Hello, and welcome to World Today.
I'm Dinh Bajin. Coming up, China's foreign minister says China supports all Ukraine peace efforts and Gaza is not a bargaining trip.
The United States and Russia have agreed to improve ties and work toward ending Ukraine conflict.
Clint Energy contributed 10 % to China's GDP last year, according to new analysis.
And the Parliament of Vietnam has approved a new US $8 billion railway link to China.
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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has called for stronger global governance and renewed efforts to bring about peace in Ukraine and the Middle East.
The senior Chinese diplomat made remark on Tuesday when chairing a meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
Wang Yi said China supports all efforts conducive to peace talks for the war in Ukraine, adding Gaza and the West Bank are not a bargaining trip in political trade -offs.
Wang Yi has also warned against marginalizing other hospital issues like the Gaza crisis at a time when most attention is currently being paid to Ukraine.
China is currently in a month -long presidency of the UN Security Council.
So joining us now on the line is Dr. Wang Jin, associate professor with Northwest University in Xi 'an, China.
So, thank you very much for joining us today, Professor Wang Ying.
On the Ukraine crisis, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Beijing would continue to follow 4 points.
Number 1, respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our countries.
Number 2, adhering to the principles of the UN Charter.
Number 3, paying due respect to legitimate security concerns of our countries.
and finally supporting efforts conducive to the peaceful settlements of the crisis.
So what do you make of the significance of these four points, and why do you think China supports all efforts that are conducive to peace talks including this very recent common understanding between the US and Russia?
I think the four points that the China notion from Wang Yun's expression are very crucial to the internal Protection, actually we're talking that I'm not a temporary peace but I will talk about the long lasting peace between different countries and that demands on the one hand the kind of peace to respect the world needs and political rights of every country.
The negotiation should be established upon the justice and equal rights between different countries, particularly between different countries with disputes against each other, and also on the other hand, these kind of negotiations should be organized on very good points to pose that widely recognized by the international community.
So that's why one of these species was very crucial because we know that during the past the past weeks there have been a lot of discussions over maybe the possible solutions to the Russian nuclear crisis, and also the Middle Eastern crisis between Israel and the Hamas.
So a lot of maybe new solutions or kind of the voices now linked to a lot of and a lot of the British items and the further discussion between different countries in the course in Europe and middle East and of course the rest of the world.
So this is why I think one of these voices are very crucial and the higher media at this time is on a lot of times you're actually very, correct direction for the settlements, settlement's organization on the other hand.
I think it will be very, very helpful through the competence information into much different needs for the future construction and the police enhancing efforts.
Okay. So we have actually heard from Foreign Minister Wang Yi saying at this very UN meeting that quote, countries are interdependent, they share the same future and no country can go it alone, unquote.
Now, some people say on a Ukraine crisis, for example, China has a consensus -based approach which is in stark contrast with the approach on the parts of certain countries.
What is your take on this?
That's true. China's approach is very based on the idea of so -called consensus based because actually in the last several days, And as we were saying, let's be frank, there has been some kind of the solutions of suggestions that organize out for work by some certain country with the perspective of so -called – we kind of had to model or maybe so -called some kind of unilateral idea.
And these ideas does not or do not consider the interests of the very closely -related parties and also even more the very important international communities shared ideas on the share of principles over how to settle the religious disputes.
I mean we're not just talking about the different process, but actually we're talking about also talking about middle Eastern politics and other politics in other regions, and the rest of the world.
So that is why I think Vanney's voices are very clear.
That is, on the one hand, religious countries, their legal rights, and their concerns should be highly respected and highly taken into consideration.
And then on the other hand, some kind of international consensus should be respected and should be also taken into consideration of maybe the future peace talks that we'd be organized.
So that's why I think these voices stands with the highly legally expectation of the international community.
So what is your understanding when Minister Wang Yi said that Gazza and the West Bank are not a bargaining chip in political trade -offs?
Who exactly is using Gazza or the West Bank as a bargaining trip, frankly speaking?
I think that one is very deeply understanding the situation, transformation in the country because some people try to try to take the Palestinians and the legal rights and the so -called budgeting chips or so -called trade -offs for some maybe other political outline in this region.
That is unacceptable, that is something that should not be tolerated by the international community.
But that is why I think one of these voices are very important and very crucial and maybe some countries, for example, United States they have the ideas, the idea is they, maybe they hope to bring peace back to the region, but, But, again, without the legal rights insisted by the international community, without the legally respected rights from the international community to all the Palestinian region and to all the Palestinian people in the Gattastir, I don't think the lasting peace would be very likely in the future, although maybe some pressure will be given from some certain countries.
with no last -member fees and no lasting confidence for the future fees between the different parties, particularly between this reading and the pandemic.
So representatives from more than 100 countries have attended this China -hostage UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday.
And at this meeting there was actually a full point proposition.
number one the UN remains at the very core of global governance number two the train towards multilateralism is irreversible number three solidarity and cooperation are fundamental and finally the reform of the global governance seems to be more urgent than ever so what do you think these four points tell Tell us about China's view with regard to global order today.
I think these four points represents a very basic principle of the United Nations and also represent the very, very, principles that being probably respected by the international community over the over the solutions that could end up all this disputes and in this crisis, and so that's why I think these four points tells China's view on the global order.
That is, the global order should be on the one hand, established upon the legal rights of different countries, and also on the other hand should be constructed upon international laws and regulations that represent the consensus and willingness share, the willingness of the international communities, that's why I think as well as China's idea, and Chinese voices are very crucial and very practical, particularly in this time, particularly the time that the fall of uncertainty we can follow some kind of uncertainties.
Now some people might say China's endorsement of multilateralism that's primarily because endorsing multilateralism first and foremost that serves China's own interests?
Would you agree with this point?
Why or why not? that's for sure.
But on the other hand, I think we, our voices in China's foreign policies also serve the international community interests, particularly China's very strongly upheld voices and stances about the multilateralism, about the legal rights of the related parties, of the different crises, about the equal status of all its members in the international community.
I think this should also be a highly welcome by international community to also serve our own country's interests.
So that is why I think China's foreign policy is very smart and is very well -designed.
I mean, one have served our own interest and also on the other hand, in accordance with international communities, why believe concerns, issues that I'll do well in the future, I think continue to serve the major interests of the international community.
Thank you very much for your perspective and for joining us.
Dr. Wang Jing, Associate Professor with Northwest University in Xi 'an, China.
Coming up, the United States and Russia have agreed to improve their bilateral ties and award towards ending the Ukraine conflict.
Stay tuned. China has conducted another major asset reshuffle to overhaul its financial sector.
An industry of finance has transferred all of its controlling stakes in a group of financial companies to central Hui Jin, a sovereign fund under the State Council.
What prompted the reshuffle?
Is it just a NASA transfer between different pockets of the central government?
And to what extent will it help to overhaul the country's financial sector?
Find out on this week's chat launch on your favorite podcast platform and CGTN Radio.
You're listening to World Today, I'm Dane Heung -huneen, Beijing.
The US and Russia have agreed to work on a path to ending the war in Ukraine and improving bilateral ties.
Senior American and Russian officials have held their first face -to -face meeting since the outbreak of the Russian -Ukraine conflict.
The Russian delegation was led by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the Kremlin's foreign policy advisor Yuri Yushnikov.
while the U .S. delegation included Secretary of State Michael Rubio and the National Security Advisor Michael Waltz.
The four and a half hour meeting in Saudi Arabia came a week after a phone call between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
So joining us now underlying is Joseph Cirocusa, professor of global futures with courtesy University.
Thank you very much for joining us.
Thank you. So the Trump and administration has described the talks in the Saudi capital of Riyadh as quote -unquote positive, upbeat, and constructive.
While for the Russian side, Crumbling said it was a very serious discussion of all the issues that the two sides wanted to touch upon.
So what do you make of the key signals or the key messages from this meeting?
Well it was a very important meeting for a number of reasons at a number of levels.
number one, reset Russian or US -Russian relations in a way that hasn't been done in the last three years.
The Biden administration did everything it could to ignore the Kremlin and whatever they were thinking about.
And so, you know, this is a very important relationship.
These are the two major nuclear power holders in the world.
These two nations, the United States and the former Soviet Union used to run the show say bipolar world was the nature of the Cold War and having this kind of security relationship is crucial.
I mean I was despairing during the last couple of years.
I mean we have two major nuclear powers and there's no discussion.
Anyway, the President of the United States decided it was time to bring Putin in from the cold, and Putin decided it was time to come in from the cold, and so he's agreed to negotiate.
Now, negotiations is about leverage.
It's not about compromise, who's stronger, who's weaker.
If you have any leverage, and the Americans, that is Rubio and President Trump and others, they want this war to disappear.
It's very, very distracting.
Tens of thousands of people have died.
They think it's the war should never really started because it was about something else.
And of course the Russians, they're dying a slow death with sanctions and the like, and this is their chance to come in from the cold.
And I think these negotiations will give them just about everything they want, but keep in mind, this crisis in Ukraine began as an attempt by NATO to move into Ukraine and to put advanced weapons systems in Ukraine's borders.
Those weapons systems are about 11 minutes to the Kremlin and then the kind of speed that they go and at the time I said everywhere, both in China, Russia and other places that what was happening with the militarization of Ukraine by NATO or the attempt by NATO we were coming very close to another Cuban Missile Crisis.
That is the very delicate nuclear balance of terror was shifting.
This is exactly the reason John Kennedy nearly went to war with Nikita Khrushchev in 1962 when Khrushchev tried to move those weapons from Moscow into Cuba.
And I might point out to your audience that during the Cuban Missile Crisis, there were 13 days of crisis that Cuba was not involved in negotiations, even though it wasn't Cuba, Cuba, about Cuba, potential invasion of Cuba, Phil Castor, had nothing to say about it.
Okay. I'll take a point.
So after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the US government under Joe Biden took a stance alongside its European allies to throw full support behind the Ukrainian side in trying to isolate Russia on the international stage.
That was pretty clear.
So do you think a strategy of Attempting to isolate Russia on the international stage has worked well for Washington Now it's a disaster counterproductive Self -defeating the idea of trying to Exclude a major actor in Europe and in Asia from these negotiations is ridiculous Joe Biden, of course is an unreconstructed Cold Warrior.
He's he's a rusephobe he thought in 1991 the United States had taken care of, taken care of Moscow and the Kremlin, and he was looking for a chance to, it was unfinished business for Biden.
So what he decided to do was to ignore Putin and to bankroll the Ukrainians, and the Ukrainians had about 41 million people at the time, 7 -10 million that fled the country looking for safety and the rest of it.
And of course, as you know, and there was a communique building up in Turkey, which would have allowed Putin to have some military gains or to have some territorial gains, and keep in mind that in the population of Ukraine, it's about 41 million.
Today, it's about 37 million.
17 % of the population are Russians.
These are Russians who were living there up until the breakup with the Soviet Union.
So those problems in the Donest and in other areas are real problems.
Anyway, Biden completely miscalculated.
He bankrolled the Ukrainians to fight to the last man.
It wasn't gonna work.
It was never gonna work.
All he wanted to do is to keep this problem in the weeds until the 2024 election was over.
And of course, Americans have spent about $100 billion on Ukraine.
And there comes a time in American life When people just say enough is enough, $100 billion wasn't enough to do it, you're running out of recruits anyway, maybe the time has come for a negotiation.
I think it's very important to stop the killing there.
I think the idea of a ceasefire, an unqualified ceasefire, followed by negotiations, I think it's something whose time has come.
So if we are to think about this emergency meeting convened by the French President Emmanuelle Crone in Paris on Monday, there is of course a widespread sense of crisis across the European capitals right now, nowadays, because Trump's declaration declared intention to try to strike a deal to put an end to this war in Ukraine is really stoking fears.
I would say that it could potentially leave European continent vulnerable etc. Do you think this represents a legitimate concern on the European part?
And by the way in the meantime, why do you think we have also heard a message from Marco Rubio, the top American diplomat now that no one is really being sidelined in the peace negotiation for the war in Ukraine?
Well, at the end of the day, the Ukrainians and the Europeans will come in to a certain extent and they'll be asked about to ratify something that's been decided in Moscow and Washington.
So they're not going to be the major players here because as I said, they had no particular leverage.
NATO is 76 years old.
It was designed in 1949 to keep the Russians out, the Soviets out of Europe and to keep the West Germans in Europe.
And it worked pretty well.
The last 20, 30 years, it's worked less well because it was so successful that it was really out of business.
And of course, after the end of the Cold War in 1991 NATO, which had become a business by now, you know, it had uniforms, buildings, medical programs, pensions, I mean, it was a business looking for something to do.
And there are a lot of smart people, including Francois Mitterrand and George Kennan and William Burns and others who argued in past years that this creeping mission of NATO to bring in the former Soviet republics was going to come a cropper at the end, that it wasn't gonna work very well.
It would only antagonize the Russians.
Now, I believe Vladimir Putin complained about this in 2007 at the Munich security conference.
He said he wanted to hold to this mission creep of NATO because it was just too threatening to the Russian mentality and to the Russian nuclear arsenal.
He was right. But this idea that if you just keep bringing them in, which means you're sort of interfering with them anyway.
So I think President Biden overestimated America's abilities, underestimated the Russian abilities.
And I think he started to overestimate the importance of NATO.
NATO has less and less importance in American life.
Americans are not going to trade Kiev or Chicago or Kiev for anything, you know, or Kiev for Poland or Warsaw, that kind of thing.
I I mean the NATO thing has come to an end, and I know Putin has been trying to put a wedge in NATO for the past 20 years.
Well, in this case, the Ukraine war has proved very successful.
OK. So the final question before we let you go, professor, when we talk about the potential improvement with regard to US China or not not US China, but US Russia ties.
How far do you think it can go eventually, given the fact that there is still widespread anti -Russian sentiment across a large part of the political spectrum in America, I would say.
Well, the anti -Russian feeling in America, and I might even add the anti -Chinese feeling, resides in political elites in Washington.
This is not a feeling held outside of the greater Washington area.
Washington's 70 square miles is surrounded by five million miles, I mean, square miles.
This feeling of some kind of antipathy towards Moscow or later Beijing exhibited by the intelligence communities is not true.
This is a view held by a small number of people who've got us into all these wards in my lifetime, beginning with the Vietnam War.
They're looking for opportunities to ensconce themselves in power and the rest of it.
And I think it takes a president, leadership of a president, to change course.
When Franklin Roosevelt went to war against Nazi Germany it was because he had changed the American view.
When Ronald Reagan decided to reach out to the Russians with detente, he was going against the grain of the American public, certainly the American political leadership.
When Richard Nixon reached out to, show and lie in De Mao in 1972, and that famous trip to China with Kissinger, he changed the course of history.
You know, the president has the ability to do this.
So. Thank you very much, Professor Ciaricusa.
Thank you very much for putting this very important issue into a sort of historical perspective.
We are talking about, we're talking with Professor Joseph Ciaricusa, Professor of Global futures with curdling university.
You are listening to World Today, I'm Ding Honan Beijing.
We'll be back after a short break.
You are back with World Today, I'm Ding Honan Beijing.
Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek has revealed its native SPARS attention or NSA, a new mechanism designed to enhance the efficiency of long -context training and inference in AI models.
DeepSync has recently gained global attention, triggering an artificial intelligence revolution here in China.
Popular Chinese applications like WeChat and Abaidu have announced the adaptation of the DeepSync AI model.
It is also empowering cross -border e -commerce businesses by streamlining logistics issues, use, ordering, management and employee training.
And in the meantime, several Chinese cities such as Shenzhen are using DeepSeek to optimize their public services and boost their local government efficiencies.
So for more, my colleague Zhao Yang spoke with Dr. Yan Liang, professor of economics with William Mott University.
So Yan, Chinese AI firm DeepSeek, reviewed native sparse attention or NSA.
So what is it? Well, the MSA, or the so -called native sparse attention, is a technique that is used in machine learning.
This is to improve computational efficiency by reducing the complexity of analyzing a very large amount of tokens.
So what this does is it's going to limit the number of tokens' interactions.
Instead of computing attention scores all possible pairs of tokens, this functionality will focus on only a subset of tokens based on the attention matrix.
So what essentially does is it's going to help to reduce the computational cost by focusing only just a subset of tokens as I mentioned.
This will require fewer computations, and so it makes faster but also more memory efficient.
And second benefit of the NSA is that it can improve the scalability, meaning that it can help to handle much longer sequences.
So it helps with functions like high -resolution image processing.
And finally, it really helps to improve efficiency.
So that really helped to, you know, better suited for deployment on some of the resources constrained devices.
Imagine you're having a cell phone, right?
You need to run this AI.
AI and this NSA can really help to improve the functionality and efficiency without commanding a lot of computational powers on your cell phone.
So I think this is very essential for the future of AI to improve efficiency and improve the applicability in all kinds of devices and different industries.
So what can we expect from DeepSeek in changing our lives?
Well I think deep seek and other large language models can really be applied in many different industries, you know going from automobile industries to health care, finance, e -commerce, manufacturing, telecommunication, you name it and education of course.
So, right now I think in China many companies are already announcing or already integrated the AIs in their products.
So we know for example, eight EV companies, including you know, BYD and others have already announced that they are going to install Deep Sea for the autonomous driving.
And there are many financial security companies, telecommunication companies, smartphones, also cloud computing operators like Alibaba Huawei, and many of them are offering ways for the clients to assess deep sea's latest model.
So that means, you know, deep -sea is going to be integrated in many of the industries, many of the products that would affect our daily lives, makes some of these tasks much easier, and also efficiency much more efficient.
And so I think that is really going to help to improve our daily lives out work for the better.
And what are the potential implications of large language model providers announcing the free services for the industry as a whole?
Well, as I mentioned, I think, you know, there are many industries could really utilize AI to improve their functionalities and efficiencies, and on the other hand, I think for these AI models, they also have many different ways to provide enterprise solutions, to create a content and marketing, and they're able to provide better customer support and engagements.
they're able to help with data analysis, education, and so on and so forth.
So I think it's really a win -win sort of cooperation between these AI developers and also a variety of industries.
So that would create a very nice ecosystem, where more monetization and commodification of AI, in a very accessible and affordable way, would help to propel the AI development even further.
So that could create a very nice virtuous cycle.
And in what ways do you think this ongoing development of AI can contribute to an increase in the consumer spending in the long run?
I think that's a very interesting question.
I think with AI, again, it's able to be integrated in many different sectors to improve efficiency and improve the functionality.
I think this will prompt consumers to spend more.
So one of the examples is, you know, when you think about tourism or travel, you know, with the AI assistance, you might be able to fight better itineraries, you may be able to fight, you know, better accommodations, and so on and so forth.
And so that may incentivize you to travel more, right?
The other possibility is if your smartphone has this AI integration, it helps to enhance the functionality of your phone.
that say you do a search or you have certain, you know, entertainment functions on your phone and AI makes these functions work better for you, then you might have more incentives to upgrade your phone and so on.
So forth. So I think in a way it would help to improve the product and the services that we enjoy.
And so in that sense, it could help to incentivize more consumption.
Well, DeepSeek reviewed NSA and this comes as the global AI competition continues to heat up.
And we know that Elon Musk's ExAI unveiled his latest AI model Grok 3.
So how do you view the heating up of the global AI competition?
And what are Chinese companies' position in it?
Well, I think that Grok 3, it is an improvement from the previous version.
It boasts itself of having enhanced computational power and also specialized reasoning features.
that's going to be helpful for more interactive and real time user experience, but that said I think you know China's advantages are really unique and you know China doesn't just have a one right language model.
In fact, China is making a lot of different AI models.
We know there is the Alibaba's one series by do has early bots by dance at Dobow tends and have when UN and And so there are many different AI models in China.
And also, as I mentioned earlier, this has been established as a very coherent and efficient ecosystem from these language models to cloud services to now the semiconductor industry catching up and so and so forth.
So I think China's advantages are still very unique not to mention with the open source AI, you know, light deep seek with their development costs being so low, only a fraction of chat GPT, or grok.
This means this technology can be really generally applied, right, and can be afforded by many of the industries and companies.
And so I think the commodification and commercialization and monetization of AI, I think would also give, you know, China's AI technology another boost, right, because there are more uses, there are more ready users, and help these AI companies to raise funds to continue to develop their technologies.
So I think, you know, from both the cost from the technology, from the efficiency, from the big market, right to to, to adopt this technology, I think with all these advantages, I think China is still is a leading country in developing and adopting AI technology.
It's very interesting when you look at the DC, right, the core technicians, they're all natively educated.
And that just means that the Chinese education system has really helped to cultivate these talents.
That's a huge talent pool.
So I think from both a quantity and quality, I do think that China has the talent dividend and the talent pool to support its AI industry's development.
Dr. Yan Liang, professor of economics, was willing at university speaking with my colleague Zhao Yang.
Coming up, Kling energy contributed 10 % to China's GDP in 2024 according to new analysis.
We'll be back. You are listening to World Today, I'm Dinghani Baijian.
China's clean energy sector contributed a record 10 % to the country's GDP last year.
That's according to a new study by Carbon Brief, a UK -based website specializing in the science and policy of climate change.
The study, based on official reports and industry reports as well, is highlighting the growing role of renewables like solar, wind, and EVs in China's economy.
in clean technology, sales and investments in clean technology surpassed 13 .5 trillion yuan or nearly 2 trillion US dollars.
And experts say this very rapid expansion is not only driving economic growth, but also strengthening China's energy security and environmental commitments.
For more, my colleague, Ge An -Na earlier spoke with Dr. Chen Yahe, Chief Investment Officer with Nolan, a key technologies.
Let's start with a big picture here.
A 10 % contribution to GDP from clean energy is definitely a significant figure.
Could you please walk us through what this milestone means for China's economic future and his global position in the clean energy sector?
Well, this 10 % contribution to the GDP from China's clean energy really shows us that China's strategy to develop the clean energy has achieved a pretty successful degree after so many years of hard walking.
If you look at China's GDP, it is already quite large.
So ten percent of this large GDP is not a small number.
If you look at the clean energy right now in China, including things like wind power, solar power, new energy vehicle, all these kinds of things, you can see that China's clean edge industry is already a very large and pretty competitive industry and it is not only supplying products for Chinese economy alone, it is also exporting a lot of products to the global economy and contributed significantly to the environment protection of both China and the world.
So this really tells us that this is quite a competitive industry that China is having right now.
Many countries have been investing heavily in clean energy sectors today, and China is no exception, then what are the long -term strategic considerations behind China's continuous investment in the area?
Well, this is a very long mission, saying that China chose to develop its clean energy industry.
I mean, we started working on this almost two decades ago, and China said we must develop our clean energy.
And this is basing on a few things.
First of all, we can't keep relying on traditional like oil and coal.
One thing is that they don't really last very long.
Global oil is having a limited supply, and we'll only be able to sustain economic growth for probably just a few decades.
After that, you have no choice.
Second is that it just produced too much pollution and too much carbon emission that, in the short term, contributed to the air pollution.
in the long term which resulted in the global warming, which is, you know, it can result in something that no one can ever see.
Because this changes the global climate.
This is really a dangerous thing.
So China said, we must develop this.
We have to transfer towards the clean energy.
And there's also another reason is that if you look at clean energy, its growth needs no natural resources.
You don't have to locate in the Middle East to do that.
That you have to go to a lot of factories, a lot of hardworking and intelligent engineers to make this out, and China is just capable of doing that.
China said about almost two decades ago that we must develop clean energy.
We started working really hard on that.
I think China has reduced the GDP growth by some extent, because we kept on putting so much investment towards the development of clean energy.
This is a costly process when we were developing it.
But once this industry is built, it became so competitive and it really helped the environment of the world.
We've seen the rapid expansion of industries like solar power, electrical vehicles and batteries in China.
We know the government phased out subsidies for the EV industry for example long time ago, but the sector continues to expand at an impressive rate.
And what do you think has been the key driver behind this continued growth?
Well, obviously, the subsidy is only a very periodic thing.
I mean, it lasted for a few years, and it stimulated the growth in the very beginning.
The main reason for the government to give subsidy is not because without subsidy China can't help these industries, but they just try to reduce the burdens of companies and speed up the growth of these industries.
But if you look at the competitiveness of China's industries, they're not basically relying on the subsidy.
I mean, the subsidy is long, gone story.
I mean, they're not subsidizing anymore.
The reason that China's new energy industry is so competitive at this moment is because of the large market scale that China's having.
Because you have a very large market and the economics of scale is working in this industry So that you can have very low cost and very good quality of production.
Another reason is also because China has so many factories and so many hard walking clever engineers.
I mean, China has a huge amount of university graduates every single year.
They are very good at math.
They are very good at physics and engineering, computing, all these kinds of things.
And these people just walk in China's factories and companies and they make out this whole industry, this is probably the most competitive thing for China's new energy industry.
I could understand more that subsidies cannot create competitiveness, as you pointed out, and if we look at the analysis here, solar power EVs and batteries have played a major role in the growth of Chinese clean technology.
And among this, EVs and vehicle batteries contributed 39 percent of the overall value of China's clean energy economy last year.
The EV and vehicle battery sector has been so dominant.
But do you think this proportion will change in the future?
Well that's a very good question.
It's very hard to predict.
I mean what we do know is that the EVs and batteries will grow and other parts of the new energy will grow.
But if you talk about proportion is pretty bold prediction that I have to make.
But I do have my personal opinion that I think this proportion will decrease in the future, because if you look at the whole new energy industry, it's a really large industry.
It contains so many things.
I mean, for example, the power generated by wind and solar power, the power storage system, which is a huge project that can cost you trillions of yuan to invest.
These things are not starting that large compared with the new energy vehicle and batteries.
China is now having a very mature production line and industry of new batteries and new energy vehicles, but that doesn't mean that China's energy industry will concentrate on these two sectors alone.
There are just way too many things to do.
In the future, if you look for the next two or three decades, I would say the proportion of new energy vehicle and batteries in the whole industry of China's new energy will decrease, but they will grow compared with themselves.
But the proportion will possibly decrease in the future.
Finally, with China setting targets for carbon neutrality by 2060, what do you see as the next steps for the country in maintaining this clean energy momentum?
And how might other nations draw inspiration from China's green revolution?
Well, I would say China has to keep on investing and innovating if we want to achieve this target by 2060, which is about 35 years from now.
We have to invest in a lot of money.
I mean, currently, China still uses about 60 or 70 percent of traditional energy to fuel its economy.
So we have to develop so much things.
We have to build so many solar panel production factories.
countries, we have to build up so many wind power generators, and we have to build a huge amount of power storage system.
I read the report that cost about four trillion yuan to do that.
So it's a long way process.
We have to invest in a lot of money.
Also, the technology needs to be improved.
I mean, currently, if you look at the China United States are both working on what we call the controlled nuclear fusion.
But if you ask the people, the scientists, how many years do you think this will replace our current energy.
They said probably at least 50 years.
So that's a very long period of time.
It's a long picture.
So China has to keep on investing, and we have to keep on not only investing the money, but also work hard on the innovation.
So this is also something that other countries can learn or learn from China's experience.
That is, the governments under the companies have to be active to take the responsibilities of investment and innovation.
although this might not generate any too much return in the current moment.
But if you talk about the future, if you have a long vision, you just have to do that.
Dr. Chen Yaghe, Chief Investment Officer with Novum Api Technologies, talking to my colleague Ge Anh Na.
Coming up, the Parliament of Vietnam has approved an US $8 billion railway link to China.
Stay tuned. You're listening to World Today, I'm Dean Hunan Baek Jin.
The Parliament of Vietnam has approved plans for an US $8 billion Royal Link from its largest northern port city to the border with China.
The route will stretch 390 km from the port city of Haiphong to the mountainous city of Thai which borders the Chinese province of Yunnan.
It will also be running through the capital city of Hanoi.
It is one of the two railway links to China planned by Vietnam.
The Southeast Asian country is currently aligning its two corridors One Belt Initiative, with the Belt and Road Initiative.
So joining us now underlying is Dr. Rong Ying, chair professor with the School of International Studies Sichuan University.
Thank you very much for joining us.
Thank you for having me.
So it is reported in media that China will, over the course of the construction of this project, will provide some funding through loans for the project.
And if we talk about the future trajectory of the program here, the wish on the Vietnamese side is that they want to be operational by the year 2030.
So first of all, what do you make of the economic potentials that could be created by this project?
Well, certainly I think this project is going to be bringing about huge economic sort of significant impact for Vietnam, which I think is undergoing dramatic sort of changes in terms of economic growth, the mode of economic growth, and the target which I think has been just raised from 6 .5 to 7 to 8, which I think with that the project has now been adopted as been approved by the Parliament.
We are going to see certainly more in a sort of kind of big impetus for the fulfillment of this target, and certainly it will take over quite a few years to complete.
But I think the most important thing is that with the building of this railway, which is part of the two corridors and one soccer initiative, we're going to see more and more economic benefits bringing to both China and Vietnam, particularly in terms of implementing the agreement for cross -border economic cooperation projects and to build, kind of, a safe, secure, and reliable supply and value change between the two sides.
So, by the way, how is the status quo with regard to infrastructure holding Vietnam back when we talk about this country's ambition regarding in the development of its own manufacturing sector?
That's a great question.
I think there are sort of problems that the Vietnam, particularly in this part of region, in the northern part of Vietnam, has been very closely related to China.
I mean, the transportation transport problems, the bottleneck issues has been very huge, are damaging to, I think, the economic development.
I think there's been, quietly and publicly, recognized by the officials in charge.
They do have, I think, road connections to China and also have a railway, but it's very old railway built by the French colonists 100 years ago, and it is not kind of a standard one.
I mean we're talking about the gauge.
So with the new upgrading and the building of a new railway which is going to be standard and that would make it possible to raise the speed from 650 kilometers per hour to 160 kilometers at maximum and it would of course also help uh improved the connectivity between the two sides so we are going to definitely see that that bottleneck issues that uh problems caused by the sort of connectivity the the the the outdated facilities of these rails are going to be greatly improved for the goods of the development.
So, in a bigger picture sense, when we talk about the geopolitics or the political relations, say between Beijing and Hanoi, actually we know during the Biden administration we saw some attempts by Washington to try to drive a watch between China and Vietnam.
We saw Biden once paid a one -day yet high -profile visit to Hanoi when he was the president.
But when we talk about the business front, I guess for many of the multinational corporations for those multinational giants that are already running certain manufacturing facilities in Vietnam, like Samsung and Foxconn.
They actually rely on a regular flow of components from China.
So if we talk about this issue from a pro -business perspective, does that mean Vietnamese manufacturing future, or this country's broader economic future, will somehow require Hanoi to maintain very good relations with Beijing?
Well, definitely I think economics plays a very important role and let me just to respond briefly to the first part of the question.
It is true that over the decades, we have seen repeated efforts attempt by the United States and others try to drive a wedge between China and Vietnam.
It turned out to be just opposite, closer and closer economic and political relationship.
By the way, this initiative, I mean, the role that has been approved the project, has been one of the outcomes of the recent video by President Xi to Vietnam, and also reciprocated by the new leadership of Vietnam, that is a black ship project for building a community of shared mutual with the two sides.
The economic logic is there, But more importantly, I think with the the coming of the Trump administration, Trump point 2 .0 we are going to see more and more challenges shared between by China and Vietnam where it will make even the two sides to work closer economically and I think politically.
So we are going to see a closer economic integration, closer political relationship, and I think closer efforts more joined effort to work together to try to manage, to address the concerns, the challenges arriving from the new dynamic caused by Trump administration.
Your points well taken, thank you very much for joining us.
Rong Ying, Chair Professor with the School of International Studies, Sichuan University.
That's all the time for this edition of World Today.
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