Expert: Western welfare states couldn’t take care of 1.3 billion people

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Europe

‍By CGTN's Dialogue

“The body of human beings has entered the 21st century but the mind still remains in the 20th,” said Hua Liming, China’s ambassador to Iran, quoting President Xi Jinping.

Hua thinks that after the catastrophes of two world wars and the Cold War, people’s mentality needs to be refreshed.

“The Cold War mentality is still dominating many of the minds of the world. But after the 21st century, we entered a new era. We have to have a new thinking, to build a community with a shared future for humanity,” he said

Professor James Rae from California University, Sacramento elaborated on the understanding of China’s socialist system from a Western perspective.

“The European welfare states or the American very modest states could not take care of 1.3 billion people. So it’s an enormous task to expect. And China moved from a true communist system to that market economy and then tried to build socialism out of communism,” he said.

“Nationwide affordable healthcare, an education system which is quite extraordinary and building different institutions to lift the pension, I think all these things are moving forward. I am quite impressed about the ability to take care of this size of a country.”

Dialogue with Yang Rui is a 30-minute current affairs talk show on CGTN. It airs daily at 7:30 p.m. BJT (1130GMT), with rebroadcasts at 3:30 a.m. (1930GMT) and 11:30 a.m. (0330GMT).

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