Jürgen Büssow

Jürgen Büssow was a member of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia for 20 years and Regierungspräsident (District President) in Düsseldorf for 15 years. Alongside media policy — which in the late 1980s and early 1990s led to the dual broadcasting system in Germany — his focus areas were European, economic and third-world policy. During this period the EU Treaties I and II of Maastricht were adopted, in which the state parliaments participated through the Bundesrat. Parliamentary contacts and visits during this time included South Korea, Taiwan and Japan.

As District President, in 2006 he prepared the "Little Friendship Treaty" between Qingdao/China and the cities of Duisburg, Essen and Wuppertal and the Düsseldorf administrative district. Over time he has come to know China from a variety of perspectives: visits to German companies in China; the opening of Messe Düsseldorf's trade fair in Shanghai together with Munich and Hanover; art exhibitions in Beijing and Shanghai; a visit to Düsseldorf's partner city Chongqing and to the headquarters of Huawei Technologies and the network equipment supplier ZTE in Shenzhen, the Silicon Valley of China.

"Truly grasping China will hardly be possible without a command of the language. But gaining a better understanding of this country, with its 5,000-year history and culture, is becoming ever more important for us Europeans." The same applies to the other Asian countries, with their different cultures, language areas, histories and economies.

For us Europeans today, it is a matter of recognising that we come from different value systems and do not always have identical interests. Nevertheless, it is our task to find opportunities for cooperation that secure and open up social welfare for the European and Asian populations on fair terms. Successfully counteracting climate change is a task for all nations.