After the president of China, Xi Jinping, congratulated Gustavo Petro on his election as president of Colombia through a letter, the experts begin to raise the issues that would be taken into account in a possible agenda for cooperation between the two countries.
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In fact, at the time, Xi Jinping wrote to Petro: “Relations between China and Colombia are at a new starting point (…) I am willing to work together with you to deepen political mutual trust, advance practical cooperation and promote further development of Sino-Colombian ties”.
In fact, for Guillermo Puyana Ramos, president of the Colombo China Association, among the aspects that link the Petro government with the Asian country, would be: multilateralism, regional cooperation, energy transition, the Bogotá metro, economic relations and education.
The political dialogue has been fruitful during eleven presidential terms of Colombia’s adherence to the principle of one China and the five principles of peaceful coexistence. Multilateralism is an alternative to unilateralism that threatens the peace and development of countries. Peace and development are the axes of Petro’s program and could be the common base of the Colombian-Chinese agenda.
According to Puyana, there are several “practical cooperation” instruments between regions and institutions of China and Colombia to promote national development from the territorial base, such as twinning, scientific agreements, productive projects for the export of value-added goods and infrastructure. .
energy transition
China’s focus on reducing absolute emissions, and its investment of 380 billion dollars in clean energy in 2021, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), reflect that it will be the only economy that can achieve the sustainable development goals in 2030 China has experience to share and investment resources to support a presidential agenda in this field.
Petro has said that he wants to talk about the Bogotá metro “with the highest Chinese authority.” It is a delicate point and not very detailed yet, says Puyana, but it would enter the bilateral agenda. There it will be necessary to consider the legal barriers for changes in a contract in execution; Any revision will require fine diplomacy, considering the long-term relationship with the world’s leading country in railway development, which Petro considers strategic.
98% of Colombian exports to China are extractive industries, nothing to do with the way we export to the world. For Puyana, this concentration in mining-energy exports reveals an inexplicable imbalance because China imports value-added agricultural products, while its exports of agricultural and agro-industrial products to Colombia is only 1%, that is, it is not competition but a complement. .
Therefore, “a solution could be the regional agricultural cooperation projects with value-added export purposes that China has in Latin America. Bringing Chinese technology and capital to export to China is undoubtedly effective,” says the expert.
The Colombian population of scholars in China is not large, although it should be. China has the largest population of foreign scholarship students in the world, close to 500,000, of which Colombia only has 100.
Therefore, “Colombia has a lot to do to promote bilingualism in Mandarin, so that we can compete for full scholarships in a country that is qualifying its educational system at such a speed that it is already a leader in Asia and a great competitor in the world. “, details the expert.
And he adds that special attention must be paid to Colombian scholarship holders. The pandemic left some issues that the Presidency must analyze with them and the Chinese authorities, to see if they can complete their educational program with direct experience in China. The correct solutions will come from the correct diplomatic direction.
BRIEFCASE
*With information from EL TIEMPO
