提起中国，比利时前首相伊夫·莱特姆将中国的经济发展和欧洲一体化并称为过去几十年来最伟大的成就。他认为中国与欧洲是促进共同发展、维护世界和平稳定、促进人类进步的重要力量，中欧携手将释放更大的发展潜力。然而，偏见与误解却时常成为合作的阻碍。莱特姆认为应该以史为鉴，南怀仁的故事为中欧合作提供了重要的参考。南怀仁是何许人也？中国与欧洲又如何增进了解，共创未来？在本集节目中，莱特姆将与您分享他的独特见解。

伊夫·莱特姆：中欧携手 共促发展

比利时地处欧洲中心地带，首都布鲁塞尔被誉为“欧洲之都”。在我看来，欧洲一体化是过去七八十年全球发展进程中最重要的事件之一，可与之媲美的只有中国社会和经济发展所取得的非凡成就。无论是欧洲一体化及其带来的和平，还是中国的飞速发展，经济增长与联系交流都是动力之源。因此，我们肩负着一份共同的责任，这份共同责任的前提是对彼此充分的了解，既要深入读懂欧洲，也要全面读懂中国。

我今年63岁了，回望自己的一生，我在校园度过了长达二十载的时光，从稚嫩的孩童到负笈求学的学子，直至取得大学学位，但也许你不相信 在这二十年学习生涯中，我竟未曾有过学习中文的机会，也没有上过中国历史相关的必修课，中国在世界历史长河中曾占据主导地位数百年，然而欧洲学生却几乎没有机会学习中国的历史。我们必须改变这一现状，例如我们应该为欧洲年轻人提供更多学习中文的机会，应该通过必修课的方式让他们至少对中国历史和中国在世界历史中的地位有一个基本的认识。事实上，欧洲推出了一个“伊拉斯谟”高等教育交流计划，为包括中国学生在内的全球学生提供到欧洲学习交流的机会，我认为应该在此基础上大力投入，让更多来自欧洲和中国的学生有机会交换学习一年、能够在欧洲、中国或者其他国家学习一年，以便增进相互理解，对于参与项目的同学们个人来说，这将是一笔宝贵的财富，对其未来发展也大有裨益，增进相互理解，也将释放巨大的合作潜力。

说到相互理解，态度至关重要，我们都应向对方学习，这意味着我们要在一定程度上摒弃成见，摘掉有色眼镜，这也意味着学会变通，以开放的心态了解彼此并开展合作。

我去过一个小镇，是位于比利时西佛兰德的小镇皮特姆，它地处比利时西部，那里的居民不过五六千人，我们在那里共同追忆韦尔比斯特神父光辉的一生。他于1623年10月9日出生，去年正好是他诞辰400周年，韦尔比斯特先生年轻时学业优秀，聪慧过人，他努力钻研成为了一名修士，同时也是一位数学家和天文学家，他的梦想是了解世界，并游历四海 。终于有一天他得偿所愿，从里斯本启航前往中国，同行的是一众与他年纪相仿的同僚，他们经历了长达一年多的航行最终抵达澳门，但活下来的人不到出发时的四分之一，他有幸活了下来，随后开始在澳门、陕西等地工作。而后他受到康熙皇帝的召见，韦尔比斯特先生非常珍视这样的机会，他辅佐皇帝，运用自己的知识帮助解决中国面临的问题，比如他曾参与的一项工作就是在1670年左右，中国传统历法出现了些问题，康熙皇帝不拘一格请韦尔比斯特参与历法修订，最终他运用自己的天文学知识完善了中国的历法。这种灵活开放的态度使得韦尔比斯特先生不断晋升，最终在中国朝廷身居要职，事实上自那以后，再无任何西方人能如此接近中国的政权核心，这一切都源于他开放的态度，善于变通且乐于适应变化。韦尔比斯特先生的中文名叫南怀仁，他成为极少数被追封名号的人物之一，他的墓葬在北京市中心，离天安门不远。南怀仁先生四百年前展现出的这种开放态度，在今天反倒有些今不如昔，我们必须克服种种障碍，我们要克服诸如彼此间缺乏了解、语言不通、文化差异等阻碍，关键在于要借鉴南怀仁四百年前在中国展现出的灵活开放的态度，这一理念同样适用于重塑全球治理格局。我们这些欧洲的政治领导人、欧洲国家乃至整个西方，应与中国携手重塑全球治理格局，改革联合国体系，以更好的方式赋予新兴经济体应有的地位和话语权，这需要开放的心态随时适应变化并且学会变通。

女士们先生们，我们共同的责任不仅仅体现在全球治理上，还在于支持发展中国家的发展。我不禁回想起十二三年前，我在刚果民主共和国独立50周年庆典上的经历，这个位于非洲中心的国家领土广阔，在非洲这片“希望的大陆”上潜力无限。在庆典游行的尾声，我看到本国军队及一些外国军队的方阵都已通过后，一众中国面孔映入眼帘，人们向中国的工程师和工人表达了敬意和感谢，他们为刚果的发展做出了重要贡献，中国投资兴修铁路、建设基础设施，这些项目或稍早于“一带一路”倡议，但同样体现出了共同发展的精神内涵。这也给我们上了一课，我们应携手合作激发非洲的发展潜力，我们希望人人共享发展成果，打造共同共享的未来，我们也应共同推动非洲大陆的发展。

总而言之，我认为无论是欧洲一体化还是中国社会和经济的飞速发展都是非常重要的进步，而这些都离不开沟通往来、开放的心态和经济的发展，这就要求我们承担起共同的责任。要想携手同行就要增进了解，更好学习彼此的语言，了解彼此的历史，增进交流互动，我们也要秉持着开放的心态，如同南怀仁先生在四百年前面对困境时表现的那样，以中欧之间增进相互理解，共促发展和增强往来为契机。我们也应携手共同改善全球治理，释放非洲大陆的发展潜能，并与这些新兴发展中国家一道让人人共享的社会在未来成为现实，我期待这成为未来发展的美好蓝图以及和平合作的行动指南。

祝大家一切顺利，谢谢。

Why China and Europe should work together?

Belgium is located at the heart of Europe, and it's hosting the capital of Europe.I personally consider the European integration as one of the most important elements of progress.It's only joined by the unprecedented social and economic development of China, of your nation. The European integration, peacemaking and China's development, in both cases, the economy is the engine; connection is the engine. We have a shared responsibility coming from that. The responsibility we share has to be based on mutual understanding, a good understanding of Europe and a good understanding of China. 

When I think about myself – I'm now 63 years old – I had something like 20 years at school, from a little boy, pupil, student (to) university degrees. While during these 20 years, believe it or not, I never had the opportunity to learn Mandarin. I never had mandatory courses on the history of China. (It's) a nation that has been dominating during centuries of world's history, while a European student almost has no opportunity to learn your history. We should change this. I think, for instance, we should offer more possibilities for young Europeans to learn Mandarin. We should make it mandatory for at least having a basic understanding of the history of China and the role it played in the world's history. Last but not least, we have, in Europe, an Erasmus (Mundus Programme) scheme that is already used for some exchanges, including for Chinese students. I think we should massively invest in it and make it possible for more students from Europe and from China to have a year of learning, a year as a student in Europe or in China, in the other parts of the globe. This would increase the mutual understanding. This would be a fantastic asset for these people personally, also for their future. And it would unleash cooperation based on mutual understanding. 

When I think about mutual understanding, I think about attitude. We should be ready to learn from each other. And that means to drop, to a certain extent, prejudgment, biased judgment. And it means also the flexibility. Be open for learning to know each other and to cooperate.

I was in a small city, in the western part of Flanders in Belgium, the western part of Belgium, called Pittem. Pittem only has something like 5,000 or 6,000 citizens, and we were celebrating the memory of Father Verbiest. Father Verbiest was born on October 9, 1623, precisely 400 years ago. And Mr. Verbiest was a very good pupil, a very intelligent young boy. And he studied and studied and became a monk, but also a mathematician and an astronomer. And his dream was to learn to know the world and was to go out. And at the end of the day,  he managed at a certain moment to ship to China starting from Lisbon with some of his colleagues from the same generation. They went on a journey of more than one year, and they ended in Macao with less than one quarter of the people that were shipped in Lisbon. He was one of those that survived and started to work in Macao, in Shaanxi and in other places. At a certain moment, he was invited by the Kangxi Emperor. And Mr. Verbiest was very fond of these contacts. He was at the disposal of the emperor to put his knowledge intotrying to solve problems that China was facing.There was an issue with, for instance, the Chinese calendar of 1670, the year of 1670. And the openness of the Kangxi Emperor brought Mr. Verbiest to, at the end, the result of adapting the Chinese calendar based on his astronomic skills. That openness, that flexibility paid off to the extent that Mr. Verbiest went through the ranks and acquired high level responsibilities within the Chinese administration.In fact, there has never been since then, a Westerner that came so close to the leadership of your nation, to the leadership of China. This was based on his open attitude, on his flexibility, on his willingness to adapt. Mr. Verbiest became Nan Huairen, and Nan Huairen is one of the rare people that had the posthumous name change. And he's buried close to the center of Beijing, close to Tiananmen today. That kind of open attitude of Mr. Verbiest, of Nan Huairen, 400 years ago, is sometimes underdeveloped. We have to overcome hurdles. We have to overcome handicaps like the lack of knowledge of each other's situation, the language barriers, the cultural barriers, but crucial is to overcome this with open and flexible attitude that Nan Huairen displayed here in China 400 years ago.The same goes for rebalancing the global governance. We, political leadership in Europe, the European nations, but the Western nations as a whole, should be ready together with China to cooperate, to rebalance the global governance, to reset the UN systemand to find better ways to give right positions and places for the emerging nations, for the emerging countries. (We need) openness (and) readiness to adaptand to be flexible.

We also share, ladies and gentlemen, a common responsibility, not only in terms of global governance, but also to support the development of developing nations. I was thinking of what I experienced, something like 12 or 13 years ago, when at the celebration of the 50th year of independence of the DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo, a very vast nation at the heart of Africa, the nation of the future, the continent of the future.At a certain moment, at the end of the parade when we had seen passing by all kinds of elements of the DRC armyand also some other foreign armies,we saw a quite vast number of Chinese people, Chinese engineers and Chinese workers that were celebrated and thanked for their contribution to the development of the DRC through investment and railroads, through investment and infrastructure. It was maybe a little bit earlier than the BRI, but it was done with the same spirit of common development. While this is also a lesson: We should join forces to unleash the potential of Africa. We have a dream of shared society, of a common future, a common shared future. This is also in terms of common responsibility to develop the continent of Africa. 

So to sum up, I think that both our stories – European integration, the unprecedented social, economic progress you made as China, these are very important elements of progress. And they are based on connection, on openness, on economic development. And this brings us with a common responsibility, a common responsibility that we will meet if we increase our mutual understanding through better knowledge of each other's language, to better knowledge of each other's history through exchanges. We have to have an open mind, the open mind that Nan Huairen displayedalready 400 years ago in very difficult circumstances. And starting from that mutual understanding, common development and connection between China and Europe, we also have a responsibility to the global governance and to a continent like Africa, to unleash its potential, to make the shared societies reality in the future, together with these emerging nations. I hope that's a nice agenda for the future and agenda of peaceful cooperation. 

I wish you all the best, and I thank you for your attention. Thank you very much.