When I was here in China as the Austrian Ambassador for the first time from 2003 to 2007, everything was new to me, so I traveled extensively in China during that time. I have visited most of the provinces and still hold many enjoyable memories of that time. My only regret was that I did not have the chance to visit Xinjiang because I was assigned to my next post earlier than I had expected.
Coming back this time, some things look very familiar. But Beijing has changed quite a lot. A number of projects have changed the city's appearance. And there are also some new problems presenting themselves, like air quality and traffic jams. These are not unnatural for a city growing as fast as Beijing does. As people become more affluent, more and more of them want a car; these problems are therefore a sign of China becoming more prosperous. China is not the first country to go through this phase. But because China is so big, the problems here are bigger as well. Fortunately, I do see that the leadership is very serious and determined to solve these problems.
China and the Europe are engaged in extensive dialogue at the moment because our relationship is becoming very broad and deep. But we do face a lot of challenges at the same time. We need to emphasize some priorities for future cooperation. I think that economic relations, trade, and investment are extremely important, and we are negotiating at the moment about an investment agreement which I think could make a great difference in the future.
Also I think issues related to climate change, the environment, water, food security, are very important. We are very impressed by the process of urbanization in China. What took centuries in Europe has been compressed into a couple of decades here. On this issue we share the same goal, which is to make our cities more livable. That is why we want to place so much emphasis on issues like green technology and smart cities.
There is a very interesting phenomenon - wherever you are in the world, when people find out that you have been to China or that you are currently working in China, they want to talk to you about China. This is especially obvious when I go back to Europe and talk to friends. They of course always want to know what life is like in China, what are my views on the development of China... This is always a hot topic.
This article is edited and translated from 《“值得講述的中國(guó)故事還很多”》，source: People's Daily, author: Shi Wei
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