介绍:
CRI Exclusive Interview with Irish President Michael D. Higgins
Irish President Michael D. Higgins is urging young Chinese to assert more the legacy of the Chinese civilization, which has a long history and transformation. He also says the world will see China play an important role in a new global order. He made the remarks in an exclusive interview with our reporter Wu You in Shanghai before he winds up his eight-day visit to China.
Reporter: As a poet President who values cultural inheritance very much, what aspects of the Irish culture are you proud to share with the Chinese people?
Michael D. Higgins: Well, I think that sharing has already started, I mean, I have, during the visit, been speaking about the influence, first of all, of the fourth century Chinese writer on Oscar Wilde, who really, we'll say, Chuang Tzu, with great influence on Oscar Wilde, before he wrote Lady Windermere's Fan (温夫人的扇子)and many plays, that is a very interesting connection. But then some of the contemporary Irish writers, they have been translated into Chinese. I saw presented to me as a gift, the first volume of the translation of Finnegans Wake(芬尼根的守灵夜), James Joyce, and I would like to see Irish visual artists making it into the galleries.
Reporter: What part of the Chinese culture are Irish people most interested in?
Michael D. Higgins: I think they're interested in, again, is rather similar. And I think China, young Chinese people, maybe need to assert it more, when they come to Europe, is the very long legacy of civilization that stand behind China. I think not enough is often made either of the extraordinary contribution that calligraphy represents in relation to the history of art, but also the different philosophical movements and how they shade into one another, certainly some of the basic principles in philosophy, are ones that come from the moment before Rene Descartes and the enlightenment in Europe as it is called.
Reporter: So when Chinese young people go abroad for study or work, Europe is one of their most favorite destinations. What are the policies of Ireland in attracting more Chinese young talents to go there to work or study?
Michael D. Higgins: Well, I think first of all it's easier now, because after the establishment of joint fees with Britain let's say for visiting you can in fact get on a single visa you can go to either Britain and Ireland, and it includes all of Ireland. But I think as well there are 2700 Chinese students who are studying at the present time, 2400 who are studying Irish masters here. There's a great advantage that if you are learning English in the cities and in the country of somebody of that 4 Nobel laureates in a language that they took on over just 100 years ago. And that you have the location of some of the principal science and technology companies in the world, and then you have an opportunity after study of spending a year involving yourself.
Reporter: In Fudan University of Shanghai, you made a speech on the emergence of a new global order and the importance of the multilateral system. How do you see a new global order and China's role in it?
Michael D. Higgins: What I had in mind in the Fudan speech first specifically is that if one looks across the world history and you see governments, you see peoples coming to prominence at a particular time. Very often they have in fact sacrificed that opportunity through building up war, using science and technology for instance a war of aggression. I see a great opportunity for China when history comes to be written in decades to come that China made king to prominence such a time when great global challenges were global warming, global poverty, unfair structured trade, possibility of dealing with eradicable diseases. And if in fact China moves into that space, redefining interdependency, giving a headline in all of these areas that they have a long long legacy being created then and it's something that its benefits are not confined to China, but to humanity that it establishes. I think it removes many misconceptions in relation to the future of the global order and China's role in it. I have no such fear. I believe myself the part of the misunderstanding of the contribution that China can make, is because of the failure to understand the long history. And the many transformations the Chinese people have made and are in the process of making no more than ourselves in Ireland. I'm quite optimistic but I am very convinced of need to have a new architecture for multilateralism. Remember those institutions we've had IMF, World Bank, Brentwood Institutions, they came into existence in a particular set of circumstances, those are not our circumstances now. We've new challenges, and the title of my paper was facing new challenges, building a new multilateralism and the role of China.
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