Witnessing 'people-oriented' development firsthand

Australian politician Robert Barwick has been addressing misinformation and negative perceptions about China for years.

He knows that the world's second-largest economy has achieved impressive development, quite different from what many people hear or read about in the West.

So when Barwick recently visited China for the first time, he was glad the firsthand experience vindicated his efforts to get others to know the real picture.

"We got to see a very broad cross-section of the country … Wherever we went, the people were very friendly, very warm toward Australians," Barwick, who is national chairman of the Australian Citizens Party, told China Daily in an exclusive interview.

"We need to have more people-to-people exchanges so that Australians learn how friendly Chinese people are toward Australia," he said.

Barwick's trip was part of a 20-day tour, covering nine major cities and their surroundings. His group of 20 visitors was drawn from a broad spectrum of Australian society, including those involved in multicultural affairs, local government, and students.

Barwick said one of the highlights was being able to see the people-oriented development, illustrated by Chinese officials at every level.

"The officials I saw were those who were clearly preoccupied with the objective of improving the lives of the Chinese people, and I was very impressed with that," he said.

The priorities were clearly evident from the emphasis on high-quality, innovation and technology-driven growth, in line with China's recently released recommendations for formulating its 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) for its next stages of development, Barwick said.

"I was impressed with China's focus… the officials we met would emphasize that they wanted to learn from Australia. Now that was surprising to hear, because based on what we were seeing as Australians, everything in China looks very advanced," he said.

"In fact, China looks like it's leaving the world behind and so we would naturally say, 'What have you got to learn from us? You're already the world's leader,' and they would genuinely contradict us and say 'No, you're a developed country, we are a developing country right now.'"

"They're very conscious of that and it showed us that their focus is on improving the economic development of the country," Barwick said.

"That's such an important goal and I was very impressed with that. You see it in the country when you look around, you see it in the infrastructure, you see it in the industries, you see it in the progress of the lives of the people."

Barwick pointed to Shenzhen, a technology hub in South China's Guangdong province, as a model of the country's progress.

"It's clearly an impressive city …from being a fishing village to one of the megacities of China," and probably one of the most advanced cities in the world, he said, adding that learning about emerging industries such as electric vehicles and university research collaborations spanning the globe reflected the successful approach. "China's five-year plans, they are clearly successful," Barwick said.

Refining plans

"China is always refining these plans and it's always also taking stock of what the previous five years have done, so these are not plans without accountability," he said.

Barwick noted that the "accountability (in China) is down to the local level … there are people in the West who will tell you that that's what's missing in our kind of politics."

"There's very little accountability (in the West), a lot of promises get made at elections for instance; we will do this, we will do that and then the promises get broken."

China, on the other hand, is not "announcing these plans to look good, it's announcing them because this is its clear intention", he said.

"Even if you just take AI, what Chinese AI developers did earlier this year when they released Deep-Seek, shocked the world, showing that it could be done so efficiently," he said, referring to the Chinese artificial intelligence application.

"China has already been on the cutting edge but this is about applying that across the whole economy."

Australia should therefore tap opportunities to work with China and learn from its achievements, including those pertaining to clean energy and other emerging sectors, he said.

"How China handles its energy infrastructure … I'm sure it's something Australia could learn from as well," Barwick said.

China's approach to clean energy infrastructure is "amazing, the level of innovation is stunning, it's really high-quality", said Barwick, adding that he hopes to focus on these areas of growth and collaboration in future tours.

"In principle, right now we would like this to be a regular thing, maybe even as often as twice a year where we would promote these kinds of study and goodwill tours as a way for people to see a side of China," he said.

Barwick said he is now personally encouraging people to visit China, with the increasing ease of travel.

"It's a very safe place to travel; 'go and see it for yourself', that's my message," he said.

"You can see the Chinese system… it gives you a really good appreciation of how it works," Barwick said.

Enhanced exchanges will significantly boost Australia-China ties toward shared development, he said.

"We need to preserve this relationship, we already have one of the most beneficial relationships with China of any country in the world," Barwick said.

"China is only going to get stronger and stronger … we should be valuing our relationship, deepening our relationship, looking for ways to share in that progress," he said.

Contact the writers at xinxin@chinadaily.com.cn.