Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-03-Speech-3-129"
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"en.19991103.8.3-129"2
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"Mr President, the Group of the Party of European Socialists will also be voting for this report. We believe that international cooperation is bound to benefit from research, without denying that there are also certain risks. However, in the case of China, I would also like to point out that cooperation with this country in not a one-way process with Europeans bearing their fine gifts on a golden platter – we can also learn from the Chinese.
As we are going to discuss Argentina later on, I would like to remind you of something. The compass came to us from China via the Arabs, and if we had not been given the compass, we would probably not have discovered America either. We could then forget about the report on Argentina! So European culture has learnt something from China, and I hope that will continue to apply in future. Our problem with China – which has already quite rightly been pointed out and which is not limited to this one country – is human rights. With China there is also the issue of Tibet, their threatening behaviour towards Taiwan, and so on.
Nevertheless, I would like to warn again using research as a political weapon, as a means of putting pressure on a country over such issues. I do not believe that works. In any case, we end up punishing the wrong people since, in general, scientists are our allies, at least in spirit. The subjects listed here are quite reasonable – health, the environment, food and so forth. Let me remind you that we are not talking about nuclear cooperation. Nor are we planning joint development of arms, no, we are considering reasonable issues of benefit to people there and also, indirectly, to us in Europe.
To conclude, perhaps I could mention an idea of my own. I can well imagine that in view of China’s great importance it would make sense to have an EU-China research institute or a facility where Chinese and Europeans could work on one or more long-term projects. So Chinese and Europeans would work together on a single site, be it in China or in Europe. An experience of this kind, learning each other’s language and understanding each other’s culture, could be extraordinarily attractive and stimulating for both sides. There is no mention of this in the project, but I simply wanted to propose it here. Perhaps we could consider this when we sign our next agreement with China."@en1
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