 Basically, when I began to write on the rise of China, I want to explain this fact. To actually to the Chinese within China, to the outside world. And it's important to see there is so much misunderstanding about China, about the rise of China. And even about basic facts, I said, let's do something to tell the truth. It's how most Chinese see China as it is. And the rise of China is very important. It's not just an ordinary country. I always say in China, the civilization of the state, which means the world's longest continuous civilization. Malachite, with a super-large multistate, you treat China as if it were made up of hundreds of states into one with long history. And the sheer size of it, the super-large population, if you calculate the population of China, it's 1.3 billion, close to 1.4 billion, which means almost... I checked, you know, in average, in average European state, it made up for 14 million. It's equivalent to a hundred European states, average size. It's a continent, super-large country, vast territory. And so that kind of rise inevitably affects all of the world, given the size of China. If you look at the GDP, it's calculated in purchasing power parity. It's already longer than the United States, three years ago. And if you continue with this GDP, China will be something like already four or five Japan's. Why are you choosing the power of the notion of liberal democracy? Basically, I think it's a product of European history and European civilization. In this sense, it's very regional. You want to make it universal. They have to understand other cultures, other civilizations. And the Chinese one is, in many ways, older and continuous. For instance, it's the one person remote, you never follow Chinese civilization. The Chinese civilization is always based on meritocracy. The Chinese invented the Koji system, which means they have to go through public exams, and only the best can be selected and work for the government. So even today, most Chinese believe this system, what we call the selection, is better than election. Actually, we try to combine both selection plus election. And this is the Chinese model, political model today. And furthermore, you remind me of this debate happened exactly six years ago. Six years ago. At that time, this Arab Spring would sweep North Africa, Middle East. And Fukui Yama said China would make an awesome experience. This Arab Spring. And I said, no chance. I said, I'm pretty good. I'm good. I said, Arab Spring will become Arab good time. Yeah. And with this forecast six years ago, I'm perhaps the first scholar in this prediction. But noticeably, I've been to this part of the world many times. I feel this idealized West democracy can take rules in that part of the world. Actually, it's very difficult. And the Chinese philosophy based on what we call the seeking truth from facts. We vote a few and we make the investigation. Because there was a really good person who voted. We have really let Islamic government for sure. I'm not saying it's good or bad. It's a big, important case. If you have this, feel this, feel the pulse of pain. That's the reality. And I also made another prediction in my debate with you. I said, the US political system, liberal democracy, American style, is actually what I call a product of pre-industrial age. It has to be updated. It goes through substantial reforms. The China system produces, I think, going through small, minor reforms all the time. And with this prediction, I said, my concern is your next presidents will be worse off than George W. Bush. Most Americans may agree with my view. This kind of European mentality or political cultural traditions, because of course I understand that. And sometimes you have this phrase called the state is a necessary evil. You have to do everything to change the state. Otherwise, you're doing a lot of bad things. China is different because of its own liberal cultural traditions. If I have to paraphrase, there will be something like this. The state is a necessary virtue. Ordinary China is inconceivable if the state disappears. Why? China, from early on, the state, the country was first unified into 1 BC, 2020 years ago. China since then, in most of the time, was a big power, a united country. And why this tradition of strong central government is prevalent in China is to do with this geography as well. Because in China's long history, major concern for most Chinese were the flooding of Yanzi River and Yellow River. In order to beat this flood, to help the victims, you know, to somehow make the two rivers work for the people right there, against people, you have to have the coordination for the central government. Not a single province or small state or city can do it. It must be the work of coordination. So that's why over some of the years, you've shaped this long tradition of respect for the central government. And even today, as I said, China's civilisation of the state is made up of hundreds of states into one with its strong history. Without strong central government, the country isn't the best. And then people suffer, because so many connections shape the long history, economic, political, social, cultural, probably disorganised, disconnected. There will be nightmare for most Chinese. So it's different in many ways to do with the size of the country. And with this political tradition, cultural tradition from respective cultures, China and Europe. If I may, many people in your country suffer also when Mao was presiding over this country. And one of, again, the European lessons with our own forms of totalitarian absolute power is you always have to have, you know, other Czechs and Belarusians to control power. So again, what you take on, how political power can be controlled? Actually, we have a lot of institutions, even in the past, and now as well. For instance, we have, like in the West, the permanent, maximum two-turns in the top figures, an age limit, which is something many Western capital don't have, but a collective leadership. The Party Central Committee at the level of political Europe is a collective leadership. And so you can't conceive, you know, say, a situation in which joined up with Bush for the large two wars, silly wars that were not happening in the Chinese political structure. And also over China's long past, we have developed this system, what we call the meritocracy. You know, we have to work through different stages of official, you know, from the country level, provincial level, essential level. And so the respect for the state power had to do with this respect for the level, whether it goes through any of our past performances by state leaders. And then today, as you may know, we are going through this anti-corruption campaign in a massive scale. And in China today, there is the one, the mobile phone is available with everyone's smartphones. With one button, you can report any event directly to the Central Discipline and Commission. It's called a one-button anti-corruption. You can do it right now if you see suddenly an official having a big banquet for his, you know, what kind of relatives, which is an against party who can report right away. So all kinds of these, if you just look at the websites in China to the Chinese web world, so many criticism of the Chinese people. It's the Chinese people who control now. A lot of, actually Chinese power, state power, today at least, is the, we're not very few in the world that use a lot of opinion service. China's largest opinion service organizations, institutions, they're largest clients, all Chinese companies at different levels. For each promotion of a local official, they were checked. So public opinion service, whether or not before you get promoted, what we call this, a consultative office.