摘要：During the “Two Sessions” in 2025, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met journalists on March 7th. He noted, the Global South is a

南方财经全媒体集团全国两会报道组李依农、杨雨莱 北京、广州报道

During the “Two Sessions” in 2025, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met journalists on March 7th. He noted, the Global South is a key force for maintaining world peace, driving world development and improving global governance. How can the Global South strengthen themselves? What role will the Belt and Road Initiative play on global governance?

Stephen Brawer, the chairman of the Belt and Road Institute in Sweden shared his insightful thoughts with SFC journalists in the interview. For the “Two Sessions”, he paid attention to two main aspects which are the continued development of the domestic market and the international cooperation such as the Belt and Road Initiative.

For internal market, Stephen Brawer holds an optimistic attitude towards the 2025, the year of the snake, that will have increasingly positive developments. Thus, the 5% economic growth rate is quite achievable in his mind, especially considering China now is promoting the new quality productive forces.

When comes to the international cooperation, he indicated that the BRI is to promote the global interests of humanity as well as cooperation and friendship. “There's absolutely no question that the great majority of the world is working and wishing to work together.” So he reckoned not only the Belt ad Road Initiative, but also the BRICS and other regional cooperation will continue to develop in the future.

SFC Markets and Finance: This year’s “Two Sessions” cover a wide range of critical issues. Which do you pay attention to?

Stephen Brawer: I think the main point is the “Two Sessions” gives the world, in a sense, an insight into the thinking of the Chinese leadership in terms of the direction economically that China is going, if they will achieve their objectives and their goals and the orientation that they have in order to address on a yearly basis, how these questions will go forward.

(There are) two points, which I think are very important. One is the internal domestic continued expansion and development of the internal markets and the Chinese economy, and how will that continue to evolve. The second question which will be a part of our discussion, is how will this potentially affect the BRI.

SFC Markets and Finance: Among these discussions, which do you believe will have the most significant global impact?

Stephen Brawer: I think it will be a combination of different aspects of what is being discussed. I think one of the key ideas which has come up in the present context is the transition that China is making towards new quality productive forces. The issue of not alone artificial intelligence, robots, manufacturing and high technology. I think there is a question that has been a certain topic of discussion within China, which is consumer markets. Where is the balance between investments in larger infrastructure and how this will impact the so called private consumer. So these questions seems are questions of how to maintain the balance between the microeconomics and the macroeconomics.

The introduction of this new quality productive forces is a factor that I think is quite important for the leadership to promote how the combination of these aspects of the economy will come together.

SFC Markets and Finance: How do you assess the Belt and Road Initiative’s contribution to global cooperation and development over the past decade?

Stephen Brawer: As you well know, there are over 150 countries in the world that are collaborating and cooperating with the Belt and Road Initiative. So by all means, it has gone forward, not alone from the beginning to the 10th year anniversary, but now you have this new development perspective, coming into what and how the Belt and Road Initiative will continue in the coming 10 years.

Obviously we begun that process since we've come two years into. And I think this is where there are a combination of the initial infrastructure investments as well as the now movement into these new quality productive forces, which I think China wants to increase these investments in these new markets. And there's absolutely no question that the great majority of the world is working and wishing to work together.

The BRI is one side of it. The BRICS, the Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, which is expanded and is continuing to expand, defines the fact that these agreements are going forward. If humanity is going to go forward at this point in history, we have to work together. We can't continue to operate on the basis of brute force of power and domination and this is ultimately leading towards conflict. That is not a direction that will lead mankind to a positive future.

SFC Markets and Finance: You mentioned the importance of global governance. How do you see China’s enhancing its ties with the Global South?

Stephen Brawer: I think that's the position that the leadership in China has both initiated and maintaining now that it's a combination of working with those nations, developing nations, what has been referred to as the Global South or the global majority. They are happily cooperating. It's, in my view, a good development. It's not going to stop. It is very helpful for maintaining a degree of obvious stability and peace. But unfortunately, it will not be sufficient by itself to eliminate all of the uncertainties because of the positions that still are maintained in the European theater and in the United States, which, of course, the leadership in China is very well aware of.

How do we at the same time continue the cooperation with the Global South and development, which is a very big and important focus, but how do we manage to maintain some kind of reasonable and productive relationships with Western European leadership and the United States. That's still very uncertain factor in the world right now. I don't think anyone has a clear cut solution to that at the moment.

SFC Markets and Finance: How can initiatives like the Belt and Road further enhance mutual understanding and long-term partnerships between China and its global partners?

Stephen Brawer: Well, it's a very important question. And my response to that is somewhat unusual. I think that there are important efforts. For example, here in Sweden, this is the 75th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between the People's Republic of China and Sweden this year. It's an important event. There is a lot of bilateral trade that continues pragmatically to promote business between Sweden and China. And there are European countries, not only Sweden, France, I think a great majority of the European, you have Serbia, you have Croatia, you have Portugal, Spain, there are many of these countries, who are some more favorable to the Belt and Road Initiative, but in general it is mostly a focus on bilateral relations, trade between that country and China.

Now, I think there is a definite problem there, because of what the Belt and Road Initiative represents, not simply as a policy that is favorable or beneficial to China, this is a global development perspective, which ultimately, if it's understood properly, as we in the Belt and Road Institute in Sweden work for, this is something that will promote the global interests of humanity as well as cooperation and friendship. That challenge is something that has very deep historical dilemmas to it. There is the factor that people talk about very often, geopolitics.

Geopolitics is a dominant theme of decision making in Western Europe and in the United States. I can't go into all the details in this particular interview, but I think it's important to identify it. And I would also make one final point on this, that is, it's very important for people to learn and understand the fact of history and philosophical thinking. That has been one of the key aspects of my own research, in promoting how can we build the bridge between Asian civilization, China especially, which has an extremely long history and European history. And if people are not informed about how previous history is a major factor in influencing present history and even future history.

So we have to begin to address these things in an intelligent way in order to overcome this geopolitical aspects of imperial thinking. It is very dangerous. It remains very dangerous. And it unfortunately works as an active factor against the positive developments around the issue of the Belt and Road Initiative.

SFC Markets and Finance: With AI and technological innovation rapidly reshaping global dynamics, how do you see their role in advancing the BRI and international collaboration?

Stephen Brawer: That's an area which I think has clearly a great potential. You have the Digital Silk Road, one calls it. I think we also have something which people are not really talking enough about, which is the Space Silk Road. The emergence of what the Chinese have been doing, for example, in traveling to the far side of the moon. And for those people who are not really perhaps aware of what some of the interest is, that they're mining certain amounts of Helium-3, which is an element that is not found in major quantities at all, very little on Earth because of the atmosphere. It reaches the moon, it coming from the sun. But Helium-3 is a crystal, an element that can be extremely vital in fusion technologies, which are a fourth generation form of nuclear power, which will provide virtually unlimited energy for mankind. These are areas, the Space Silk Road, the digital, of course, DeepSeek, the issue of how this has created a revolutionary picture in advancements in China, with chip technologies, which are also emerging clearly within the Chinese economy. So we have a direction in these new technologies which can very much pose important solutions. They're encouraging. New technologies are as part of understanding real economy, they are essential, innovation is essential.

SFC Markets and Finance: What are your impressions of Guangdong and its role in China's modernization?

Stephen Brawer: I've been to Guangdong quite a number of times in my travels to China. I was at the Maritime Silk Road conference in Guangzhou in last November, and as part of that I also visited Shenzhen. I have many impressions. It's a great climate. I don't like the cold very much. I live in Sweden, but it's not my favorite aspect of a Swedish nation, especially in the winter months.

I have seen many things in Guangdong, we had the opportunity of walking around in Guangzhou. We visited many of the universities. It was an overall very enlightening experience. One was even had the opportunity to go up on the tower in Guangzhou, which is wonderful, incredible overview.

Took a boat trip on the river. So there are so many sides of visiting in Guangzhou and in Guangdong. I was in Dongguan, I was in Shenzhen. There are probably many places that I have yet to enjoy, but it has an incredibly interesting long history and that impresses me a great deal. So it's a fascinating aspect of the development story and I think it will definitely continue into the coming years.

SFC Markets and Finance: As a frontier of technological innovation, do you think Guangdong plays a key role in China’s global engagement?

Stephen Brawer: There's no question about that. I visited the one particular research center in outside of Guangzhou, which was shared between the research in Bio-technics computer technologies between Guangzhou and Singapore. This is like a model for new technologies. I think it's a very important model for new quality productive forces that are emerging. So that part of things I've seen up close, it's astounding, very inspiring.

For those people who obviously perhaps here, especially in Sweden and in the West, do not or have not had the opportunity to see this up close, this is one thing that has always been a central part of the Belt and Road Initiative, which is people to people communication and cooperation. Because when people see these things by visiting and talking with citizens in China from European citizens, it hasn't relatively automatic basis of establishing the human factor over any so called the dogmatic or ideological differences, which are unfortunately still dominating the mainstream medias.

So people to people communication, visiting these kinds of new technologies, these centers for research in all these areas, the Digital Silk Road, the Space Silk Road, this is definitely a direction that of innovation, which can play a major role in helping to expand and develop friendship and cooperation. And I will continue to work for that from where I sit.

SFC Markets and Finance: The government work report has set a target of around 5% economic growth for 2025. What’s your view on this?

Stephen Brawer: In terms of China's commitment to general 5% growth, I don't see that's an unrealistic result, which I think they achieved. There are factors that they are trying to balance in order to establish a stability in consumer markets internally, together with maintaining this orientation towards infrastructure and manufacturing. I wish China all the best in achieving the results that they are working for. I don't think they're going to back off whatsoever on their objectives and the mission.

If we're going to see the best results from a humanity as a whole, they have to be resolved around a concept of cooperation and reason. There can be differences. That's always going to be the case, but they do not have to lead in the direction where it becomes a hostile competition or even worse. So, I look forward to 2025 with optimism, the year of the snake, that we will see increasingly positive developments.

And then, of course, next year, 2026, is the coming year for the new five year plan. So there's a lot of potential events and developments that hopefully will lead the world in the type of direction that I think both of us at least are very much in harmony together to see accomplished.

SFC Markets and Finance: What broader lessons can be drawn from China’s experience, and how can the BRI support global economic development?

Stephen Brawer: Well, this is a very important and interesting question. China has a very unique history, which I don't think can be easily mapped on to other nations directly. I think that part of what is necessary is a type of national planning or what does involve a certain directionality of government. But there is a national policy and direction which is necessary, which China has in its system of Democratic discussion, which maybe is not fully appreciated or understood in the West, but they have their own model of how they work. And I think that the lack of understanding and willingness to understand in the West, has created a misconception around a kind of radical free market which is not conducive to what I think is the direction that we need to go, in order to maintain development orientation for manufacturing and improvements.

I think the basic point is important to see that China is now operating on a successful model of having a kind of national directionality of its economy. It is not restricting private investment and understands that is an important part of the marketing development for the people of China, but it is not without regulation.

So China is doing the right thing. in this challenging time, as we've discussed. And I think they will continue to go forward with what they're doing, which is very important. And I hope we will find the channels more and more in 2025 to help educate and build more successful cooperation, here in Europe and in the West in general, around the importance of the Belt and Road and the perspective for new quality productive forces, and how that is not just an important part of China, but is something that can be an important part of the whole global economy.

Chief Producer: Yu Xiaona

Supervising Producer: Shi Shi

Editor: He Jia

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来源：南昌新东方前途出国