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PRESIDENT VUCIĆ FROM BEIJING: The most important meeting with President Xi, friendly and cordial! You personally invited me and our delegation to an official state visit

Kurir

Serbia

Thursday, September 4


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-  The most important meeting with President Xi, friendly and cordial! President Xi invited me personally and our delegation to an official state visit in the next 6 months, said President Vučić live from Beijing, emphasizing that China is individually the largest investor in our country.

- You addressed us cordially, not in the usual bureaucratic way. He invited me as president and our delegation to pay a state visit to the People's Republic of China, so that in a short period of time, in the next six months, we will agree...

- I asked for additional investments, additional employment of our people, but President Xi informed me that their experts are already working on it, and we can expect help on the political level when it comes to Kosovo, said the president and explained:

- I begged for investments, but the president was so fair that he himself spoke about cooperation in the field of artificial intelligence, robotics and modern technologies. I also asked for the transfer of technologies for civil needs, but also for military needs, for different types of products, and I believe that we will have a huge progress in that matter...

They also discussed infrastructure projects, Expo, but also military-technical cooperation and geopolitics.

"They were happy that in 15 days we will be opening the Belgrade - Subotica railway"

- I'm happy when the conversation ends like that and those are the results that no one can take away from us, we also talked about artificial intelligence,  they already have lessons about it at school, then about technology, EXPO 2027...

- I am happy when the conversation ends like that, I know that we have done something good for our country, that we will have new factories, new roads. They were happy that in 15 days we would be opening the Belgrade - Subotica railway line, that we had finished our part...

When it comes to China's support and assistance, Vučić said:

- We can expect that on various political issues, such as Kosovo and Metohija, territorial integrity and sovereignty, just as we respect the principle of one China and we will not give up on that.

"President Xi most certainly and most certainly sees and perceives things in our country well and understands well the pressures we are facing"

- We also openly discussed the global initiative of President Xi on the international equality of states, non-interference in internal affairs, I thanked him for the support for Železara, the coronavirus, respirators, for the support when it comes to the resolution on Srebrenica...

- We also talked about color revolutions, and President Xi and their leadership clearly see the things that are happening, they see the difficulties and pressures on our country.

- The Chinese leadership and President Xi most definitely and most certainly see and perceive things in our country well and understand the pressures we are facing. And that was important to us...

When it comes to China itself, Vučić believes that China has shown with its economic strength, as well as political and military power, how things are changing in the world due to a different approach, that there will be big changes in the world already in 10 years...

- China is advancing at a tremendous speed. With its influence, China is taking more and more important spaces in world politics, especially in the global south, that is, in the African continent, the Asian continent, and the Latin American world. It is not easy for those who try to stop it, believes Vučić and says that China is successful because it has a different approach.

Vučić also emphasized the good meeting with the President of the All-People's Congress of China, Zhao Leji, who, as he said, is a serious and restrained man, but he did not hide his sincere and true friendship towards Serbia.

Vučić believes that Serbia has a sincere friend in China, as does China in Serbia.

- For me, this was an extraordinary honor and opportunity to meet President Xi again. In accordance with what he said, with more coordination and more frequent meetings, we have made it so that we not only meet once a year, but often twice a year, we talk on the phone several times a year, and this is a huge honor for the president of Serbia and for a small country. I am proud of Serbia, which I represented here, and it seems to me that we did it in a good and useful way for our citizens, Vučić is convinced.

About investments

- Chinese companies are interested in investing in our country, this morning I spoke with representatives of three Chinese companies and one more remains, and I was interested in how the export of our brandy and honey to China is going, it is going well, but it can be even better...

- Today Chinese companies employ 41,000 people in Serbia and when I became president it was 4,000-5,000... Today it is 10 times more, Vučić said, stressing that it was a great honor for him to be in Beijing and that everything he does is ultimately for our country and our people.

- China, I want to emphasize, is the largest investor in Serbia as an individual country, with 7.2 billion euros. We have a trade exchange of 8.5 billion euros, which is a significant growth, explains Vučić in numbers.

Pointing out the great interest of Chinese companies in investing in Serbia, the president also mentioned the interest of our people in China.

- 'And our people show the same. I made an effort to ask how the export of our brandy, honey, wine and such things is going. It's not going bad, I believe it can be better in the future with more of our efforts. We also need to work on attracting additional tourists from China to Serbia. If it weren't for this violence, blockades and everything they did in the previous nine months, I believe the numbers would have been much higher, Vučić believes.

"Well, to whom did Putin give such a high order, did he give it to Tadić, Đilas, the blockaders..."

When asked if some in Serbia qualify him as a second-rate partner of China, he says that these are people who hate their country.

- Don't forget that they say even Putin doesn't appreciate him, so who did Putin give such a high order, did he give it to Tadić, Đilas, the blockaders... after 105 years, the first since Nikola Pašić. That's how they know what Si thinks of me, and I had the honor of hosting him, little Serbia is the country in Europe that he visited most often

- Today's meeting was extended by 15 minutes and he came unprepared like a meeting with a friend... I even told him that I was trying to convince Vukan to learn Chinese...

Vučić said that he spent the whole night preparing for this morning's meeting, he even memorized some passages and forgot one in the opening speech with Si, so he remembered it a little later.

"The first word you hear in every place is wolves"

- The first word you hear in every place, on the street, is"wolf", the entire hotel staff wants to take a picture with us, CCTV will broadcast an interview  with me in English for half an hour, so if something like that isn't enough from our little country, I don't know what is...

When asked by a journalist that the former diplomat Duško Lopandić said that Vučić only deals with the so-called instagram policy and that all these meetings are only for taking pictures, the president said that"Vučić is to blame for being hidden because he did not work for the interests of Serbia but for other people's", and he also mentioned a line from the past that"Lopandić took a picture in a boss's suit without even removing the tag to show that he was bought by a boss".

- I am also to blame for Cece Bojković's husband that he was taken away, so I became a dictator, so bloody hands...

About the tragedy in Portugal

Vučić, answering the journalists' questions, referred to the tragedy in Lisbon, and expressed his condolences to the president and prime minister of Portugal, as well as to the families of the victims and wished recovery to the injured, adding that we sympathize in pain and sorrow.

Vučić also recalled the violence in Novi Sad that started on November 3 after the demolition of the canopy, and the burning of the City Hall, but also the tragedy in North Macedonia in which 62 young people died, so there was no violence in a country that is several times smaller than ours.

- It is one thing when someone organizes it from outside, and another when it is spontaneous, remember, there are no spontaneous revolutions, they are always organized by someone from outside, with a lot of money and foreign interests..., Vučić added and pointed to the hypocrisy of political opponents in Serbia.

"I learn a lot from Xi"

The President of Serbia pointed out that Xi Jinping visited Serbia the most times among European countries.

"I'm learning a lot from Xi. He extended the meeting by about 15 minutes today. And he spoke outside of the usual preparations, which is rare for a Chinese president. He does that when he's with friends and when he feels it's good. We also talked a little about history, about the past. I introduced him to the history of the Serbian people. He introduced me to what the Chinese went through," said Vučić.

He stated that Serbia received a lot of attention in China. "That speaks volumes about our foreign policy," Vučić emphasized.

On the behavior of Pristina: No one should hope that Serbia will recognize an independent Kosovo

When asked, Vučić also said that Pristina will not implement any agreement that was reached in the dialogue, as well as the Washington agreement, which was primarily about the economy, and pointed out that no one should hope that Serbia will recognize an independent Kosovo.

In Beijing, Vucic, answering the journalists' questions about whether an opportunity was missed and whether there is a possibility to renew the Washington Agreement with Donald Trump's return to power, said that the agreement was primarily about the economy.

- They also pushed a part of their political agenda that had nothing to do with whether we would recognize it or not, I refused it, it was primarily an economic agreement that they did not implement. They won't implement any agreement, but I don't have a problem with them," said Vučić.

He also reminded that Trump lost power then, and Joe Biden came.

- I guess he wanted to apply some other agreement, not the Brussels agreement. They will not be able to do so, the Brussels Agreement will have to be applied, the JSO will have to be applied, this is how they can carry out bare violence, bare force, according to the president who then mentioned it and the forspan who is currently playing it on CNN when Christiane Amanpour asked him what is needed for Serbia to recognize the independence of Kosovo.

- They didn't release my answer on CNN, but I'm still answering today - don't get your hopes up, that won't happen, said President Vučić.

About the Western Balkans and the new world order

Vučić, answering the journalists' questions, also referred to the Western Balkans.

When asked by journalists how the creation of a new world order will affect Serbia and whether within that new order there are solutions for the Balkans so that it will no longer be a powder keg, the president said that there is a long way to go, but that things will certainly change in the future.

- When will it be reflected in the Western Balkans and how will it be reflected? We are part of Europe and there are different forces in Europe, but things will certainly change in the future. Will I see it in this place, difficult, will I experience it, I hope, and is it certain, no, but there will certainly be changes in the world, in ten years we will not be able to remember and recognize what it was ten years before. And those changes are going incomparably faster now, Vučić concluded.

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