic recovery and growth. The
Africa civilization is representative of the diversity of the entire human
civilization.
I’ve had extensive discussions
with leaders of the African countries I visited. It’s my strong impression that
those leaders all share the commitment of upholding regional security and
stability, resolving issues through peaceful means and creating a favourable
environment for the development of their countries. They also share the strong
will for faster development of infrastructure in their countries. I believe
rapid development of infrastructure symbolizes the rapid rise of developing
countries.
The African people have also left
a deep impression on my mind. I am deeply impressed by their strong friendly
sentiment towards the Chinese people. I am happy to see that many Chinese
companies have come to make investment in African countries, and they have
hired a lot of local employees. My strong memory is when I visited the eastern
industrial park in Ethiopia. We went to a local manufacturing factory, and I
saw some local young people working there, making shoes. I greeted one of the
young local employees and asked him a couple of questions. He was very polite.
He looked up and answered my questions. But at the same time, he didn’t put
down the work at his hand. I was impressed by his spirits of hard working, and
I believe this diligence and wisdom of the African people will also ensure that
Africa will be a land of promise, a land holding tremendous potential.
Actually I think you have raised
two questions. I would be happy to address them one by one. First of all, we
have heard of such media report recently that the Chinese economy will soon
overtake that of the United States and become the largest in the world.
However, in our view, the methodology that’s being used to come to such
conclusion has not been extensively accepted by the majority of the countries
in the world. Nor is this methodology a reasonable one that has been put into
use for a long time.
According to well accepted
methods of calculation, China’s total size of economy now is about nine
trillion US dollars, making it the second largest in the world. But there’s
still a gap as much as 6 trillion US dollars between China and the largest
economy in the world. China’s per capita GDP is just a bit over 6,000 US
dollars, which is behind about 80 countries in the world. And by the standards
of the World Bank, we still have 200 million people living in poverty. So
talking about China becoming the No. 1 economy in the world, the method that
certain people used is the PPP, that’s purchasing power parity, which is not
extensively accepted by many people. And I don’t think this PPP calculate
methodology will be able to accurately reflect the difference in the quality of
the goods and services consumed by people in developing countries and developed
countries. So if China is going to achieve modernization and achieve our goal
of turning our country into a medium developed country by the middle of next
century, we still have a very long way to go.
It’s true that China is still a
developing country. Yet after all, China is the biggest developing country in
the world, and China has accumulated over the years certain level of
comprehensive national strength. Throughout the years, China has been doing
what it can to provide assistance to African countries. And China will continue
to do so in the future. We believe China and Africa are each other’s important
development opportunities. Our combined population account for about one
quarter of the world’s total. Africa enjoys tremendous potential for growth,
and China has rich production capacity. The African Unions and China’s
production capacity are at very similar levels of industrial development. And
we complement each other. We believe the relationship between China and Africa
is one of closely knit common destiny, one of common development, and one of
mutual learning for each other’s civilization and culture. Common progress of
China and Africa will change the international political and economic
landscapes, will make the voice of all developing countries better heard in the
world, and will better safeguard the vital interests for all developing
countries. We believe our common development is conducive to balanced and
sustainable development of global peace and security, the sustainable
development of the world and global peace and security.
Ours is a time-honoured
friendship between China and Africa. China shows sympathy and support for
African countries’ struggles for the national independence, in providing
assistance to Africa. What we hope to see is not for the African countries to
become highly dependent on Chinese assistance. Rather we want to help African
countries to enhance their own ability, for self-development, to prove to the
whole world that China and Africa, one being the largest developing economy in
the world and the other being the continent home to the largest number of
developing countries with capacity to achieve self-generated development and
pursue the path of development that they chose for themselves.
Looking ahead, I believe our
cooperation need to be continuously based on mutual respect, equality and
mutual benefit. We hope to see further growth in manufactory sector in African
countries in particular labouring intensive industry to generate more local
jobs especially for local young people. During my visit to African countries,
we need to work together to enhance cooperation in infrastructure development
that will greatly boost mobility and market development in Africa and also
facilitate relocation of appropriate manufactory industries to African
countries to help African countries enhance their capacity for the processing
of the raw materials and agriculture products. And in the end, boost African
exports to the global markets. We seek to enhance African capacity to achieve
self-generated development and opportunities from China and in this way China
and Africa work jointly to explore the international market and to truly build
relationship in their pursuit of common development.
Today I’m taking this special
trip to CCTV Africa because this is the first overseas station established by
CCTV and more importantly this is the station where there is coverage of the
activities of our African brothers and sisters with whom we enjoy a very deep
friendship. I’m happy to see during the visit there’s very joyful cooperation
between Chinese and African employees.
I’m happy to learn that CCTV
Africa embraces the vision of seeing Africa from an African perspective and
reporting Africa from the viewpoint of Africa, i.e. we want to have objective
and fair coverage of whatever is taking place on the African continent. China
and African countries are all developing countries. Honestly speaking, we’re
still at a disadvantageous position in terms of our voice on the international
stage. We both hope that there will be objective and fair coverage of us and
there has been good cooperation between media of our two sides and our media
people have been speaking with one voice to the outside world. We believe
everybody is to speak with one voice and developing countries need to speak to
differentiate their lives and interests. I believe our cooperation shows that
Africa and all developing countries are communicating objective and fair
messages to the outside world.
I’ve had the opportunity to watch
some brief episodes of the wildebeest migration program that you made and I
believe that shows we have had a cooperation not just in political, economic
and culture spheres, but also in the fields of conserving biodiversity. I
believe both China and Africa represent great civilizations and we’re working
jointly to protect our common home. We share common ideas and ideals and they
represent our common contribution to mankind. Last but not least, I want to
express a hope to CCTV Africa, that is I hope you will make more such
production of these programs, covering Africa in the future, and also let me
give you my promise here, that is when I go back home, I will certainly make
time to completely watch this spectacular program you made about the animal
migration in Africa. It truly reflects the great biodiversity and also the
colourful views in the migration.
