英文原文（部分）：

Guancha: Professor Kołodko, thanks for this exclusive interview. The very first question is, as the BRI approaches its 10th anniversary, how would you rate its success?

Kołodko: I think that it has contributed significantly over the last 10 years to acceleration of economic growth in developing countries, especially some countries in Africa, South Asia and Middle East, to a lesser degree in my part of the world.  

There were some problems in the meantime. We did have Covid, which made the cooperation much more difficult, starting from travel. Now we have almost a year and a half this unfortunate conflict in Ukraine.

But there was also a little bit but not enough coordination between European Commission and the Chinese governments.

I've been saying for several years that we have to give more attention to cooperation between infrastructure projects co-financed by the European Union and Belt and Road investment co-financed by lending from China.

But having said so, in general, the evaluation is positive. We have a little bit better points of infrastructure, a bridge here, harbor over there, road or piece of railroad in another country. And I'm an economist, of course, it has created job opportunities.

But going back to the global evaluation, it is positive, I see it as an instrument of getting more robust economic growth in catching up countries, poorer countries.

Guancha: About two weeks ago in Warsaw, while attending the seminar between the Chinese and Polish intellectuals and media representatives, you mentioned your disappointment towards BRI’s progress in Poland in particular. And you said bluntly that it is mostly because of the Polish government or probably the European side. So what are these issues in particular in your opinion and how to tackle these issues or challenges, in your opinion?

Kołodko: Well, the Polish government is rather sympathetic towards expansion, continuation of the economic cooperation with China. Yet there are some problems.

One big problem is this conflict in Ukraine. If you are taking a look on the map, Russia and Ukraine is just between China and Poland. And that is causing some logistical problems with transport of goods from China to Poland and remaining part of the European Union, one must see Poland as the gates to European Union.

I think that also maybe some problems are indirect: we are talking economics, but there is also politics. And Poland is a very important member of NATO, which by all means is led by the United States with the very big strong and influential position of United Kingdom. And these two very important countries in the geopolitical game, US and UK, are somehow reluctant recently to widen and deepen economic cooperation with China.

You may see a lot of, I may say xenophobia, if not anti-China-ism, in the American and British approach, mostly I think for non-economic political reasons, but also for economic ones. These countries, which are very much advanced, they seem to be somehow afraid, scared of China's rise, especially in critical technologies.

There is the recently published report by Australian Strategic Policy Institute about 44 most important technologies in the contemporary world. And out of this 44, in as many as 37 cases, China is number one, US is number second or alternatively, only in seven cases, US is number one and China is number two.

So now we are somehow a minor player in this game.

I think that Poland, our government, but first of all our business and our people, we are very much in favor of deepening and extending our cooperation with China.

The question is, are we doing everything that is possible under the given circumstances? Because not everything depends on us, I mean as you in Beijing, in China, and us in Warsaw, in Poland, we are part of globalization.

But as I'm pointing in my papers and I pointing to this aspect also during my keynote speech at the conference hosted here in China recently by China Academy of Social Sciences, that globalization is an irreversible process.

I don't see any other country which has gained so much from globalization over the last generation as China. And I think that I can’t see any other country in East Central Europe, which gained from globalization as much as we have done in Poland.

So now the question is on the Chinese side, how to take advantage of ongoing globalization on behalf of China's people, China's economy. And our question is how to take advantage of irreversible globalization, of which an indispensable part is our relation with China on behalf of our national economy.

So I'm rather positive, but still I'm aware that much more would be accomplished if there will be less of sometimes emotionally driven politics and much more of rationality driven economic concern. I see a good future for these relations.

Guancha: Chinese President Xi Jinping actually resonated some of your observations by mentioning or proposing the economic globalization. Before our seminar in Warsaw two weeks ago, Chinese premier Li Qiang was actually visiting Germany. You observed in the seminar by mentioning that the number of Chinese companies in Poland is actually dwarfed by the number of Chinese companies in Germany, about 80+ companies versus more than 2000 companies. What specifically can Chinese and Polish business people do to make it a two-way street?

Kołodko: It's good that China's president is giving so much attention to irreversibility of globalization, presuming that it will be more inclusive. You call it in China, win-win globalization. Sometimes I'm joking that, let's have it win-win, not 2:0 for China. Definitely, for the time being, globalization has not been inclusive enough. There are some countries which are being left behind, which are being excluded, not included in the bold global process.

And now, when China's leader is coming with Global Development Initiative, Global Civilization Initiative as a certain follow up to global Belt and Road Initiative, good, let's try to go further towards this direction, because globalization, if it is not inclusive enough, can cause more problems than solve problems. Now, after the words, I'm looking for the deeds, how this win-win globalization will be managed and governed during the second decade of Belt and Road initiative.

Comparing Poland and Germany, why there is such an imbalance? This is the number of the companies, but there are some huge companies and there are some small companies.

Second point is, German economy is 4 times bigger than the Polish economy.

In certain technologies, German companies are more advanced. For that reason, they have easier access to Chinese market, because China is interested more in dealing with more technologically advanced companies.

So, it's natural that our engagement is relatively not as big as in the case of Germany. The question is, what is the dynamic? Exports to China is growing faster than average Polish exports overseas. Direct investment is still not as big as I hope they will be in the future, but they are growing above the average.

Recently, again, there was the turbulence because of Covid, but Covid is almost gone. So I think that the curve will look like this, and now it will look like that (first down then up). I’m taking a look for bilateral cooperation, international or global cooperation from the viewpoint of job creation.

Sometimes that is the question mark, because if China trade high tech technologies, artificial intelligence technology or digitalization, when it is brought to Poland or to other countries, this can push our competitiveness and our labor productivity, but is decreasing the jobs. But in the longer run, it works on behalf of sustaining economic growth.

Guancha:  The China Center for International Economic Exchange had pointed out that the failure of a few high profile projects, such as the A2 Highway in Poland. This kind of projects contributed to some negative perception of the BRI in Poland. What's your take on that? How can we better inform the public of the overall positive story of the BRI.

Kołodko: Nothing is perfect, failure from time to time happens. As the proverb goes, only the one who is doing nothing is not committing mistakes.

What we have to do is we have to draw the proper lessons from the true causes of this failure. We have to focus attention, as far as the public debate is concerned, on positive examples.

There is always the question. Why? Public attitude, public perception is very much the result of public media narrative, as the other saying goes. Good news is not the news. Only bad news is in news. And for that reason, that was the news because it was a failure.

So you may hear much more about this one example of failure within the Belt and Road Initiative project, but you cannot hear that much, for instance, that recently China has erased entirely extreme poverty, because this is the good news.

There is also certain disappointment and not without justification: much more was expected.

Sometimes, the problem is process of learning by doing. It is not that easy for us in East Europe to do business with China, as it is with the West, because of difference of the social systems.

For instance, at my Kozminski University, we teach a special course program “China's business”: how to make business with Chinese characteristics. It is not only the question of language, this is the problem of lack of compatibility of business language, or law language.

And that is not an excuse. That is an explanation why sometimes there is not a firework success as it was expected. Once more, the only one who is never failing is the one who is doing nothing.

Guancha: You had played a key role in Poland’s accession to OECD and the EU, actually having signed the convention joining OECD. What do you think of Poland’s relationship with the EU since then? Why has Poland not adopted the Euro as your currency yet?

Kołodko: Indeed. Under my stewardship, Poland joined OECD exactly 27 years ago, on 11th of July, 1996, with this hand, I signed the accession treaty in OECD headquarters in Paris.

And when I was for the fourth and last time the deputy prime minister and minister of finance of the Polish government, we brought Poland to the European Union. I would say it would not have happened around 20 years ago, if not for joining OECD in 1996.

But for several reasons, at the same time, we could not, and soon after we did not join Eurozone, because the government after I left was not able to make the Maastricht criteria of currency conversions. You cannot just sign, knock knock, I want to join you. You have to meet five criteria from Maastricht, which are very tough, vis-a-vis fiscal, monetary and law regulation.

And then the political pendulum has shifted from liberal government to right wing government, which we have had for 8 years. And this government is very much against joining Euro, because this government says that it will weaken Polish competitiveness, it will deprive us of a very important instrument, which is monetary policy.

That is true. If you have Euro, you don't have your own currency, so you cannot manipulate exchange rate or interest rate, it is decided by the Central European bank based in Frankfurt. But we'll get something in exchange of that. My position is still positive. I'm in favor of joining Euro.

But now, people in Poland are convinced that would be not good for economy, because they've been told for many years during this government by mainstream media that Euro is an instrument of German dominance of the European Union, which is a great exaggeration, that Euro will make our economy less flexible, and it will be more difficult to adjust in the case of crisis, and crisis happened from time to time, better keep national currency.

During the referendum 20 years ago about accession to the European Union, there was also the point: Are you in favor of joining the European Union on the terms in Athens treaty? I was in Athens when we signed the treaty saying that Poland has a right and obligation to join the Euro pending that we meet the criteria from Maastricht.

77% of people in the referendum voted in favor. So actually they said that we are in favor of Euro. But now 70% is against joining the Euro because of public discussion on how bad Euro would be for economy. I'm saying that when majority of the society is against that kind of reform, don't do it.

First, we have to convince the people it will be on their behalf in the long run. But to do so, you need not only arguments. You have to have the channel to deliver these arguments to the people, eyes, ears, and minds. And that is going through the media.

It will never happen if the government majority are against, and I think they are wrong, but they decide, not me.

I may attempt to make an influence impact on the public opinion. I'm arguing using economic logic, why it will be good under one condition: if we will convert currency at the proper exchange rate.

What is proper exchange rate? The one which will guarantee competitiveness of Poland’s economy. Because Poland’s economic future very much depends on export led growth, exports must be growing faster than overall output. We should join Euro, but not with too strong currency.

Because our currency is too strong at the moment, that was the mistake committed, for instance, by Slovakia and Lithuania, then it will erode competitiveness of our entrepreneurship. Our exports will cease to be profitable for Polish business and import will be very cheap. That is not going to work for the Polish economy.

If we would join with too weak currency, that would be good for our export oriented sector, but import would be relatively more expensive, and that would fuel inflation. A lack of competitiveness is bad, but a lot of inflation is also bad.

How to manage all this complexity, all these contradictions, all these feedbacks, you have to know a lot about how the economy works. You need also a lot of political power to enforce the economic logic on political logic. Economic logic is based on rationality. Political logic has different rationale, and most of the time is based on emotions. Now, emotions are against joining Euro. And let's wait for a time when again, the power of economic logic will be preferred.

Guancha: I think this is a very strong argument, not only from the political perspective, but from an economist’s perspective, as well as from the Sino-Polish trade perspective, which is very strong.

Kołodko: I'm a long time university professor, when I joined for the first time the Polish government 29 years ago, I thought that it is enough to be correct, it is enough to be right, it is enough to be knowledgeable. And then I understood pretty fast: in politics, in a democratic system, it's not enough, you need a majority.

Sometimes whatever I said, even if it was almost as simple that 2×2 makes four, somebody says no, three, not at all, five.

What you do is you keep trying, as long as you can, you have to convince the other policy makers, the other economists, and the others interests. Sometimes they know that it is good from national viewpoint, but not for my business, not for my region. Now the question is, what is coming first, what is coming second? How to coordinate regional needs and ambitions and obstacles with the national one?

And now, we are the member of the European Union. Good for us, but now we have to coordinate the policies of our country within the framework of the European Union. Not everything is up to us, and there are sometimes conflict of economic interest.

Whatever the economic and political system, can be as different as the Chinese system and our Polish system, there is compromise, you cannot enforce what you wish, even if you are right against everybody else, because everybody else has the right to not understand, to be afraid, to ask again for explanation.

Guancha: China's economic landscape to some extent has similar complexity, like you describing how to manage the local, the provincial level status versus the national level status and so on, so forth. So maybe there is this China model, China's path to modernization that can be shared worldwide.

Kołodko: Countries may learn from China’s experience. There is no doubt about that. There is incomparable success in china over the last 40 years. It's a civilization leap forward. The question is, what can other countries learn from this experience? We cannot learn a lot in Eastern Europe or in the European Union or in the United States.

But other developing countries can learn a lot, but it's a risky business, because China's success is caused by unique combination of two powers: the power of the invisible hand of market, and the power of the visible hand of government.

Somebody says we will do the same, we'll combine our power of the government's bureaucracy, party, leadership with power of market. This depends on the quality of implementation. You have very powerful government.

I wouldn't say that Saudi Arabia government is weaker than Chinese government. Maybe it's even more strong, and somehow they are not successful. Why? It's not only the question of power of market and power of government to be combined in the proper way. It is also that it must be accompanied by meritocracy, by technocracy, then it may work.

What is the remaining ingredient of this recipe? It's culture. I wouldn't say that Chinese people love to work harder than other nations.

In my part of the world, we hear often that Polish people are more entrepreneurial than the others. Maybe we are a little bit, but don't make it easier by that kind of explanation that. But there is business culture, which has an influence on the working of the whole system.

I'm referring to this Chinese system as Chinese-ism in English language to stress that it's something very unique, something very specified. If I hear in a small country that we will go the Chinese way, I say, try to get as much from Chinese model as is compatible with your local culture, but also put it in the context. The same question, you answer somehow differently in the Muslim country than you do in the Protestant country or Catholic country or a secular country.

You answer how to fight inflation differently in a country where it is basically imported inflation and when it is basically domestic cost inflation.

So my new pragmatism, you may call it in China “with Chinese characteristics”, is very much against this neoliberal approach of one size fits all. You have your size, and your costume must fit in your size, not the size of each and every other person, because they may have different size. Each size is beautiful, but there are different sizes. So this is much more complex as far as economics and politics are concerned.

Guancha: Madam Janet Yellen just wrapped up her visit to China this morning. How do you see China and America handle this economic cooperation, given the tensions of the two countries?

Kołodko: I think it was a very good development that Mrs. Yellen decided to come to China and she met Chinese economic political leaders. And I hope she discussed with them in a very pragmatic way, the problems of bilateral relations with global consequences. So much depends, also in my country, upon Sino American relations.

Secondly, I do appreciate her behavior. She said before her visit and it was not liked by everybody in Washington, in London, in Brussels, especially by the Hawks circle. She said, because she is an economist, reasonable, well educated, smart, that it's nonsense to always talk about decoupling with China.

The interdependence is too deep, too large, we cannot decouple, or we may but that would be suicide for our own economy, because there is too much interdependence as the result of ongoing globalization that we cannot withdraw from this process.

She says that there is no time for any decoupling, but there is a time to discuss several issues: intellectual property, trading of information, patent, protection of maybe some industries, deciding what is strategic and what is not strategic, getting rid of embargo, China has just declared that they will actually embargo export of Germanium and another rare earth metal which is critical for high tech technology, which is China's action reaction for American action, imposing trade tariffs, etc.

So it's important that she has come, that they discuss these issues. There is not enough progress which we may see from today's perspective, but definitely it is not a failure. And I think that Ms. Yellen’s visit to Beijing has been much more productive than Mr Blinken’s visit to Beijing, maybe because his way of thinking is strictly political. And she attempted to think as an economist.

Now the question is, back to Washington DC, what she will report at the meeting of the staff of the White House, when she will be briefing President Biden, when she will call Mr Powell, the chairman of American System of Federal Reserves, etc. So the question is, how influential is she as far as US-China economic and financial relations are concerned? I'm afraid that she may be not strong enough, that American Hawks who have poor understanding of economics, or if they have, they do not appreciate it as much as it's supposed to be, they are somehow prone to neglect the meaning of economy for the global situation. They pay too much attention to politics and not enough to economics that they are at the lead.

I'm always trying to find the feedback between economics and politics, between economic policy and non-economic policy. And now there is definitely not enough attention given to the economic aspect of our life, individually and globally.

And there is too much politics, wrong politics being engaged in all these disputes. It makes everything more interesting but still more challenging. But I'm an optimist because I do know that each and every one of the problems that we are talking about are solvable, but it does not imply that they are being solved, and it does not guarantee that they will be solved. We do know how to fight with warming of the climate, but we are not doing enough.

It's time for knowledge based, accountable in the long run politics. This is where my interest in political economy are coming from. And whenever I come into China or I can meet Chinese guest in Poland, I'm happy to discuss this issue, even when we disagree, because disagreement is, if you will, for refreshing the thought. So we have to think how to act and then it may be better, but not necessarily will. It depends on us.

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