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00:10Hello, Telesura English presents a new episode of China Now, a Voi Media's production that showcases the culture, technology and
00:18politics of the Asian giant.
00:20In this first segment, China Currents take a deep dive into the week's top stories from China has just hit
00:2710 United States entities with targeted export controls and the list itself tells a very specific story to a global
00:35sportswear brand has managed to turn one of Beijing's most iconic landmarks into a cultural misstep. Let's see.
00:49Hello, everyone, and welcome to China Currents. Here's what we're looking at this week. China has just hit 10 U
00:55.S. entities with targeted export controls, and the list itself tells a very specific story.
01:01Germany's chancellor has flowed to the idea of a new plaza accord to pressure China on its currency. And even
01:07inside Europe, that idea isn't landing well.
01:10A global sportswear brand has managed to turn one of Beijing's most iconic landmarks into a culture misstep. And China
01:18has wrapped up the Dragon Bolt Festival with 124 million trips, plus one very unexpected sight, a humanoid robot in
01:27a canoe.
01:28Let's start with the export controls. On June 22nd, China's Ministry of Commerce released a notice adding 10 U.S.
01:34entities to its export control list, which went into effect right away.
01:38It means any Chinese dual-use goods, materials, components, or technologies that can be used for both civilian and military
01:47purposes are now barred from being exported to these companies.
01:51If a transaction was already underway, it has to stop.
01:54Eight out of the 10 companies are core suppliers to the U.S. military-industrial supply chain, covering NMAN systems,
02:00including firms like Red Cat Holdings and Teal Drones, as well as airborne radar and satellite payloads, such as Ball
02:07Aerospace.
02:08The remaining two are U.S. rare earth companies. One of them is MP Materials, which operates Mountain Pass, the
02:15only large-scale rare earth mine in North America, and a flagship project in the Pentagon's push to reduce dependence
02:22on Chinese rare earths.
02:24Its inclusion cuts directly into the upstream of America's domestic rare earth supply chain.
02:29And this doesn't come out of nowhere. China sees this as a carefully targeted response to a sequence of U
02:36.S. moves.
02:36On June 8th, the U.S. Defense Department expended its so-called Chinese military company list to 188 Chinese entities,
02:44and the sweep went far beyond traditional defense firms.
02:47BID, Alibaba, Baidu, Unitary Robotics. These are companies that make electric vehicles, run internet platforms, and sell consumer robots.
02:56No concrete evidence was presented. The justification was a vague appeal to civil-military fusion, effectively using national security as
03:05a catch-all to pressure China's leading high-tech industries.
03:08Two days later, the U.S. Treasury followed up. It added nine individuals and entities from mainland China and Hong
03:15Kong to its sanctions list, accusing them of helping Iran procure military supplies.
03:21Their assets were frozen, and their access to dollar transactions was cut off.
03:26No U.N. Security Council authorization, no publicly verifiable evidence.
03:30China's response at the time was clear. It opposes sanctions with no basis of international law, and will make necessary
03:37steps to protect the legitimate rights of its companies and citizens.
03:41And on the very day the expert controls took effect, Beijing added another measure.
03:46China's Ministry of Finance announced that government procurement projects would no longer purchase products from 46 U.S. companies.
03:54Together, the two actions apply pressure from both ends, upstream supply chains and market access.
04:00Analysts have described the approach as precise, measured, and proportionate.
04:04It targets companies directly involved in military projects or in pushing sanctions against China.
04:09It does not extend to ordinary civilian trade, and it does not affect U.S. firms operating normally in China.
04:16China has consistently said it welcomes legitimate economic cooperation, but if a company profits from the supply chain on one
04:23side while pushing restrictions on the other, there are consequences.
04:27Now, let's move to Europe.
04:30At the EU summit in Brussels on June 18th and 19th, German Chancellor Frederick Mertz made a striking proposal.
04:37He claimed the RMB is undervalued by 30% and caught on the EU to revive the logic of the
04:441985 Plaza Accord, using coordinated pressure to force a Chinese currency re-evaluation and reduce Europe's trade deficit with China.
04:52The broader summit agenda focused on what EU leaders described as Chinese overcapacity and trade imbalances.
05:00They authorized the European Commission to begin developing new trade response tools.
05:05Commission President Ursula von der Leyen argued separately that China's export growth to Europe was unsustainable, and that the EU
05:12should reduce its dependence on Chinese supply chains.
05:15The original Plaza Accord drove a sharp appreciation of the Japanese yen, severely damaged Japan's export economy, and helped trigger
05:23Japan's lost decades.
05:25So the real question is whether that playbook can work again.
05:29Even within Europe, the answer appears to be, not really.
05:32On June 22nd, European Central Bank President Kristen Lagarde weighed in.
05:37Citing IMF research, she put the RMB's undervaluation at around 15% to 16%, not the 30% Mertz had
05:45claimed.
05:46More importantly, today's global economy is fundamentally different from 1985.
05:51Simply importing the Plaza Accord model no longer works.
05:55China's competitiveness comes from a complete industrial supply chain, relentless investment innovation, and intense market competition, not currency manipulation.
06:05Europe's manufacturing challenges have more to do with high energy costs, slowing innovation, and the pull of U.S. industrial
06:12subsidies, drawing firms across the Atlantic.
06:15And looking only at the deficit misses the full picture.
06:18European companies earn substantial returns from their investments in China.
06:23Affordable Chinese goods have lowered living costs for European consumers and supported Europe's green and digital transitions.
06:30None of this shows up on the deficit number.
06:33China's response was direct.
06:35The foreign ministry said China-EU economic relations are fundamentally mutually beneficial.
06:41China does not deliberately pursue a trade surplus.
06:44So-called de-risking is protectionism under another name.
06:47One that raises costs for European businesses and hurts consumers.
06:51Today's China is not 1985 Japan.
06:54It has a massive domestic market, an independent monetary policy, and a complete industrial system.
07:00And it will not accept a coercive currency arrangement imposed by a small group of countries.
07:06Switching gears, let's talk about a brand.
07:09Canadian athletic wear brand Lululemon is facing heavy backlash in China over a cultural blunder at its flagship event.
07:16The brand hosted a large yoga festival at the Huanghuacheng section of the Great Wall and promoted a drum performance
07:24as traditional Chinese drumming.
07:26But after the event, music experts called out the obvious, that it was not a Chinese drum, but a Japanese
07:32taiko drum.
07:33The two have completely different construction, from how the drum head is fastened to the overall shape and playing style.
07:40Essentially, Lululemon passed off a Japanese instrument as Chinese culture and did it on the Great Wall, one of China's
07:47most symbolically important historical landmarks.
07:50The frustration isn't about using a foreign instrument, it's about the lack of effort.
07:55The brand wanted to capitalize on Chinese cultural appeal to wane over consumers, but couldn't even be bothered to do
08:01basic research.
08:02To many, it felt like a lazy, disrespectful cash grab.
08:07Lululemon did issue an apology, blaming limited professional knowledge and pulling all related content.
08:12But most people aren't convinced.
08:14An event of this scale goes through layers of approval, a mistake this basic points to a pattern common among
08:21global brands, that their interest in local culture only goes as far as marketing props, with little incentive or drive
08:28to delve beneath the most superficial.
08:30Wrapping up this week, China has just concluded its three-day Dragon Bolt Festival holiday, one of the country's oldest
08:37traditional celebrations.
08:38The festival dates back more than 2,000 years and commemorates Quyuan, a patriotic poet.
08:44Today, it's best known for dragon boat racing and eating zongzi, sticky rice dumplings wrapped up in bamboo leaves.
08:51It has also become a major travel holiday.
08:54Official data shows 124 million domestic trips were taken over the long weekend, up 4.4% year-over-year,
09:02with tourism revenue reaching around 44.5 billion yuan.
09:06Dragon boat races were once again the highlight.
09:08In Foshan, Guangdong, a viral event known as Dragon Boat Drifting drew massive crowds.
09:15Long wooden boats racing through narrow, winding rivers at high speed, making sharp turns that look like something out-of
09:22-water motorsport.
09:23The spectacle was so popular that local hotel bookings jumped more than 30%.
09:28Major cities including Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Macau hosted international competitions, with teams from over 20 countries and regions.
09:37And in Sichuan, the festival took a futuristic turn.
09:40Humanoid robots joined teenage teams for an experimental Dragon Bolt experience.
09:46Beyond the races, hands-on cultural activities surged in popularity, from making zongzi to sewing herbal satches.
09:53Especially among younger participants, China's traditional holidays aren't frozen in time.
09:58They keep evolving, blending deep cultural roots with modern creativity, and finding new ways to stay relevant for each new
10:06generation.
10:20We have a short break now, but don't go away because we'll be right back.
11:13Welcome back to China Now.
11:15In the second segment, Thinkers Forum features Roughly Chinese podcast and welcomes Filip Filipovic,
11:23Serbian political commentator who will discuss its perspective growing up in the Chinese system
11:28and also analyze the Serbia-China relations.
11:32Let's have a look.
11:37My Chinese is better than my Serbian, because I grew up here.
11:40I've been in China for 21 years.
11:42I think you speak better Chinese than I do.
11:43I'm not even trying to flatter you.
11:45Probably, yes, actually.
11:46To be very humble, yes.
11:49The whole atmosphere was...
11:53You can feel the respect.
11:54You can see how the whole environment was symmetrical.
11:57We are never going to get this kind of respect in the West.
12:00When you read the Chinese history, when you understand the Chinese history, and when you
12:04grew up in the Chinese system, you're going to have the similar dreams.
12:07The situation between EU and Serbia is we pretend we love each other, but we need each other.
12:12That's the problem.
12:13I feel freedom of speech in China.
12:16I am not allowed to talk about it in the West.
12:20Hello, everyone.
12:21Welcome to another episode of Roughly Chinese.
12:23I'm your host, Yunpeng.
12:24Today, we have with us Filip Filipovic.
12:26He's a Serbian political commentator currently living in Shanghai, and he is also an international
12:32relations scholar right here with us at Fudan University.
12:36Hi, guys.
12:37I googled your name, and the first thing that came up was this.
12:41It was a thumbnail from one of your YouTube videos.
12:44Oh, okay.
12:45With this exact picture, it was a thumbnail for one of the Bilibili videos.
12:50Not YouTube, sorry.
12:51Yeah, Bilibili video, yeah.
12:53And this was on Google.
12:55I was like, wow.
12:56This was on Google?
12:56This was on Google.
12:57So how did you end up there?
13:01Because you are an impressive dude.
13:04Like, no shade.
13:06Not going to flatter you more, but not many PhD students at Fudan get invited to the Great
13:13People's Hall and meet the president of their country, Serbia, and the Chinese president.
13:19What happened?
13:21What led to that moment?
13:23Actually, this is a long story.
13:25Okay.
13:25This is a very long story.
13:28I was not the only one invited.
13:30There were around 15 people outside the delegation that were invited.
13:36And that's it.
13:37And of course, some people that teach Serbian language, teach Chinese language.
13:41It was a very small circle of people.
13:45And I was invited there by our embassy.
13:49Right.
13:49And our embassy was trying to invite all the people that were deeply involved in our relations.
13:56Right.
13:56Oh, and just for context, this is the Friendship Medal Award Ceremony for Serbian President
14:03Ucic last month in Beijing.
14:07And when I say it's a very long story, because I was involved in China-Serbia relations, let's
14:16say, 15 years ago.
14:19Wow.
14:20Now I'm 28.
14:21Right.
14:22Nearly 29.
14:23And I was...
14:24What do you mean involved?
14:25Like, what does it look like?
14:27You don't have that many people that speak Chinese in Serbia.
14:31Okay.
14:31It's one of the toughest languages in the world.
14:33Right.
14:33Now we have more people that speak Chinese, but not on my level, because Chinese for me
14:38is my second mother tongue.
14:39My Chinese is better than my Serbian, because I grew up here.
14:42Right.
14:43I've been in China for 21 years.
14:44I think you speak better Chinese than I do.
14:46I'm not even trying to flatter you.
14:47Probably.
14:47That's a fact.
14:48Yes, actually.
14:49To be very humble, yes.
14:52Okay.
14:52Okay.
14:52Don't push it too far, man.
14:54Because I finished the whole Chinese system.
14:58I was in...
14:59It's called 九年一无教育 for the audience.
15:02That's like the Chinese state primary school system and middle school system.
15:07I was the only foreigner in my primary school.
15:10I was the only foreigner in my lower middle school, in the higher middle school, or in high
15:16school.
15:16In high school, I was not the only foreigner, but again, a very rare one.
15:21When did you move to China?
15:23In 2005.
15:242005, okay.
15:25So because of this background, when I was in ninth grade, 10th grade, I already started
15:35to do the translation for our delegations, not on the stage, but behind the scenes.
15:42Wow.
15:42When they have some documents that they wanted to translate, for example, for bilateral discussions,
15:50they cannot find that many people that speak the language.
15:54So a teenager was translating top secret government documents.
15:57It's not top secret.
15:58Government documents.
15:58It was not the top secret stuff.
16:00Oh, okay.
16:00It's like the protocol stuff.
16:02Okay.
16:02They're not going to allow kids to translate top secret stuff.
16:06Oh, that would be crazy.
16:07It was the protocol stuff.
16:09And then when I was in also high school, or it was the first year of major studies, I
16:16went back to Serbia to attend one forum.
16:18Was it like a youth delegation sort of thing?
16:21No, it's not a youth delegation.
16:22It's like a serious adult thing.
16:23It's serious adult stuff.
16:25Okay.
16:26And I was there as a teenager.
16:27And there was one Russian lady, she was sitting beside me, and she was just looking at me
16:34taking the notes.
16:34The whole event was in Serbian and English, and I was taking the notes in Chinese.
16:38And she was just looking at me.
16:40She saw that I was drawing something.
16:44But she saw that I was drawing it in a very serious way.
16:47Yeah.
16:47And at that time, I was like really deep.
16:51I was really like focused on the Chinese tradition.
16:54So I was not writing from left to right.
16:56I was writing from right to left, from top to the bottom.
16:59That's hardcore.
17:01Yeah.
17:01Hardcore tradition stuff.
17:03She was just confused.
17:04She asked me, what the hell are you writing?
17:06I said, I'm writing only in Chinese because this is my mother tongue.
17:09I'm translating all the stuff and I'm taking the notes.
17:13Then in 2020, I was having an internship in consulate, General Consulate at the Republic
17:20of Serbia in Shanghai.
17:21Yeah.
17:22That was a very interesting experience.
17:26Because it was a crisis.
17:28But at the same time, that was the first time I really felt that specific love for Serbian
17:37people from Chinese people.
17:39Try to imagine, now it's COVID.
17:42And our president says, okay, we are in crisis and we want the European Union to help us because
17:47we are a candidate state.
17:48But we don't really have a good relationship with the EU.
17:51Right.
17:51And the EU says, no, we don't want to help you.
17:53And then our president said, EU is an illusion.
17:57The only country that can help us is China.
18:00Right.
18:00And after he said that, we were in the consulate, it was March.
18:06March 2020.
18:08March 2020.
18:09Okay.
18:10March the 15th.
18:11The moment you get to the consulate, at the front door, you can see like 50 or 100 packages
18:18of medical stuff that normal, ordinarily people send to you for your country.
18:26Wow.
18:26And that amount just got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
18:30In the end, we were receiving delegations that came with 200, 300 boxes of masks or whatever
18:39as the donation for my country.
18:41Wow.
18:42Every day we had two delegations coming in the middle of COVID to give you the stuff that
18:47you need.
18:48Wow.
18:49So this is not just official state delegations.
18:52No.
18:52But stuff sent by regular people.
18:54No, like football fans.
18:56Oh, wow.
18:56There were like government delegations from like Baoshan district.
19:01But why Baoshan district?
19:02Our coach of the national women's basketball team.
19:08Okay.
19:09She was the coach at Baoshan.
19:10Ah, I see.
19:12So the Baoshan government came and said, you know, your coach is also our coach.
19:18We want to help.
19:19Wow.
19:19And they said like 500 boxes.
19:22And our consulate is not a big place.
19:23We don't have that much space for hundreds and hundreds, thousands of boxes.
19:29Yeah.
19:29In the end, it ended up, we had to rent the place at the airport for these boxes.
19:37In 2025, I opened my own channel on Bilibili.
19:41Right.
19:41And talking about Serbia.
19:43It's been very popular on Bilibili.
19:44A lot of my friends watch it.
19:46Hundreds of thousands of people tune in every time we upload a video.
19:50So that was a picture that my production team sent me when they told me that this is the
19:55person we're interviewing.
19:56And I got the picture and it has President Wucic and President Xi in it.
19:59Yeah.
19:59So I'm like, wow, we're interviewing President Wucic?
20:02And they're like, no, no, no, no, no.
20:03No.
20:03But see the guy behind him.
20:05To be honest, I was shocked as well.
20:06But I was not expecting to be invited on such a big event.
20:14This was like really the biggest moment of my some kind of political life yet.
20:21Right.
20:22So can you imagine the leader, the president that is leading 1.4 billion people, which
20:29has the nuclear weapon, walks like two meters away from you with your president, which is
20:38the president of a country that only has 6 million people.
20:42We only have 6 million people.
20:44Like who we are to be there.
20:48Like we are like this big.
20:50China is like huge.
20:52And we were there.
20:54And the whole environment, the whole atmosphere was, you can feel the respect.
21:00You can see how the whole, the whole, the whole environment was symmetrical.
21:05Like if you are the president, then you are the president, no matter the size of the country.
21:09If you are the president, you are the president.
21:11We are going to show the respect.
21:13And that ceremony specifically was to honor President Wucic for what he did for the Sino-Servian
21:17relationship.
21:18Oh, he did a lot.
21:19He sacrificed a lot.
21:20He did a lot.
21:22We're going to.
21:22He has the pressure.
21:23We're going to get to what President Wucic and how Sino-Servian relationship evolved
21:28in the past couple of years.
21:29But there's one thing I want to bring up because I watched the Chinese official like
21:35newsreel for the event.
21:36And I noticed that a military orchestra was playing the anthems of both countries.
21:43And it just got stuck in my head because I lived in the United States for 11 years.
21:47I've never heard a single time in any setting, not even in my, in my own.
21:52I don't know what that says about me, but the Chinese anthem, it just disappeared from
21:56my life while I was living in the U.S.
21:58I cannot fathom what that would feel like listening in a foreign country at a state meeting, your
22:06own national anthem being played live.
22:08That was the first time for me listening to the national anthem in a live environment.
22:16First time in my entire life.
22:19And it was done by the military orchestra.
22:22I actually said that in my own video for Bilibili.
22:25Okay.
22:26That that was the first time in my life listening to like the orchestra version of my own.
22:33It was like you were at the edge of, of the tears, but you cannot tear up because, because
22:38you're, you're there.
22:39Like you're in front of two presidents in front of all the people.
22:42You just kept to, kept to keep it together.
22:45Keep, yeah.
22:46Keep it together.
22:47And just don't show that much emotions, but everybody was emotional.
22:50You can see, you can see President Votius was emotional.
22:52He was like the red, his face was like red and happy.
22:57You can see his, you can see he was smiling.
22:59He was near the tears, but he didn't tear up.
23:03When he heard that news that he will be, that he will get the, the Xinjiang.
23:09Right.
23:10The friendship medal.
23:11Yeah.
23:12Then he was like, he, he got very emotional.
23:17Wow.
23:17Yeah.
23:18Everybody was emotional.
23:19It was like the very big moment for our country.
23:22A few, a few days ago, like two, two weeks ago, two weeks ago, I went back to Serbia to
23:27attend our meeting of the diaspora of the Serbs outside Serbia.
23:33Every year we have this kind of big meetings that we invite Serbs from all, all around the
23:38world, from Italy, from Germany.
23:40Right.
23:40And on that meeting, when we were talking about this event, no matter if they love Votius
23:46or don't like Votius, everybody was proud of that moment.
23:50Because as the country that only has 6 million people, when your president is right there,
23:56when he was receiving that high level of the owner.
24:00Right.
24:01You should be proud of that.
24:05And West pissed off.
24:07They were pissed off.
24:08I'm sure.
24:09These Serbs, they were all proud of that.
24:11Westerners were not.
24:12Right.
24:12And you can see those arguments even happening inside families.
24:16Yeah.
24:16Some of these Serbs, they don't like president that much.
24:19But they were also proud.
24:20Because like, they're all Serbs.
24:22That's our president.
24:23Right.
24:23And he did many great things.
24:24So, why not be proud of that?
24:26Why do you think for Serbs, especially, this moment feels so emotional?
24:32Because we are never going to get this kind of respect in the West.
24:37When the second largest country in the world, which is going to be the first largest country
24:42in the world in maybe 20 or 30 years time, shows such respect towards a small country that
24:48was fighting for its own freedom for past hundreds and hundreds of years.
24:53So, when you feel that somebody respects that spirit, then, of course, you're going to
24:57be proud of that.
24:59Okay.
25:00This is about a recognition of status.
25:03Yeah.
25:03I want to talk a little bit more about Serbia's relationship with the West.
25:07Because like, you go back to Serbia pretty regularly.
25:10And I'm sure you talk to people about their experience in the 90s.
25:14What happened with NATO, especially in 1999.
25:16When people speak about that incident, not just the incident, the whole period of the 90s,
25:21because we remember the NATO bombing as like a 1999 event.
25:25But the political influences, the infiltration, and even military action, they started way
25:30before that and continued way after.
25:32So, how do people talk about NATO and the relationship between Serbia and U.S. and its
25:38allies?
25:38Let me give you a very short example.
25:40That was the news, one of the biggest news from last year.
25:44Jared Kushner and Donald J. Trump, they wanted to buy the building of general staff of our
25:50military that was bombed in 1999.
25:53Okay.
25:53It's the city center.
25:55It's in front of our government, ministry of foreign affairs, and our ministry of finance
26:01and economy.
26:02Like, city center.
26:04Okay.
26:04Did they, as like individuals, want to buy the property?
26:07Yeah, they wanted to buy that property to make Trump Tower.
26:11Oh, wow.
26:12Our government was supporting that because it was a big investment.
26:17And, in the end, the whole project stopped because people were against that.
26:22That building is still right there.
26:26The building of general staff is like ruined totally.
26:30Okay.
26:30If you go to Serbia nowadays, you can see the holes inside the building just bombed.
26:35And people just don't want that building to disappear.
26:39Because it's the memory of the NATO bombing, NATO aggression.
26:43Right.
26:43We call it the aggression.
26:45Yeah.
26:46And if you talk to Serbian people, I think around 75 to 80% are going to be against NATO.
26:54Hmm.
26:56But, unfortunately, NATO is one of the biggest military partners nowadays because they are
27:04de facto controlling the Serbian southern province called Kosovo and Metohia, or we can call it
27:10Kosovo.
27:10One of the biggest military bases, one of the biggest U.S. military bases in Europe are on
27:15our territory.
27:16In Kosovo?
27:17Yes.
27:18Oh, okay.
27:18This is why we have to cooperate with NATO.
27:21And every year we have kind of must-have military exercise with NATO because they're peacekeeping.
27:29Right.
27:30According to the Resolution 1244.
27:32Right.
27:32That's UN Security Council resolution.
27:35The province of Kosovo cannot have military.
27:40And NATO allowed them to have military.
27:43Now they have their own Kosovo military.
27:46Serbian forces can go back to Kosovo in a very limited format, on a very limited area.
27:56Right.
27:57I think when you talk to many liberal Americans and Western Europeans, and when they say they
28:05remember the Yugoslav civil wars as Serbanica, as ethnic cleansing, as all those atrocities,
28:12and that's all.
28:13That's all of it.
28:14People in Serbia, what do people feel on the ground?
28:17It's a very tricky situation.
28:21The Bosnian side was killing Serbs in the villages around Srebrenica.
28:25Right.
28:26Because Srebrenica was like one of the small centers of their military forces.
28:31And they were surrounded by Serbs.
28:34Right.
28:34So when we have our Christian festivals, for example, during Christmas, when all families
28:42sit together, then they decide, okay, we're going to kill those Serbian villages then because
28:47they're all together.
28:48And then from the perspective of revenge, when Muslims have their own festivals, then people
28:55from that Serbian villages go to the Muslim villages and kill them.
28:59Oh, my God.
28:59It was like, and what is the most heartbreaking situation in the whole Bosnian war?
29:09Many people were actually relatives.
29:11Right.
29:12Yeah.
29:12For example, there are like some families, there are so many mixed families.
29:16And I cannot even call that mixed families because they're only mixed in religious way.
29:26They're not mixed in ethnical way because like that's the same blood.
29:31So it was very confusing, totally unnecessary war.
29:35It was totally unnecessary war that had the opportunity to be ended in a peaceful way in
29:441992 already.
29:46From 1992, the peaceful negotiations already started to find a way to create the Bosnian
29:53state with Serbs, Muslims and Croats rights all protected.
30:01But if in 1992, three parties found a way to sit down and talk, NATO is not going to have
30:10the control in that region.
30:11And NATO wanted the war in that region.
30:13I want to talk about NATO here for a second because if you speak to a former policymaker
30:19in, broadly speaking, the Western Bloc and ask how they remember their involvement in
30:24Bosnia, in Kosovo, I bet you they would say something like,
30:28peacekeeping, helping, there was a humanitarian disaster, not just in 1999, but all the way
30:35back to 1994, 1995 in Bosnia.
30:37And they would say NATO bombings prevented further atrocities.
30:41But I get the sense that if you speak to a regular Serb, they remember NATO's involvement
30:46very differently.
30:47So how is that remembered today in Serbia?
30:51Same way.
30:52Same way.
30:52Same way.
30:54How would you describe it?
30:56What do Serbians now believe the real cause was for the war?
31:02Few of them.
31:02First of all, our geopolitical position in Balkans is way too important and way too tricky.
31:11On two sides of Serbia, there are mountains.
31:14The only and the easiest way of getting through Balkans goes through Serbia.
31:23And the Danube River also goes through Serbia.
31:25So Serbia is the geostrategic point for thousands and thousands of years from Roman times.
31:32Right, right, right.
31:32Like Romans were fighting for that region.
31:35Turks, Ottoman Empire was fighting for that region.
31:39Germans.
31:40So it's a section between Adriatic and the Black Sea.
31:43Black Sea, Adriatic Sea, and right in between of Eastern and Western Europe.
31:48So geopolitically it's too important.
31:50Okay.
31:51The second reason is the Serbian existence is the problem for the West.
31:55Because of NATO and of course the European Union, it has to be the whole piece.
32:04You cannot allow one small country saying no to this kind of so-called world order.
32:12What was Serbia saying no to?
32:18Hello, welcome to Tell us to the English.
32:19To what's happening nowadays in Iran, where the United States unilaterally attacked another sovereign nation.
32:26I bet his English is much better than mine.
32:29It was surprisingly good.
32:30I haven't spoken in English for the past eight years.
32:36I think your English is good enough.
32:37It's not, it's not.
32:38To be honest, it's not.
32:38A big pain in the future because of opening that Pandora's box.
32:42Do you think that relates to Iran today?
32:44Even with Iran?
32:45Yeah.
32:45Yes.
32:46It's related to everything that was happening after that.
32:48And you know, all these politicians were saying the first attack in Europe, the first violation of territorial integrity happened
32:56in Ukraine.
32:57No, it's not true.
32:58It happened here.
32:59It happened here.
33:00You were guaranteeing, Alistair, you were guaranteeing us territorial integrity of Serbia if we accept territorial integrity and independence of
33:09Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Moscow.
33:13Then they got into debate over the historical details.
33:15Let's stop here.
33:18And I want to get your reaction.
33:19I saw you laughing.
33:21Yeah.
33:21Why was that?
33:22Do you know why?
33:23There was one, there was one very interesting event, I think three years ago or two years ago when Schultz
33:30was chancellor of German, Germany.
33:33Before he went to China, he said, no country can be the backyard of one big power.
33:42Ukraine is not the backyard of Russia and no country is the backyard of any other country.
33:48And then he came to Serbia and he said, you should recognize independence of Kosovo.
33:53Ah, okay.
33:56That, the biggest, the biggest problem in the West is double standard.
34:01The biggest problem in the West is double standard.
34:04Right.
34:05I think when Schultz, I'm not defending Schultz, but I think from his perspective, I don't think he thinks he's
34:11a hypocrite.
34:12He thinks he's speaking truth to power.
34:15He thinks he's standing up for the people in Kosovo against someone who thinks Kosovo is their backyard.
34:22Similarly, he's standing up to the Russians on behalf of the Ukrainians.
34:26So, like, when you have that kind of cognitive dissonance with people you're talking about, how do you bridge that?
34:34The international law.
34:36Simple as that.
34:37If you look at the Serbian position on war in Ukraine, we simply respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of
34:46Ukraine.
34:47Just as we respect our own territorial integrity, just as we respect any other country's territorial integrity.
34:53Because there are the rules.
34:55We sometimes support the Russian attack.
35:02Because we sometimes see that as the attack on NATO.
35:07But if you ask any Serbian, if you ask any normal person in Serbia, do they feel the emotions that
35:17Ukrainians can feel on the front line?
35:20Of course, they will say yes.
35:21And of course, they will say that's a tragedy.
35:23Of course, they will say that's the war between brothers.
35:28But we are also seeing how the whole European Union is fighting for the justice of Ukraine.
35:33And it's violating our interests and our territorial integrity and our sovereignty.
35:37This is why when we have to talk to those people, we usually talk about international law.
35:42We know that international law in the real politics don't exist.
35:45But we still want to talk about it.
35:47Because we have to repeat and repeat and repeat that the international law exists.
35:51Because one day it will.
35:53And also, there is another problem.
35:55We have to get into the historical details.
35:58When you get into debate, for example, debate in the comments or debate with the real person that doesn't even
36:06speak English.
36:06Sometimes when you have to debate with Germans or with French, their English is as terrible as ours.
36:12So what the hell are we going to debate about?
36:14Nothing.
36:15It's such an emotionally charged topic.
36:17Yes.
36:18People would read, ideally, they would read the findings of the International Tribunal, Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia.
36:25But even if they do read it, some of the evidence only came after or was not admitted as evidence
36:31during the evidentiary trials.
36:33Nobody denied there's war crimes being committed in Serbenica, right?
36:37Do you know what's the problem with Serbenica?
36:38The problem with Serbenica is the Serbenica was defined as genocide.
36:43And it was defined in genocide as the way that the whole Serbian nation has to be responsible for that
36:52so-called genocide.
36:53And Milosevic was finding the way not to be involved in Bosnia.
36:59Because he was moving backwards and backwards and backwards and backwards and backwards, that kind of Sui Jing zheng zheng
37:09zheng.
37:09Hmm, like appeasement.
37:12I think the Chinese for Sui Jing is different to the English connotation for appeasement.
37:16But he was fighting against the kind of nationalist tide of sending the...
37:22In the West, Milosevic is described as nationalist.
37:27Right, yeah.
37:27But actually, he was fighting for the peace.
37:29And because in some moments he was too weak, the direct result was our territory and interest lost in Croatia.
37:40He just decided he didn't want to defend the people right there anymore.
37:45Because we didn't have the capacity anymore.
37:48Okay, so the controversy for Milosevic largely in the West is that he's too nationalistic.
37:52Actually, he's not that nationalist.
37:54He's not that nationalist.
37:56In Serbia, the people that are leading the country, their kind of nationalism is more calculated.
38:06Milosevic, he was a socialist.
38:09In 1986, he had the mission to go to Kosovo to give the speech.
38:14And the speech was about talking to Serbs to be patient, to ignore all the bad things happening to Serbs.
38:27Because, you know, from 1960s, Croatians already wanted their independence.
38:32From 1980s, the violence against Serbs in Kosovo already started.
38:37But because Belgrade had to make a balance between Serbs and minorities, they just simply decided not to see those
38:47crimes.
38:47They just simply decided they want to act like nothing happened.
38:52And there were more and more Serbs being killed.
38:54Then you got mothers driving their cars all the way from Kosovo to Belgrade directly to the parliament to talk
39:02about how their kids were killed.
39:04And government says, you know what, we just didn't see that happen.
39:08And they didn't allow newspapers all around Yugoslavia to talk about that.
39:12And the less the central government does, the more resentment the local communities feel towards the...
39:19Because they were trying to find the balance between Serbs and minorities that already wanted their separation.
39:29So during the 1980s, Serbs said that Yugoslavia was harmful for Serbs.
39:36Minorities said that Yugoslavia was harmful for minorities.
39:40The whole balance was totally destroyed after Tito's death.
39:44It was dysfunctional.
39:44And because of that kind of pressure, because Serbs on Kosovo were really in a very bad position during that
39:54time, that triggered the nationalism in the Serbian population.
40:00But not in the elite.
40:02But not in the elite.
40:03And in 1986, Milosevic, he had to give that speech to say, you know what, Serbs, you should be patient.
40:11And then he got the support from the nationalists, even though he himself was not a nationalist.
40:18And then after that, if you go back to his speech in 1989, which was like one of the biggest
40:24speeches in Serbian history.
40:27If you keep attention to his every word, and if you try to analyze whole speech, not only parts of
40:37the speech when he says the Serbian nation is the great nation.
40:41When he says all nations should live equally in Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia is our homeland, blah, blah, blah.
40:50You can see like silence in the crowd.
40:53He was balancing in the speech because at the same time, he had to keep Serbia united.
41:00When you were talking about Milosevic's position leading up to 1989, or even like at the speech at 1989, which
41:07I did not know before this, it reminded me of what I felt the tension around Taiwan is in China.
41:13Because a lot of people, like I think if you're in the West and you're watching the situation in the
41:17mainland, and you would think that the kind of very aggressive attitudes that the Chinese Communist Party have against the
41:25government in Taiwan is manufactured by the government.
41:28But I often tell whatever people like who's saying that, it's very much the opposite.
41:34If you talk to most Chinese who is even like remotely considered patriotic or nationalist in China, they would have
41:42a much more aggressive, much more quote unquote right wing attitude towards what the mainland militarily should do to the
41:49island.
41:50And it's very much the central government's keeping that nationalist attitude in check by like kind of pouring cold water
41:56down on this attitude.
41:57So like when you're saying Milosevic is kind of doing the same thing with regarding to Serbian nationalists, that reminded
42:03me a lot of what's happening here in China.
42:06I think for a lot of Chinese audiences, when they're watching your video on Bilibili, it's reacting a very sensitive
42:15part of their brain.
42:16Because even though, like you said, Serbia is a relatively small country compared to China, but I think it looms
42:21very large in Chinese, not just regular citizens, but the specific segment of the citizens who are very online, the
42:31people are paying attention to international news.
42:33It's reacting a part of their brain that goes all the way back to 1999.
42:38I think there's an emotional connection there because of the Belgrade embassy bombing.
42:43And for those who don't know, in 1999, during the NATO bombing of Serbia, during the bombing of Belgrade, the
42:50U.S. dropped a precision guided bomb on the Belgrade Chinese embassy.
42:55Five bombs, injured dozens, killed three Chinese journalists who were resting in the basement.
43:03And there was an official explanation of what happened.
43:06They used the wrong map.
43:08It was an old map that says there was a weapon storage at the location where the embassy was.
43:13But there are debates, and I know you've covered this on your Bilibili channel, there are debates on whether that's
43:19legitimate or not.
43:20It was widely believed that for one reason or another, and people disagree over this, it was an intentional bombing
43:26of the Chinese embassy.
43:28And I think that emotional core tied many Chinese people to the sufferings and the kind of things that are
43:35going through with regarding to the Serbian society.
43:38And when people hear Serbia, they have this kind of very emotional connection.
43:42I want to ask you, do you think that's projection from the Chinese side when they think Serbians also have
43:50a similar attitude towards China?
43:52Or do you think there's a genuine emotional bond nowadays between the Serbs and the Chinese?
43:57It depends on who you are talking to.
44:01Okay.
44:02In Serbia, the situation is pretty divided, but people are mostly for China.
44:11If you're talking to those that have too many bonds with the Western countries, they're not going to like China
44:19that much.
44:19But most people, they treat China as a friend.
44:26Sometimes I really do find that the emotional level on two sides is different.
44:31I can feel that Chinese people love Serbia more than Serbian people love China, if you are talking broadly.
44:41But in Serbia, the majority still really likes China, and you can find many people that love China and want
44:47to live in China.
44:48And the turning point for many Serbian people is when they come to China, because now we have direct flight,
44:56now we have a visa-free regime.
44:59So when a Serbian person comes to China, and when he sees, when he or she sees that unique emotion,
45:12then he really starts to love China.
45:14I saw many of these kind of turning points.
45:17Like, when you ask one normal Serbian person what he thinks about China, he says, you know, that's a big
45:23country.
45:23That's a great friend of Serbia.
45:25They have big investments in Serbia.
45:28They helped us a lot.
45:29They helped us when we needed.
45:31They were here when we were bombed.
45:33We were bombed together.
45:34You can feel, like, some sense of the emotion there, but not that kind of high emotion that you can
45:42feel in China.
45:43But when that same person comes to China, and when he realizes that every single Chinese person knows Tito, knows
45:54Milosevic, knows Vucic, knows our history, knows all the details.
45:59And when he feels that the Chinese, like, ordinary taxi driver respects you, then he starts to love China.
46:06That's interesting.
46:07Because, like, I think when we speak to a lot of Chinese people, and when they mention Serbia, all they
46:11mention the 1999 bomber bombing.
46:14And I think part of the reason why the bombing resonated so much is not just that three Chinese people
46:19were killed, but it was also, like, two things, right?
46:22On one hand, Yugoslavia used to be one of the socialist countries that China was relatively close with, and people
46:28forget that Sino-Soviet split was real.
46:31It was people, it loomed large in people's psychology, having a nuclear power that militarily powerful sitting just across your
46:40northern border for so long.
46:42And Yugoslavia, people watched their movies.
46:45They saw delegations from Yugoslavia coming visit China.
46:48And also, I think it's the sense of besiegement, the sense that China felt it was besieged by the West
46:55in the 2000s, in the 2010s.
46:58And in 1999, they felt that the Serbian people felt similarly and more directly, more brutally against NATO when the
47:06country was bombed.
47:08You know, about this part, do you know when Serbs really start to feel the Chinese emotions?
47:15When?
47:16I had this situation way too many times.
47:20Let me give you one specific example.
47:22A few months ago, there was a business delegation coming to Shanghai.
47:26And then I decided to take that business delegation to the memorial of the first CBC Congress.
47:35That's right here in Shanghai?
47:36Right here in Shanghai.
47:37It's not far from here.
47:39I just told them, if you want to understand China, you should understand the Chinese Communist Party.
47:45It's not far from here.
47:47It's a very beautiful area.
47:49It's also one of the business centers in Shanghai nowadays.
47:52So why not go and see it?
47:55They said, okay, fine.
47:56Let's go.
47:56Because they also had communists in their families.
48:00They also had the World War II veterans.
48:04And when they got into the memorial, that center, they were fully shocked.
48:10When they saw the history from the 1840s, when they saw the history from the early 1900s, when they saw
48:20the history from World War II,
48:22when they realized that actually for China, the World War II started in 1931, 1933.
48:27When they saw what actually the Japanese did to China.
48:31And when that brings those memories, what the Germans did to us, what we suffered during Ottoman times, what we
48:38suffered during the 1990s, that emotion kicks in.
48:42And then they start to realize why Serbia and China are bound together.
48:48The real problem in Serbia is the media.
48:51We have the Western narrative in our media.
48:56The media is too fragmented.
48:59People just simply live on mobile phones every day.
49:02They cannot sit down and really focus.
49:04TikTok is everywhere.
49:06Instagram is everywhere.
49:08And we don't have that many serious TV shows and YouTube channels that talk about these things.
49:16But when you bring these things to the people, then people start to realize, give me a second.
49:22And although we are a small country and China is a big country, we really do have many similarities.
49:29Because people in Serbia mostly see Chinese investments and see the Chinese superpower on media.
49:37They don't see this kind of emotional stuff.
49:39And when people ask me, how do you feel as a Serb in China?
49:44I said to them, you know what?
49:46No American or no French is going to feel how I feel as a Serb.
49:50I mean, you can feel that they respect you.
49:55And I usually tell my Serbian people, you should respect that respect.
50:01You should give back the same respect.
50:03And of course, you should know more about the history.
50:07Because when you dig deep into the history, the Chinese history, you'll find those similarities and find a reason why
50:14they respect us and why we should respect them.
50:16Because that's the fact what you said.
50:19I don't feel the same emotional level on the average perspective.
50:26When I talk to the older generations, for example, I saw there was one taxi driver.
50:32He even has the photo of President Xi in his face.
50:38You have these kind of people that really love China.
50:40Wait, the taxi driver in Serbia?
50:42In Serbia.
50:43Oh, wow.
50:43In Serbia, yeah.
50:44That's crazy.
50:44The older generation has that emotional level towards China.
50:49People that are older than 55 years old.
50:53More than 55 years old.
50:54These people, they have because they went through the hardest times in Yugoslavia.
51:00They're educated.
51:02They love to read.
51:03They know a lot about China.
51:08But younger generation, my generation, for example, when I talk to a young man or young lady in China that
51:18is 30 years old,
51:20she or he feels the emotions towards Serbia.
51:24Because those memories and those stories about the NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy, they appear every year.
51:32Right.
51:32It's kept in both the popular culture and also the pandemic.
51:35But when I talk to some Serbian young kids, 18, 19 years old, and some people are even like living
51:45in that area of Belgrade.
51:47Right.
51:47And when I asked them, you know, this is a Chinese cultural center, I said, yeah, yeah, this is a
51:51nice building.
51:51I love it.
51:52I've been inside.
51:53And when I asked, you know, that this was actually the place where the Chinese embassy was bombed, they said
52:00no.
52:00Oh, wow.
52:00Like this is how shallow the history of education is nowadays in this age.
52:12This is what I think really has to be done more properly with the younger generation.
52:18Because people-to-people exchange is not only about the language, it's not only about the investment, it's about the
52:23mutual respect and mutual understanding.
52:25And the mutual understanding comes from appreciation of history.
52:30Appreciation of history.
52:30And I think it's such a missed opportunity, not just in Serbia, but also in many, many other countries in
52:35those global styles.
52:37We are the country that started the non-alliance movement.
52:41One of those three countries.
52:43We are a developing country.
52:45I don't think Serbia should even be the EU country.
52:49We are not a part of the EU family.
52:52We are part of Europe, but not part of EU.
52:57We are culturally Europeans, but we are spiritually fighting against hegemony.
53:03And the countries that are fighting against hegemony are the third world countries, are the countries of the non-aligned
53:09movement, are the developing countries.
53:11Our GDP per person is $13,000.
53:15Like, that's the typical developing country, which is maybe not that far from the bottom line of developed country, but
53:27still we have a long way to go.
53:28Yeah.
53:29Right.
53:30And the non-aligned movement, like...
53:33Oh, that was amazing.
53:34People think it's such a long time ago, but it's...
53:3850 years.
53:38Yeah, it's 50 years ago.
53:40And if you talk to, like, young people in, like, Indonesia, for example, the movement was totally crushed by the
53:48Suharto government.
53:49And even that was not taught in Indonesian history now.
53:55I did not know this until, like, we interviewed a person who grew up in, like, the public school system
53:59in Indonesia.
53:59She's ethnic Chinese, and her ancestors were in the circles that were targeted during the transition of the regimes.
54:09And everything happened related to that, which was well-documented by Vincent Bevins in a very fantastic book recently published
54:17called The Jakarta Method.
54:19It was just not known in Indonesia.
54:23And I think the stories you said about how a Serbian person walking across from the bombed embassy, not recognizing
54:32it, was, like, 25, 26 years ago.
54:35That's so...
54:37I don't want to use the word typical, but so representative.
54:40And you even had the memorial, like, stone talking about three journalists killed here.
54:47And they just don't pay attention on that.
54:50Right?
54:50The kind of, like, historical amnesia, I think, if we can correct that, it would be a huge service to
54:57not just the memories of the non-aligned movement,
55:02but also the future of how the world can look like after American hegemony has ended.
55:10And this was another episode of China Now, a show that opens a window to the present and future
55:16of the Asian giant.
55:18Hope you enjoy it.
55:19See you next time.
55:21See you next time.
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