Chapter 7 5. Farewell, Yugoslavia

For China's rise to be smooth and exciting, it is necessary to learn from other people's strengths and learn from their lessons.As far as my own experience is concerned, the field observation of Yugoslavia before and after the disintegration is an unforgettable experience, which is worth sharing with readers. In July 1986, I accompanied the Prime Minister to Yugoslavia as an English interpreter.Our special plane took off from Bucharest, the capital of Romania, and arrived in the sky over Belgrade in less than an hour. Looking down from the plane, to be honest, we were surprised. Below you are the spacious highway and countless speeding cars. There are also small villas with orange-red roofs dotted in the green hills and green fields. The contrast from economically distressed Romania to prosperous and wealthy Yugoslavia is too great.

Xie Li, the Chinese ambassador to Yugoslavia at the time, was a senior diplomat. He gave us a very concise introduction to the situation in Yugoslavia. He said, "You can use one, two, three, four, five, six, seven to summarize Yugoslavia": One country, two languages ​​(Russian alphabet and Latin alphabet), three languages ​​(Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Slovenian), four religions (Orthodox, Catholic, Jesus, Islam), five nationalities ( Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Montenegro), six republics (Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia), seven neighboring countries (Albania, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Austria, Italy).

At that time, the per capita housing area in Yugoslavia had reached 18 square meters, and there was one car for every 8 people on average. The market seemed to be very prosperous.But behind the prosperity has been hidden crises, such as inflation, excessive decentralization of political power and so on.At that time, the central government of Yugoslavia had almost only foreign affairs and national defense.After Tito's death on May 4, 1980, the federal government of Yugoslavia implemented the practice of collective rotation of heads of state. As a result, a strong leadership core could not be formed, and the six republics operated independently.

Tito’s economic policies also made serious mistakes. He always wanted to treat all the republics equally, but did not act in accordance with economic laws and did not form a unified and efficient domestic market.A Serbian scholar later told me that Tito’s approach was that if Serbia wanted to build a steel plant, several other republics would also build one. As a result, a large number of “political factories” with low economic benefits were built in Yugoslavia. In retrospect, Deng Xiaoping repeatedly emphasized that China should carry out two openings, one internal opening and the other external opening, as well as two markets, one domestic market and the other international market. This was very far-sighted.The so-called opening to the outside world and the domestic market means building a huge, unified, and efficient domestic market. With this market as the backing to connect with the international market, China will have its own strength and capital, and a strong national unified economy. Basic and institutional framework.Although there are still varying degrees of local protectionism in China, through more than 30 years of reform and opening up, China is forming the world's largest unified market, which is of great significance to China's long-term stability and will eventually surpass the United States and become the world's largest economies will be decisive.

In retrospect, Yugoslavia in 1986 was already very open.The first-floor lobby of the Federation Building (hit by a NATO missile in 1999), where foreign leaders are held for talks, is set up like a modern art museum, displaying some large modernist paintings and abstract sculptures to good effect.The display of abstract artworks in a huge space gives people a visual shock of unconstrained style, but the whole atmosphere is still integrated and majestic.The welcome banquet held by Yugoslav Prime Minister Mikulic is usually not held in the State Guest House or five-star hotel, but in the bar street where local artists, poets and petty bourgeoisie like to meet, which is roughly equivalent to Xintiandi in Shanghai and Shichahai in Beijing. There is no such fashionable place in China.

The banquet to welcome us was held in a bar and restaurant named "Three Straw Hats". Neither party made a formal speech. Everyone gathered around several long wooden tables, drank grapes produced in Yugoslavia, and ate authentic Belgrade-style steak. , there is also a middle-aged singer with a mustache and his small three-person band, playing and singing for us.The singer sang many patriotic songs, one of which was called "Ode to Yugoslavia", and an official from the Yugoslav Ministry of Foreign Affairs who sat next to me told me that in the days after Tito's death in 1980, wherever you went, people sang This song, the radio station also kept playing this song, "We must be united, this is Tito's entrustment during his lifetime."

The mustache singer also played and sang a song he composed for us called "Welcome Visitors From Afar". In a turbulent world, people are divided into good people and bad people, but those who come here are all good people. Welcome, here are the best wishes of the people of Yugoslavia. Some poets have said that where friendship and love blossom, poverty and loneliness die place.” The Serbian translator is a young man who speaks Chinese very well. He translated the lyrics just right, like a beautiful prose, which pushed the atmosphere of our dinner party to a climax. .To be honest, our generation has some kind of Yugoslav plot. We have all seen "Walter Defends Sarajevo", we all know that the Yugoslav guerrillas fought bravely against the German invaders, and we all know that Chairman Mao Zedong said, "Tito is like an iron man." It’s as hard as it is.” Similarly, most Yugoslav people know about the Chinese Red Army’s Long March, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.

Later we set off to visit Slovenia, which is the richest province in Yugoslavia, next to Austria, where we stayed in the official residence where Tito lived.I asked the hotel receptionist, where are you from Yugoslavia, and she gave me a bright smile, "I am a Yugoslavian".I suddenly realized that this was the result of the Yugoslav Communist Party's long-term education. Everyone only said that they were Yugoslavs.It doesn't matter which republic they are from.This is different from China. In China, you can say that you are from Hunan or Jiangxi, because everyone is self-evident that they are all Chinese, but the concept of "Yugoslavs" needs to be cultivated.Later developments proved that the long-term political education of the Yugoslav Communist Party was no match for the nationalist sentiment instigated by populists.Serbia’s ambassador to the United Nations agency in Geneva, Vokevic, once said to me: “In retrospect, when Tito was alive, everyone’s identification with Yugoslavia was still very strong. If Tito can live a few more years, maybe we can complete the cooperation with the European Community. Negotiations made the entire Yugoslavia join the European Union as a whole, so that the subsequent disintegration and war of the country can probably be avoided. Of course, everything is irreversible now."

The disintegration of Yugoslavia was first triggered by the economic crisis. Inflation continued, reaching 2,400% at its peak. People's living standards dropped sharply, and various strikes continued. Beginning in 1988, the Mikulic government has been a bit precarious.Mikulic was replaced by Markovich, who had a good grasp of the Yugoslav issues. He once said that Yugoslavia made two mistakes in its past policies: one was to equate the market with capitalism, and not make further changes. Complete market reform.The second is that the entire Yugoslav economy has become a "contract" economy, not the kind of "contract" formed according to the laws of the market economy, but an "autonomous agreement" reached through administrative means based on some political principles.There are various agreements between workers and management, between republics, between central and local governments, and between enterprises.Once there is a problem in one link, it will affect a large area, and even affect the economic operation of the entire country.This connection is not organic or market, but man-made and administrative, and its centrifugal force is even greater than the centripetal force.

Under the impact of the wave of "democratization" promoted by the West, the entire intellectual circle of Yugoslavia has completely accepted the political discourse of the West, and the core of this discourse is a naive dream: as long as the Western political system is adopted, all the problems facing Yugoslavia will be solved. It will work out.A radical revolutionary atmosphere quickly formed, and the local party headquarters of the Yugoslav Communist Party also successively accepted Western political discourse, and successively launched a more radical political reform plan than the last.In March 1989, the Slovenian Communist Party first proposed "ending the one-party system and implementing a multi-party system". After that, the entire political situation became unstoppable, and the federal government and the central organization of the Yugoslav Communist Party were completely emptied.In fact, this is not a question of whether one-party system or multi-party system is better or worse, but that under the specific national conditions of Yugoslavia, promoting the political changes hoped by the West will definitely lead to the disintegration of the country and war, but the general public, even the majority of intellectuals Molecules, did not see this at the time.

In July 1990, the Yugoslavia passed the "Political Association Law" and officially implemented a multi-party system. In Yugoslavia, a country with a population only a little larger than Shanghai, more than 200 political parties appeared at once, and the ones that won the most votes were those who held the populist party. Political parties with the national flag, their slogans are "Slovenia for Slovenians", "Croatia for Croats", and "Kosovo for Kosovars". The more intense and extreme the slogans, the more votes they can win. In 1991, starting with Slovenia, one republic after another declared independence and seceded from the Federation, and the "civil war" in Yugoslavia broke out immediately. The first to recognize the independence of Slovenia and Croatia was Germany.Although most members of the European Community still have doubts, their doubts are not because they are in favor of maintaining the unity of Yugoslavia, but because they believe that from the perspective of relevant EU legal documents, Croatia, which has declared independence, has not yet been able to protect local minorities ( Serbs) rights, resulting in a refugee wave of more than 200,000 Serbs to Serbia.However, Germany lobbied the members of the European Community to recognize the independence of these two countries on the grounds that the EU should be unified externally.I later asked a senior Serbian diplomat how Germany was so keen to recognize the independence of Slovenia and Croatia.He believed that Germany, which had just achieved reunification, wanted to rebuild its sphere of influence, with Slovenia as its close neighbor and Croatia as a puppet state of Germany during World War II.Regardless of whether this view is tenable or not, there is no doubt that European powers can sacrifice principles and the interests of other countries for their own interests. I generally have a good opinion of Germany because Germany has seriously reflected on the Second World War, which is in stark contrast to Japan's attitude.But on the issue of the disintegration of Yugoslavia, I think Germany's behavior is extremely irresponsible.Even if the country of Yugoslavia should be disintegrated, it should not be disintegrated in this way of opening Pandora's box.But whether it is Germany or the West as a whole, they seldom take other people's interests into consideration.When Slovenia and Croatia gained independence with the support of Germany and the West, the wars in Yugoslavia were like dominoes, one after another, resulting in the death of more than 200,000 people, countless others were disabled, and millions were displaced. , creating the greatest human tragedy in Europe after World War II. When German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with the Dalai Lama in the Chancellery in 2007, and when the Western media frantically applauded Tibetan independence in 2008, my feeling was: if China foolishly copies the Western model one day, let If there is civil strife among themselves, which eventually leads to the proliferation of Taiwan independence, Tibet independence, and Xinjiang independence forces, the United States, Britain, Germany, France, and even the entire West will come out to admit that they must have various high-sounding reasons, such as human rights and the right of national self-determination.In fact, they all have a strong ideological complex deep in their hearts: for many of them, China today is an East Germany magnified dozens of times.They don't understand, nor are they willing to understand, how many turmoils the Chinese have experienced in their own history, and how many families were destroyed by each turmoil.They don't understand why the Chinese today cherish the stability and development of their own country so much, they are unwilling to believe that this is the best time for China since 1949, and they are even less willing to accept the Chinese people's firm will and determination to follow their own path.Of course, China is neither the Soviet Union nor Yugoslavia, and their wishes are doomed to fail. Deng Xiaoping said loudly as early as 1982: "Any foreign country should not expect China to be their vassal, and do not expect China to swallow and harm our country. The bitter fruit of profit." Twenty years later, I embarked on the journey of revisiting the old places.In July 2006, I took a long-distance bus from Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, to Belgrade, which once touched my heart.In the 20 years of China's rapid development, Serbia has experienced one disaster after another, especially the Kosovo crisis that attracted intensive bombing by NATO.The Belgrade long-distance bus station I arrived at seemed to be a county-level bus station in China 20 years ago. There was a lot of people and dust, and the place where the tickets were sold was crowded. Six or seven people came to take me in their taxis and asked to change. foreign currency.But out of the station, Belgrade still has the style of a metropolis, with wide streets, beautiful European-style buildings, cafes in every corner of the city, and well-dressed men and women, but the windows and furnishings of the shops give people the feeling that they have been greatly improved. It is outdated, and there are still ruins left by NATO bombing. I left my luggage at the hotel and took a taxi to the unforgettable "Three Straw Hats" bar and restaurant, as if that place also retained a part of my youth, even though it was just a unique dinner.I met the owner of the restaurant, and when he talked about what happened 20 years ago, he said: "I know, I know, it was my father's time." Three thick VIP signature books helped me find the signatures of US Presidents Bush Sr. and Tito.Pointing to Tito's handwriting, he sighed: "The old man has eaten here several times. He is the person we miss the most. After the old man died, our country went from bad to worse." He said: "From the 1970s to the 1980s, At the beginning, those were our best days.” He said with regret: “Tito is a politician. One person, one vote could not elect Tito, but elected Milosevic. In the end, the country collapsed in the hands of these politicians. It’s gone.” He also said indignantly, “Look, now Kosovo is going to be independent again.” I can understand his feelings, just think about the catastrophe that Serbs have experienced in the past 20 years.But he finally smiled and said to me: "People who have experienced wars like to say: 'No matter what, I am still alive.' You should feel happy when you are alive." He raised the cup in his hand and shared that with me. The bitter Serbian beer was dry. I met a Serbian electrical appliance businessman who had just returned from Shanghai in the hotel that day. He said: "Your Shanghai is changing with each passing day. A new map of Shanghai is published every six months. We here change our passports every six months, first the Yugoslav passport. Later, it was a passport of the Republic of Serbia and Montenegro, and now it will probably become a passport of the Republic of Serbia again, because the Republic of Montenegro also declared its independence a few days ago." His exclamation really expresses the past 20 years between China and Yugoslavia. Different destinies and vicissitudes of life. From Belgrade to the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina by car, the border inspection is very strict, the police in Bosnia and Herzegovina treat Serbs as thieves, there are 4 Serbs in our car, the police checked and checked their IDs, and then asked them to get out of the car and open the car Every piece of luggage.It took us 1 hour and 40 minutes, and the racial hatred obviously has not subsided.The flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina is hung on the border post, and the flag of the European Union is also hung, which shows the influence of the European Union. The euro is also used here.The car kept turning along the mountain road, and finally at dusk, I saw a large urban area under the mountain, with countless towers of mosques, and I knew that Sarajevo had arrived. I went to the old town of Sarajevo. The old town is quaint and the streets are bustling. People seem to have forgotten the shadow of war.In fact, the shadow of the war is still lingering. The Bosnian girl Nina, who was my tour guide, talked about the Bosnian war she experienced, her eyes turned red, and she pointed to the opposite hill, "The shells came from that place." When the call came, four members of my uncle's family were killed on the spot in the small town below."The ruins left by the war are still vivid.Many shops in the old city sell handicrafts made of shell casings and bullet casings. I bought three bullet casings with three different Islamic patterns engraved on them. I asked the shopkeeper what these patterns mean. He said: one is peace, One is happiness and the other is love.It suddenly occurred to me that the prayers of ordinary people in the world are not just these three wishes?But there are always people in the world who want to deprive the people of this desire under various pretexts, even by force.A scholar in Bosnia and Herzegovina said to me: "Don't believe that people are rational. We all got along very well during the Tito period, but later when politicians incited people's national and clan sentiments, people's emotions were mobilized. They became irrational animals and started killing each other. We were friends yesterday, but we are enemies today.” I walked into a painting shop in the old city, and a quarter of the portraits in it were Tito.I asked the shop owner—a wrinkled elder: "Do you still respect Tito?" He said: "Of course, a leader who really does things for the people will always be remembered by the people." The traces of the war can also be seen in Croatia.The war also left a large number of unexploded landmines on this land, which still threaten the lives of the people.Croatians hate Milosevic, "We have fought for 6 years, and the number of casualties has not yet been determined. Our living standards have not yet returned to the level of Yugoslavia." Croatian friend K Jun told me .The local newspaper said that 138 large graves had been found, all of Croats killed by Serbs in the war, but I could not verify.We passed the cathedral in Zagreb. There were countless prayers and the church was overcrowded. Mr. K said to me: "After the war, everyone has a shadow in their hearts, and many people are depressed. Everyone wants to find more happiness from religion. There is much consolation, but despite the growing number of religious believers, our country still leads the world in suicide rates." In the evening, I had dinner with Mr. K and his wife. They said that in all the republics of the former Yugoslavia, including the earliest independent Slovenia, the most prestigious politician is still Tito.I asked: "You miss Tito, what do you mainly miss about him?" Mr. K said: "I miss the peace and laziness at that time, I miss the free medical care, free education, and paid vacations at that time. At that time, Tito, apart from going to street parades If you are in trouble, you can do anything else.” His wife added: “There is also Tito’s charisma, which is unmatched among current leaders. He is a very self-respecting and individual Communist leader. He smokes cigars and lives in a villa. , with a famous Swiss watch.” Mr. K smiled slyly: “There are also stories about him and those beautiful actresses.” When we parted, Mr. K gave me his latest business card, and I noticed that the e-mail address on it was Yugoslavia domain name. In Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, I chatted with Jun A, the general manager of Kosovo TV. Losević engages in Greater Serbiaism. My wife and I are Albanians, so we lost our jobs. This persecution even involves children. Serb children and Albanian children fight every day, and finally have to separate and go to different schools. It’s apartheid.” He also told me that he and his wife once went to Macedonia on business, and when they returned to Kosovo, the Serb police guarding the border forbade them to enter, and they had to camp at the border, waiting for three days and three nights.Driving in Kosovo, you will see cemeteries from time to time, and there are graves everywhere on the hillside of Pristina. “Every family has lost loved ones in this war, so it is impossible to restore harmony between Serbs and Albanians,” he told me with a sigh. We walked to the city center together and saw Muslim mosques, Orthodox churches and Catholic churches. Mr. A said, you see, different religions can coexist peacefully.There is also a monument not far away, which consists of three tall pillars.He told me: "It was erected to commemorate Tito's last visit to Kosovo during his lifetime, and it symbolized the unity of Albanians, Serbs and other nationalities. At that time, Kosovo was a model province in Yugoslavia where different nationalities and religions lived in harmony." I know a lot of Serbs, and I also know a lot of Albanians. These two ethnic groups have a common feature, they are warm and friendly, and it is easy to make friends with them.If there is a good government that can uphold justice, the two ethnic groups can live in harmony. However, under the instigation of populist politicians, a model province of ethnic harmony has quickly become a place of ethnic hatred and fighting. Discuss this with the Serbs, and they all stress that the intervention of external powers caused the crisis.A Serbian scholar told me: "The so-called 'Liberation Army' in Kosovo at that time killed many Serbs. Before 1998, the United States itself listed this organization as a terrorist organization, but in order to dismember Yugoslavia, the United States changed its policy. , provide a lot of material support and personnel training to this organization. How much justice is there in international politics? Everything is naked interests.” When he said this, his tone was very affirmative.Now Kosovo has officially declared its independence with the support of some major Western countries, but Serbia, Russia and most countries in the world have not yet recognized it. This also means that the crisis caused by the division of Yugoslavia is far from over. In Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, I met a writer in his 60s. He said: “At that time, the whole Eastern Europe envied us Yugoslavia. business.” The writer also met Tito, “At that time Tito was nearly 80 years old, but his face was rosy and his body looked strong. He liked jazz and a rich life, but he also tried to make his people rich.” Our conversation turned to Macedonian politics.He said that Tito had political integrity, but what politicians lack most today is political integrity. "We like to make jokes about politicians here," he said. "Our latest joke is: Our Prime Minister went to Brussels and asked to join the EU. The EU said to him, you have to build a 100% democratic system. Our Prime Minister replied, it doesn't matter, We have established a democratic system of more than 110 percent.” He said that the biggest problem facing Macedonia today is the relationship between Macedonians and Albanians, and Albanians now account for one-third of the population. Kosovo is merged. In this case, our country will be disintegrated."The former Yugoslavia is a Pandora's box. Once opened, there will be endless problems.Kosovars worry about "Greater Serbia", Macedonians worry about "Greater Albania", and in Greece next door, people worry about "Greater Macedonia". This is the fate of a country, and the key steps cannot be missed.There are too many cases where one misstep leads to eternal hatred, and Yugoslavia is a typical example.Many people in the West hope that China will also undergo a disintegration similar to Yugoslavia.But their wish will not come true, because maintaining the unity of China is the firm will of the 1.3 billion Chinese people.However, in the process of China's rise, we still need to think deeply about the lessons learned from the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and draw useful lessons from them, so as to make our rise more smooth and exciting.