"i have witnessed the miracle of china's development with my own eyes" - exclusive interview with fernando huanacuni, former foreign minister of bolivia
2024-09-27
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reference news network reported on september 26(text/zhao kai and meng yifei) “i have witnessed the miracle of china’s development with my own eyes.” fernando vanacuni, the former foreign minister of bolivia, said in an exclusive interview with this reporter a few days ago.
vanacuni served as bolivia’s minister of foreign affairs from january 2017 to september 2018, during which time china and bolivia signed a cooperation document on jointly building the “belt and road”. vanacuni is still active in the diplomatic field and serves as the head of external affairs for former bolivian president morales.
in 1999, vanakuni set foot on chinese soil for the first time. in his recollection, china was still facing a relatively serious poverty problem at that time. however, in just a few decades, china not only historically solved the problem of absolute poverty, but also became a global economy through impressive economic growth. an important force in the territory. for vanakuni, such an achievement cannot be summed up simply by statistics.
vanakuni has visited china "countless times" and he can feel the rapid changes every time he visits. in july this year, he visited zhengzhou again. "what surprised me this time was the electric vehicles that can be seen everywhere." vanakuni said that many of his old chinese friends have replaced their private cars with more environmentally friendly new energy vehicles through the government's trade-in car subsidy policy.
houses, infrastructure, etc. in the town have also been renovated. the livelihood projects carried out by the local government were also praised repeatedly by foreign friends traveling with him.
not long ago, vanakuni visited chongqing, an inland city in china. he was fascinated by the bright night view and was surprised by the light rail passing through the building. all these made vanakuni feel the unique charm of chinese cities and the progress of modernization. diversity.
over the years, vanakuni has not only witnessed china's development with his own eyes, but also felt china's sincere help to countries in the global south. he specifically pointed out that china's help never comes with any political conditions, unlike some western countries' aid which is an act of pressure with political purposes.
“china’s aid is like brotherly aid, focusing on common development and mutual benefit.” vanacuni said, “this kind of aid has allowed bolivia and even more latin american and african countries to receive real support and feel different from the past. cooperation model.”
as a witness of cooperation between bolivia and china, vanacuni once signed the "belt and road" cooperation document with china on behalf of bolivia. bolivia became the first latin american country to sign the document with china, and he is extremely proud of this.
vanakuni particularly emphasized that this is the first cooperation agreement that truly benefits latin american countries. “there has never been such a cooperation model before.” he was full of excitement in his words, because this agreement is not only cooperation at the national level, but also brings opportunities for the development of the entire latin american region, opening the prelude to comprehensive cooperation between latin american countries and china in infrastructure, economic development and other aspects.
thanks to cooperation with china, bolivia has made important progress in the construction of its road network. about 65% of its road infrastructure has been connected, providing great convenience for economic development and personnel exchanges in latin america. "the connectivity of road infrastructure not only means connectivity in all directions, but also is the gateway to economic prosperity and national modernization," vanakuni said.
when talking about the prospects for cooperation between china and bolivia, vanacuni mentioned bolivia’s rich mineral resources, especially lithium resources. although bolivia has unique resource advantages, vanacuni also knows that the current method of utilization is still too traditional. "we need scientific and technological innovation." vanacuni said frankly that only by cooperating with china's advanced technological power can bolivia's resource advantages be transformed into real industrial advantages.
"especially in the field of lithium batteries, bolivia and china have huge potential for cooperation. if the two countries can carry out in-depth cooperation in lithium battery production, it will help bolivia speed up its industrialization process and allow bolivia to occupy a place in the global new energy market." nakuni said.
vanacuni hopes that through close cooperation with china, bolivia will one day be able to declare to the world that it has won victory in poverty alleviation, just like china. he also hopes that bolivia will use china's technological power to move towards a new era of industrialization and technological innovation.
