EU veteran puts his faith in china, the 'miracle' that is changing the world

Similar to a "G2" grouping of the US and China, Pierre Defraigne says there should be a "G3" - China, the US and the EU. Fu Jing / China Daily

Pierre Defraigne considers himself lucky - for decades, he has worked together with high flyers from either Brussels or Beijing. Till 2005, he had long devoted himself to European affairs as a public servant and served as cabinet chief of the former European commissioner for trade Pascal Lamy, and the former European Commission vice-president Etienne Davignon, just to name a few of his big-name bosses. Defraigne is now executive director of the Madariaga-College of Europe Foundation, a Brussels think tank. He says he offered loyalty and faith to win his bosses' trust.

"These people are people you can talk to. You can really have even intellectual arguments with them, because they are broad-minded and far-sighted enough to see someone with alternative thinking and other views."

Since retiring in 2005, Defraigne says half of his agenda on intellectual dialogue has been about China. His idea is very simple: Europe is a mirror of China's rise. And because of his critical and independent but faithful insights, he has won respect from Chinese listeners.

Among them is the State Councilor Liu Yandong, who visited Brussels on April 17-19 to boost people-to-people exchanges between China and Europe. Defraigne is among a group of European scholars to have spoken with Liu.

"With my Chinese friends, I have developed the same sort of relationship as I did with my European bosses," Defraigne says.

Either as driver, speaker, or listener, Defraigne always has a busy agenda covering Beijing-Brussels relations.

His observations on China starts from his career on trade issues within the European Commission. For 15 years, he traveled across the world to compare development models of Asian tigers and emerging economies.

He concludes that all the countries and regions share two things: they have good macroeconomic policies, which is the key; and they "exploit external dimensions" in a clever way.

"But China is a miracle. It uses nearly the same policies, but all of a sudden it has emerged in a much wider dimension. And it changed the whole region and eventually it is changing the whole world with a mass of poor Chinese who are all of a sudden escalating the ladder toward better living standards," Defraigne says.

He says the late leader Deng Xiaoping was behind China's miracle.

Defraigne says Deng is a man who had that "very rare vision" and implemented it in a very pragmatic way: a mix of long-term vision, experimentations and generalization of reforms.

"Now the problem with China as I see it from outside is that you need a sort of new 'Deng Xiaoping'," Defraigne says.

Defraigne believes China is reaching another crucial point in its history.

"This is now not only a matter for China, it is a matter for the world," he says.

There is no country that faces a more difficult situation because of its size, the number of people and the physical vulnerability of the country - it is not a rich country and it is one that is exposed to natural disasters.

"You have to factor in all those tough realities," Defraigne says.

He says this is why he is skeptical about some Western views that project the future of China as a sort of imitation of the Western model. China is also confronted with enormous pressure; the growing demands of its people.

Similarly, if China is to climb the ladder of technology - which is crucial for it to meet its social and environmental challenges - the country needs both central authority with long-term planning and individual entrepreneurs.

China's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15) is a formidable concept and it is on the right track to deliver the goals in the blueprint, which aims to restructure China's development path, Defraigne says.

But Europe and the United States should also do more "homework" to solidify the pillars of the global economy. "This is the key problem China, EU and US should share the responsibility of world peace and prosperity," Defraigne says.

Similar to a "G2" grouping of the US and China cited by scholars, Defraigne says there should be a "G3" - China, the US and the EU.

If there is a G2, Europe will be "sucked" into American power, which is neither good for Europe nor for China, Defraigne says.

"So the EU needs to exist as an independent power. It is our duty," he says.

In doing so, the EU should achieve unity, which is a core value that Europeans are forgetting about. He says the EU has been too much focused on the single market and should cultivate what is its singularity and its strength, which is its social model.

"This is the EU's homework," Defraigne says.

As for the US, it has to accept that things will never be the same again and it must tighten its fiscal belt as the dollar is no longer the currency of the world.

"That time is over because of the arrival of the euro and the yuan," Defraigne says.

All three are confronted with very heavy domestic agendas but it is important to bear in mind that China, the EU and the US play important roles for others, he says.

"This is the reason why I call on cooperation between Europe and China on technologies, especially in the area of energy, climate and the environment," Defraigne says.

During a recent conversation with the new Chinese ambassador to the EU, Wu Hailong, Defraigne said China and the EU should speed up mutual investment.

He says this mutual foreign direct investment is a formidable insurance policy against protectionism and a good vehicle to get to know each other, to share know-how, to share cultures, because at the end of the day, it is about making people happy.

"If you are poor, you are not really poor if you have culture. If you are rich and not very well educated, you can't have a really interesting life," Defraigne says.

Defraigne says his own knowledge comes mainly from reading and debating.

Apart from reading, Defraigne also enjoys music, mainly classical as well as jazz. He also loves Chinese music, classical and modern, with some arrangements inspired by folklore. "They are interesting and traditional, and very pleasant to Western ears," he says.

Defraigne says he also likes hiking and riding bicycles. He hunts as well.

"But I still work a lot, of course. China takes a lot of my time to follow. It is very demanding to go through different resources," Defraigne says.

He made his first visit to China in the early 1990s and the Chinese then were already "highly visible". He has visited the country 15 times but those have been limited to short stays in major cities.

Another reason why he devotes so much time to China is because the country has made a difference in helping ordinary people share power and wealth, Defraigne says.

"I think the rise of China will force the EU to wake up. But I don't see it as a threat for Europe," he says.

"Instead, it would be unfair for Europe not to join China to make the world fairer than it used to be."

fujing@chinadaily.com.cn