The following is the speech by Jasminka Simić, PhD, given May 30 to the Schiller Institute Berlin conference, “The End of 500 Years of Colonialism: For a Dialogue of Civilizations—The Urgency of a New Global Security and Development Architecture.” She spoke on Panel Two, “Sovereignty and Consensus of the Governed.” This text is her full presentation as prepared, and edited by EIR, with subheadings. She gave a more abbreviated version on the panel.

Dr. Jasminka Simić is editor-journalist of Radio-Television of Serbia (RTS), covering international affairs. She launched the TV program, “The World in Motion,” broadcast weekly on RTS, and notably, prepared, with CGTN-TV, a special TV edition of the 10th anniversary of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. She participates frequently in international conferences, and is author of three books and some 50 articles, concerning her university specialty of Euro-Atlantic integration and contemporary China. The video of her conference speech is available here.

Good afternoon, distinguished Dr. Helga Zepp-LaRouche and dear colleagues, it is my great honor to participate in this relevant conference which is of great importance, and holds great responsibility at this moment of the turmoil in the world.

My presentation will tackle three main points: first, the position of Serbia in the current (geostrategic) situation concerning West and East; second, the cooperation between Serbia and China, and within South-South cooperation; third, the new quality of relations and cooperation in the digital era, and through the Fourth Revolution, with China as a global power.

Serbia’s Stance as a Nation

Serbia, as a successor state of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (former Yugoslavia) currently is a candidate country for the European Union, and full EU membership is the main proclaimed foreign policy priority, thereby accepting Western policy as embedded in the market economy and democratic values. As an EU candidate country, Serbia harmonizes its policies according to acquis communautaire. But on the level of foreign policy there is some gap, due to its refusal to impose sanctions against Russia, since 2014. Close ties with Russia and China are in the focus of European criticism toward Serbia. Also, Serbia proclaimed in 2007 a neutral military policy toward military alliances, including NATO.

The former Yugoslavia was a founding country of the Non-Aligned Movement. Now Serbia has the status of observer within this Movement, and still adheres to the principles of the Non-Aligned Movement.

In the Yugoslavia period, it represented independence in its conduct of politics based on the principles of active peaceful coexistence. Thus, it stood in contrast to the imperialist and hegemonic foreign policies of other nations and associations in international relations. At the same time, it stood for the aspiration for formal and actual democratization of international relations in all their forms and fields, primarily in the political and economic areas. Nowadays, it means building a multipolar world, and global order of equality which advocates China, and the group of countries within South-South cooperation.

Due to the Chinese policy of “1+16” (China and the Eastern European countries) launched in 2012, and especially the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), launched one year later, Serbia developed extraordinary cooperation with China in the areas of economy and infrastructure, including the great help provided by China during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, ended his state visit to China two days ago, by signing more than 30 agreements between two countries; and the new investments for Serbia amounted to 953 million euros. The main focus is on artificial intelligence [AI] and robotics.

Serbia-China Economic Cooperation

The total value of foreign trade exchange between Serbia and China in 2025 amounted to 8,294 million euros, and China ranks first among the nations from which Serbia imports. China held that position in 2022 and 2024. Of their trade, Serbian exports to China amounted to 1,867 million euros, while Chinese exports to Serbia amounted to 6,427 million euros. For example, 10 years ago in 2016, the total foreign trade exchange between Serbia and China amounted to 1,398 million euros. Of that, Serbian exports to China amounted to only 20 million euros, while Chinese exports to Serbia amounted to 1,376 million euros. Our trade volume has been growing each year, and in 2022 it made a huge leap, due to medical assistance in supplies from China during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to the positive actions of Chinese companies in Serbia building new infrastructure. In 2024, President Xi Jinping visited Serbia for the second time, giving momentum to our bilateral relations.

The main points of the relations between Serbia and China:

1. Mutual political confidence is deepening. There are 19 countries which support establishing an international mediation organization in order to keep international justice and global governance.

2. Pragmatic cooperation brings rich outcomes. There was the Free Trade Agreement in 2024. The three biggest exporters in Serbia are the companies Zijin Mining, Zijin Copper (in Bor), and HSBS (in Smederevo). There is the Belgrade-Budapest Railway.

3. Cultural and people-to-people cooperation are experiencing strong development. The two countries marked 70 years of diplomatic relations and friendship in 2025; In 2025, 184,000 Chinese tourists visited Serbia; 310 Serbian young people visited China in the international cultural camp, for short-term cultural exchange.

4. Serbia launched its national strategy “Serbia 2030” with new priorities, including new industries, such as AI and robotics, advanced infrastructure in the transport and energy areas, and upgrading the living standard.

5. China is ready to improve the connection of its 15th Five-Year Plan with the “Serbia 2030” plan, and use the benefits of the Free Trade Agreement to explore the potential of cooperation in scientific and technological innovation, green economy, biomedicine and artificial intelligence.

The New Time Requires New Customs: The AI World

To recall an old Latin proverb: “The new time requires new customs.” We are now approaching the new quality of relations.

The new quality of productive forces as President Xi Jinping announced two years ago (innovation, fostering emerging industries, adopting forward-thinking plans) and confirmed in the new five-year economic plan, may be seen as the new quality of future cooperation between China and the signatory countries of the Belt and Road Initiative, and within the South-South cooperation, and the BRICS. It will be a second stage of mutual capacity building on the principle of “win-win” cooperation, as the BRI and President Xi have promoted from the very beginning, or, equal gain for all.

Most of the countries in the framework of the BRI and the South-South cooperation ground are developing countries with a complicated modern history (wars, clashes, territorial and ethnic problems), and they are in a condition of shortages of advanced technology and modern economy, and sometimes, of ideas, for further stages of development.

As an attendee at a seminar in Beijing in 2024, dedicated to upgrading and developing knowledge among 25 colleagues from eight countries from Africa, Asia and Europe, I realized the importance of having the opportunity to engage with China in sharing the latest amazing developments through the sciences, i.e., win-win cooperation and win-win outcome.

Artificial intelligence has great potential for socio-economic transformation of the countries within the South-South, for cooperation and their cultural renaissance. Almost all these countries grouped in regional organizations adopted their own AI national strategies, in Latin America, Asia (ASEAN group), and the African Union (AU). The EU adopted its AI Act in 2024; Serbia has already issued two AI national strategies, for 2020-2025 and for 2025-2030. It will contribute to the attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030, and to specific programs like the African Union Agenda 2063.

Cooperation in high-level, developed technology is the best way to escape all types of neocolonialism in economy, society, and culture. In July 2024, the African Union Executive Council adopted the “Continental Artificial Intelligence Strategy: Harnessing AI for Africa’s Development and Prosperity.” AI presents huge opportunities for inclusive development: creating jobs, improving the delivery of public services, advancing agriculture, education and health, promoting access to information, and protecting the environment and natural resources, among others.

The aims of this AU Strategy are to address member states of the African Union (to develop national AI strategies and governance mechanisms that emphasize building necessary capabilities to address the risks of AI and maximize its benefits), to address the private sector (to work closely with innovators and invest in AI solutions to improve productivity and innovations), and to develop partners (to build their datasets, computational capabilities, skills and research and innovation capabilities that underpin AI development and adoption for sustainable development and reduction of its risks to society).

Among the main proposals in the AU Strategy is one for the establishment of an appropriate AI governance system, and regulations at the regional and national levels (respecting human rights and dignity, and African culture and values), to ensure the safety and security of AI systems across the continent.

Nigeria AI Case Study: Service-Wise GPT

The greatest success has been achieved by Nigeria. Considering that the global corporate investment in AI has increased significantly in the last five years, the Nigerian AI market is ready for substantial growth, with a projected $434.4 million by 2026.

The Nigerian National Artificial Intelligence Strategy adopted in 2024 outlines the roadmap for developing countries. It consists of four recommendations to hasten the positive impacts of AI: (1) revolutionize infrastructure with 100% adoption of cloud-first policies, (2) support people with national AI skill initiatives, (3) modernize national data systems, and (4) support AI-enabling regulation. (This is from the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2024, p.10). This Strategy, which aims at harnessing the transformative potential of AI to drive sustainable development, innovation, national productivity, and human well-being, will solidify Nigeria’s position as a champion in AI adoption on the African continent,

Nigeria has already made its own GPT Service (a chatbox, a virtual assistant that automatically answers citizens’ questions), used in the public service sector, and inspired by the Chinese DeepSeek chatbox released in January 2025, Service-Wise GPT (still in beta version). Nigeria plans to use Service-Wise GPT to automate routine administrative tasks, such as memo creation and policy analysis, and to provide real-time policy research assistance.

Chile’s chatbox: Chile announced in 2025 a major step forward, with its Latam GPT project. It is a public, open, and inclusive chatbox using a large language model (LLM), similar to ChatGPT or DeepSeek, dealing with the culture, language, and history of the region.

Challenges of AI cooperation: The key component of national efforts is the challenge to deepen AI adoption across sectors and bridge the gap between research and real-world impact. This is what China went through during the period of modernization, and now is being experienced in some other BRI countries, and it is where China can provide help to the others.

China’s new large language model, DeepSeek, offers the region of Latin America and Africa the chance to seize AI on its own terms, but it also brings risks of dependency. Developed by a team of Chinese researchers and backed by state-linked institutions, it is part of China’s push to embed its AI infrastructure in developing nations, strengthen digital ties and reshape global AI governance beyond Western influence. While the United States pursues ever-more-powerful models, China’s strategy involves AI diplomacy, hoping to shape the future of digital sovereignty on its terms.

Serbia Expo 2027

As the first country in Southeast Europe to establish a comprehensive AI development framework, Serbia has positioned itself as a regional leader, a rank further solidified through its presidency of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI). This will enable the country to modernize both the state and society while supporting the objectives of the program “Leap into the Future 2027,” when Serbia will be the host of the specialized exposition EXPO 2027. Many innovations, including fully autonomous vehicles, will be showcased at EXPO 2027.

As a result of the implementation of relevant measures, the Republic of Serbia established the Institute for Artificial Intelligence, which brings together nearly sixty researchers, including in artificial intelligence in educational programs at all levels, and provided funds for the development of science, startups, small- and medium-sized enterprises, and other economic entities in this field. Activities related to the opening of data and their reuse were launched, and ethical guidelines for the development, application, and use of reliable and responsible artificial intelligence were adopted, which marked the Republic of Serbia on the world map as a country that wants to use artificial intelligence in a safe, secure, and responsible manner.

China and the South-South in Motion

China and many of the countries in Africa and Asia within South-South cooperation have confirmed their participation at EXPO 2027 in Belgrade, including Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa. We have already started scientific research about future multifaceted cooperation with China on the level of the BRI and South-South cooperation.

With my colleague from Nigeria, Ako Chubiyojo Abbah, I participated at a conference in Belgrade twice, and we presented common scientific research about mutual cooperation within the BRI in the new digital era, highlighted by AI. Our research is the result of a two-week seminar held in Beijing and Xi’an in 2024, attended by 25 persons from academic, state, and administrative institutions from eight countries, that are members of the BRI.

During China’s “Two Sessions” held in March 2026 in Beijing, China outlined its new vision in the next Five Year Plan, opening the wide possibilities of cooperation with the world, otherwise faced with new forms of unilateralism, protectionism and hegemonism. China, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, strives to maintain peace in the world, and tries to establish new types of relations with other countries. Building the community with a common future for humanity is the main thread of foreign policy of China in the next five years.

The economic reforms in China begun in 1978, which opened the door to a modern capitalist economy with an open market, together with social and institutional reforms, were the key to China’s modernization. Its features are shared prosperity and complete eradication of poverty, material and cultural well-being, harmony between humanity and nature, and peaceful development. The expansion of China has already shifted the balance of power in the direction of Asia, and there are more and more nations which believe that this country is the place to solve the current political and other global crises. Through the BRI, China is ready to share its latest achievements with the signatory countries of this initiative, including Serbia.

Conclusion: South-South Countries Are the Anchor for Progress

To conclude, the South-South countries, earlier known as the Third World gathered in the Non-Aligned Movement, are not just developing countries any more. They are an anchor for world progress and better living standards, for more political equality and a multilateral world without colonialism and neocolonialism, for the right to think freely and to respect others, as Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in his Social Contract.

The main question for the future is, how can China help all partners and countries to share the Chinese achievements of the Fourth Revolution and preserve the main principles of the United Nations Charter. The suggestions given by my colleague Abbah and me are: wide engagement and inclusivity on the level of civil society, business, and academia; more intense mutual academic cooperation involving students and professors in scientific and technological research, or practical sharing of knowledge; mutual support in securing raw materials needed for new high-technological projects, and the construction of [semiconductor] chip factories in BRI countries that are the most suitable for it; joint efforts in creation of a transnational legal order and better understanding of the legal systems of participatory countries of the Global South, having in mind that there are countries with civil law systems, common law systems and Islamic law; encouragement of Chinese companies to create local jobs, as they did in Serbia, and to include as subcontractors domestic entreprises; exchange of experiences in the policy of eradicating poverty, with having Chinese experts on the spot for technical support; fostering people-to-people policy; and launching the common BRI Journal(s) with common topics in order to better inform academics and experts as well as the public.

In that sense, I would like to use this opportunity to thank the president of the Schiller Institute, Mrs. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, for the initiative to create a Movement of World Citizens, which the world needs more than ever, and I am ready to contribute in the scope of my ability.

Thank you for your attention!