阿根廷驻华大使：“这是对我们非常友好的帮助”

英文版：

On Jan.15, Argentina's National Statistical Office released a report, which showed that Argentina's accumulated inflation rate reached 47.6% in 2018, the highest since 1991. At the end of 2018, the government of Argentina announced its budget for the new year, which aimed to keep the inflation rate at around 23% in 2019.

Mr. Diego Ramiro Guelar, the Ambassador of Argentina to China, told the reporter, “To Argentina, 2019 will be a decisive year for national development, because we will hold a national presidential election in October. In 2018, we suffered a serious financial crisis, so in 2019, we must take every feasible measure to get Argentina out of the crisis as early as possible.”
When interviewed, Mr. Diego Ramiro Guelar answered all our questions, including in 2019, What are the challenges facing the world and Latin America? The development prospects of cooperation between the two countries.

China Investment: The year of 2018 is a year of uncertainty, lot of things has happened around the world. So what do you think of are some positive results of the development among the nation’s cooperation?

Diego Ramiro Guelar: I agree with you that the year 2018 was a very tense year with lots of uncertainties. Probably the best thing that happens was the G20 that it happened in Argentina, in Buenos Aires. Because finally, even though the expectation were the worst after the APEC meeting that was very negative, with no documents and no results, finally the G20 has had consensus document. And the second was the bilateral meeting in between President Trump and President Xi, also emphasize the first of December where it was at least, backed at truce. We don’t know really how these truces is going to work, but finally it’s the truce, that’s also very important signal towards the year 2019, that means the possibility to recover the spirit of cooperation that has revive during the last ten to fifteen years, and it has been so useful for all the world, including to have the change to work on the last crisis in 2008; and that crisis was overcome because of this cooperation spirit. That was the risky aspect of the year 2018 after ten years of the last crisis instead of seeing a consolidation of cooperation, it’s seen that was a major new crisis coming, and with great tension specially between the two great powers, the United States and China, on the contrary, that possibility of these truce, the beginning of the positive negotiation between the United States and China show us that probably we are seeing the appearing of the G2. We knew already the G7, the G8, and the G20. It seems that finally the G2 in between the United States and China its showing up, and that can be very positive achievement in terms of the peace atmosphere that we need all over the world.

China Investment: What opportunities do you think we should pay attention in 2019, and what are some main challenges?
Diego Ramiro Guelar:  I really think the most important challenge, is to develop this cooperation new atmosphere that we need. It appeared in danger during 2018. That means that the first challenge is to work towards worldwide cooperation that stressing of the WTO, world trade organization, that I think is the key issue regarding the 2018, if we can accomplish that, things are going to be in place. It’s not clear if it is going to happen, but I don’t have any doubt that the majority of the important countries plus emergent countries will committed to help to rebuild this atmosphere of cooperation. That I really think that is the major challenge to can continue the great agreements in the world agenda, which means to feed poverty, to take care of the environment, to fight against international terrorism, and narcotics trafficking. Those big issues, those four issues that are the major agreements are jeopardize if we can work in a cooperative way. That means if we can reconstruct this spirit of cooperation the last ten years, by sure we can think in terms of this major battle against these four enemies of humanity: poverty, the danger of damaging environment, narcotics trafficking, and terrorism. We don’t have any doubt that we are going to consolidate both the political and economic systems during 2019, at the same time, we face the great challenge to redefine our relations with Brazil, our historical relations of integration within South Africa. For us, Brazil is our most important partner in the region, without any doubt; and we think that we are going to revitalize the integration together with Brazil.

China Investment: In your observation, what is the economic situation in the past year in Latin America? What are some negative and positive factors in regarding to the development in Latin America?

Diego Ramiro Guelar: Basically we grew in Latin America during the 2018, we are facing great challenges in the region, and I would say we are facing different challenges in the three major countries Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. It’s not the same agenda in the three countries, but without any doubt, the 2019 is going to be a decisive year for the three of us. In the case of Mexico and Brazil, they have new administrations; there are a lot of question marks about what is going to happen with these administrations. Then this is a great challenge. In the case of Argentina, we have been facing during the last semester of 2018 in major financial crisis, we have a program assistance from the IMF, the program is $57 billion dollars of assistance, and probably it is the biggest in history; that means we have very quick response from the international community. This is one of the issues where United States and China went in agreement, both countries are very important members of IMF, they give us very strong support. And thanks to the support of the United States and China, we got that financial support in less than a month, and that has helped a lot to our financial crisis. Then we are very optimistic that we are going to return to grow in the year of 2019, the program has been successful. 2019 is also going to be a decisive year for Argentina because we have national presidential election in October. That means that many things are going to happen, a lot of questions are appearing related to the region. I’m extremely optimistic , we are going to grow decisively during 2019.

Our great challenge is always fighting against poverty, which is still our worst enemy in the region. The situation is ameliorating in general terms. But without any doubt, that’s always our first challenge, and it’s going to be our great challenge by sure for the next ten years. We have to accomplish a better economic for the majority of the population; we have still around 30% of our population in poverty through our entire continent, which means without any doubt, it is still a great challenge.

China Investment: Looking back to 2018, what are some of the fruitful cooperation between China and Argentina in your observation?

Diego Ramiro Guelar: It’s been extremely fruitful because China is our most important investor and banker, even though we had a lot of problems in the finance sector. It was very clear the cooperation attitude from the Chinese side. We see a great support in the Central Bank of China, we renew $10 billion dollars of swap credit, and the Central Bank of China added $8.5 billion dollars more, that means we have a swap association in between the two central banks of $18.5 billion dollars. That has been an extraordinary gesture and attitude; there was no other support as important as this for many central banks in the world. And at the same time, the support of China signs the international insurance agency of the Chinese government to the project of the Chinese companies to invest in Argentina; and that is unique in the world, because of our crisis, there was lot of countries mainly Europe and United States, show Argentina with mistrust, that was not what happened with China. We have major programs in transportation and energy, basically in those two sectors, Chinese companies are participating in, and Chinese banks are doing the financial investment.

China Investment: In which key areas can the two nations cooperate more in the future? What difficulties have the bilateral relations encounter, and how to solve those difficulties?

Diego Ramiro Guelar:  I think our cooperation is working extraordinary fine, and it proves that the association in between Chinese companies and Argentinian companies is working very well.

In education, agriculture, those are where the investment programs are concentrated in. We have very close culture relations and it’s increasing. It’s very important the cultural aspect of relation because that allow people to know each other, and that include things like football cooperation, that’s part of the culture of Argentina, and it’s an increasingly important part of Chinese culture towards the future. We have in all aspects cultural aspects we are strengthening our bilateral relations.

 That means we are not facing cultural problems in terms of where we are approach. Still there is the issue, in Argentina and in other western world, the lack of knowledge about China. China is learning about the western world far more than what western world is learning from China. That is something we have to work together a lot. Because the old images about China related to things that happened in the past, other one was never happened, because you know that prejudices is the worst approach you can have to one another when you look at another country through prejudices. And that is happening. It’s happening in Argentina, it’s happening in all of the western world. That’s changing, very quickly, but we have a lot to do together.

There are two major prejudices about China. The first one is that the products that made in China are cheap products. Products of low quality are based in slave labor. That sounds ridiculous for you, and that sounds ridiculous for me. Because we know that this is not true. But this is a very strong prejudice in the western world. The second one is the idea of what it means “the communist regime” in China and the danger of communist system trying to expand their system in the world. That is a very strong prejudice also. That’s ridiculous for you and that’s ridiculous for me, because we know that China understands that the political system in China is unique and it’s not related to other systems in the world, it’s not only the system related to the system of the communist party, because nowadays you have interpretation of your history that lasts for five thousand years, not for seventy or eighty years, that means that the Chinese characteristics is more important including that the communist system. But this is something that is changing in China. This is something the western world, including Argentina, it is hard for westers to understand what happened in China. That is probably the biggest challenge we Ambassadors in China have, because we have to explain these issues all the time. And we know it, myself, my colleagues, how strong these prejudices are. I always tell my good friends in the Chinese government that we have to work very close on that, because sometimes my feeling is that there is not enough explanation from China of what it means “the Chinese characteristics”. And that’s sometime is always mentioned, but in a few times it’s clearly explained. We have to improve more working together to be sure that the real China, this most extraordinary country in the world its achievements in the last forty years, there is no doubt, I’m a historian myself, you can find another country in the world that has achieved so many extraordinary things for the people in such a short period of time. That admiration exists also, that means you have a mixture of some negative prejudices and at the same time, this great admiration for the Chinese achievements. I’m sure that it may take the next decade to overcome these prejudices, but this is going to happen. I think that the greatest challenge for this century is to build a century of peace. In twenty century, we have world wars in the twenty centuries, and I hope we are not going to have any world war in the twenty-first century. And that is closely related to the appearance of China as a power. I know that Chinese government doesn’t like to be recognized as a superpower, but in the world that is really what the world thinks of China, and many of us, we think that is a very positive achievement. Because China is a civilization of peace, and has achieved all the China could have achieved in the last forty years without single bullets, there was no aggression to fight foreign countries. That is something very important, because the western civilization is a very aggressive civilization. That means China is bringing the value of peace to the world cooperation. That’s something sometime hard to understand.

We have to work together because I think that the great value China is bringing to the world is this possibility of development with peace.

I’m sure that as it is so positive the balance that we can make of this last ten years because our relations developed during the last fourteen to fifteen years, it has been extraordinary positive. For Argentina, we want to increase that cooperation; we have signed thirty-seven agreements in the bilateral relation during the state visit of President Xi. And we are really optimist that that is going to be the path we are going to continue.