By Xuefei Chen Axelsson

October 1 marks the 70th anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China. Upon this date, Xuefei Chen Axelsson had an exclusive interview with Ambassador Gui Congyou on Sept. 14, 2019.

Stockholm, Sept. 16(Greenpost) – Chinese Ambassador Gui Congyou has said that Chinese people under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, CPC, through unremitting efforts and hard work of the past 70 years, have experienced profound economic and social transformation from a poor and weak China to a relatively healthy wealthy society。This is a historic leap forward towards our goal of realizing the great rejuvenation  of China. 

Ambassador Gui made this remark during an exclusive interview with Xuefei Chen Axelsson, chief editor and founder of Green Post(www.greenpost.se) , a Swedish Chinese media aiming at promoting sustainable development in Sweden and building bridge between China and Sweden. 

“Over the past 70 years, especially over the past 40 years of development, over 1.3 billion people have all used mobile phones and internet in addition to having enough food and clothes.  China’s contribution to world economic development surpasses 30 percent.  China continues to be the second largest destination of foreign direct investment. China becomes more open minded and more confident than before. Such a China will create more opportunities for the world. ” said Gui. 

A series of figures show that Chinese people’s disposable per capita income has increased nearly 60 times more than that in 1949, 20 times more than that in 1978. China’s average life expectancy reaches  77 years old and over 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty. 

“China has been a good member in safeguarding the world peace, a good peace builder, development contributor and international order keeper.” 

Gui said that China has planned to completely eliminate absolute poverty by 2020 and realize modernization by 2035 and basically reach the middle developed countries level by 2050 and followed this road map to go forward step by step. 

He said during this process, China also initiated the Belt and Road initiative and helped those countries who like to join this initiative and shared Chinese technologies and innovations, for example the Beidou Navigation system. 

Talking about challenges ahead, Gui said the Chinese average GDP has not reached ten thousand dollars yet, which is less than 20 percent of the Swedish average GDP. Chinese development is not very balanced and western regions still need further development while eastern regions have developed much better. 

By the end of next year, China still needs to eradicate the absolute poverty by 10 million people(which is equivalent  almost the whole Swedish population). 

Gui said China still faces the challenge of enjoying a better environment in some areas in China. But Chinese people are determined to solve its problems and challenges while developing further with higher quality. Through 70 years of development experiences, Chinese people are confident that they will realize their development goal along with achieving the United Nations 2030 development goals. 

On Sino-Swedish relations,  Ambassador Gui spoke highly of bilateral relations. 

“About 260 years ago, Swedish Gothenburg Boat sailed to China and opened a marine route to China. Sweden became the first western country to establish diplomatic relations with China and signed technical cooperation agreements with China.”

During the new development era, China and Sweden have become the largest trade partners with each other between Nordic countries and Asia. 

So far there are 9000 Chinese students studying in Sweden and becoming the largest number of overseas students group.  In addition to Air China, Eastern Airline also opened direct flight between Stockholm and Shanghai coping with the increasing number of tourists.  China EU express also opened its maiden voyage with Swedish timber export to China last year. 

About his impression on Sweden, Ambassador Gui said that Swedish King Carl Gustav VXI told him to visit all over Sweden and have a good look when he met the King.  And he did visit up north to the countryside, down to the south and east and west of Sweden. He felt Sweden is really beautiful. 

He found Swedish people’s awareness of environmental protection and climate is high. And most of them are very friendly. 

“I think Sweden and China are mutually complementary in green tech cooperation and environmental protection. We can deepen the cooperation in this and other  fields. ” said Gui. 

About the question with media, Ambassador Gui said that media is a bridge between the two sides by expressing opinions and stances of the two sides. Only when he found some media facts were not correct, he would like to point out the facts which provide with true information.

“I found those incorrect information show that the writer has never been to China or get a full picture about China. China has really made great progress over the past years. With the rapid development of new technology, such as internet and high speed train,  China’s progress for the better also speeded up. Welcome Swedish media to visit China and have a good look. ” said Ambassador Gui. 

Full Chinese version please see the following link.

www.greenpost.se

PublishedChinese Ambassador Gui Congyou on China’s Achievements and Challengesis now live.