My Academic Story with China | Axel Goethals: We should respect everything China has achieved in a short time

BEIJING, May 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report from Global Times:

【Axel Goethals, CEO of the European Institute for Asian Studies (EIAS)】

In fact what we also observe a lot is that in China people really like to learn.And it's not only learning for learning, but it's learning for also implement what you learn. That's I think is, it explains also this fast development of China.

I've seen China since 1978, China at that time was a different China. When you look at what has been achieved in such a short time, in fact, you know, your economic development uplifting the economic and social level of your population on so short time. It's a big success.

Of course nothing is perfect, and still things which can be and have to be improved. But when you see where you come from, and on such short time where you went to and you developed to, I think it's a big achievement. And we really should have a lot of respect also for that, for what you realized in such a short time.

What you see is that people still think in stereotypes from 10 or 20 years ago, but China today already is different from six months ago. Things move very fast in China and people don't realize that.