China's peaceful rise--A road chosen for rejuvenation of a great nation

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, February 19, 2004

China's peaceful rise--A road chosen for rejuvenation of a great nation

"China is a large developing country, our development should not and cannot depend on foreign countries. We must, and we can only handle our own affairs on the basis of our own strength... This is the essence of China's development road to peaceful rise", said Premier Wen in his speech delivered at Harvard University Dec. 10, 2003.

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China's peaceful rise is a hot topic of conversation in today's China and the world at large, an article on the seventh page of People's Daily said, on February 18.

At the forum marking the 110th birthday of Comrade Mao Zedong, General Secretary Hu Jintao said that China should "adhere to the development road of peaceful rise, persist in getting along friendly with various countries on the basis of the 'Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence', actively conduct exchanges and cooperation with other countries based on equality and mutual benefits and make contribution to the lofty cause of peace and development of mankind".

In his speech delivered at Harvard University, Premier Wen Jiabao said that "China is a large developing country, our development should not and cannot depend on foreign countries. We must, and we can only handle our own affairs on the basis of our own strength. That is to say, while opening still wider to the outside world, China must more fully and more consciously rely on its own structural innovation, on developing the ever-larger domestic market, on converting the huge amounts of residents' savings into investments, and on improvement of the nationals' qualities and scientific and technological progress to solve the problems of resources and the environment. This is the essence of China's development road to peaceful rise".

These remarks by Chinese leaders incisively expounded the basic characteristics of China's road to peaceful rise.

This is a path of peaceful coexistence, friendly relations and common development with world countries; a road of relying on one's own efforts, taping one's own potentialities and stressing overall coordination; a road of achieving self-improvement of the society through system innovation and raising of the nationals' qualities; and a road to the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on the basis of the common interests of all mankind.

In the long process of human history, as well as the development course after the appearance of the forms of states, seizure of resources has been the cause of wars, and war has become an important tool deciding the prosperity or decline of a country and the survival or extinction of a civilization. However, during the nearly 60 years after WWII, no war of a world scale has broken out on the earth. The appearance of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, has made it possible for war to ruin all mankind. This has made humans' control of war a most urgent task and peace a matter of top priority for human beings.

In its century-long modern history, China experienced the suffering of decrepit society, weakened national strength, invasions by big powers and reduction to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, but it also underwent great struggles for survival and a new life. Since the founding of New China in 1949, especially over the past 25 years since the initiation of reform and opening up, China has embarked on the road to great national rejuvenation through explorations. China had the bitter experience of being bullied and humiliated by big powers, Mao Zedong, founder of New China, solemnly declared long ago: "China will never seek hegemony". This is China's sincere and solemn promise, as well as a conceptual base for the country's peaceful rise.

Some major changes have taken place in the world, especially in Asia over the last half century. Under a basic peaceful environment, some countries, including China, successively experienced economic take-off and took on the road to economic modernization. These facts have provided a cognitive base for the practice of peaceful rise. They show that, firstly, self-improvement of a country and the enhancement of the qualities of its social organizations and its nationals are the prerequisite and the biggest element for the realization of modernization; secondly, under the condition of economic globalization and by using and creating conditions adaptable to changes in the international economic structure, the developing countries can gain a certain kind of "after- advantage" and catch up with and surpass others in a leapfrog way.

The Chinese people have always been ardently loving peace and valuing culture, have the value orientation as shown in the proverb "Don't do to others what you don't want others to do to you", as well as their broad-mindedness as expressed in the sayings "make peace despite difference" and "Great virtue carries with it material benefits". Based on this cultural tradition, China takes a critical attitude toward power politics, "a zero-sum game" and other traditional international political ideas, it stands for realization of common prosperity for mankind in the development of a diversified world.

To sum up, it should be said that China's peaceful rise is a historic reality, since it conforms to the trends of world peace and development, to the fundamental interests of the people of China, Asia and the world at large, and to the historical experience and cultural tradition of the Chinese people.

"To know others is wise, to know oneself is clever". To realize China's peaceful rise, we need to make sober internal and external judgments.

China has achieved world-noticeable economic development and social progress, which have elated and inspired every patriotic son or daughter of the Chinese. But we must cool-headedly notice that it remains a basic reality that ours is a big country with a huge population and a poor foundation to start with; restrictionsof resources and environment pose severe challenges to us and the task of realizing sustainable development is quite arduous; the task of social reform, improvement and coordination is still urgent; economic development remains at a low-end level of international division of labor; the lack of core technologies and independent intellectual property rights has prevented us from accomplishing much in industrial creation and innovation and thereby from making fairly great contribution to humankind. The objective reality and our historical tasks don't allow us the slightest arrogance and complacence.

For today's China, an important point remains to be good at learning. This means learning from world countries and different civilizations and absorbing all excellent cultural achievements of mankind; and learning from our own history, culture and practice and making continuous self-improvement and self-adjustment to our socialism. Chinese history proves that an open mindset is the psyche of self-confidence, an atmosphere of a prosperous age and an embodiment of the vigor and vitality of Chinese civilization and culture.

It is of particular importance for today's China to properly handle its relations with other countries and different civilizations. Under today's economic and technological conditions, the world has become a "global village", contacts among different countries in various fields have become increasingly close. China has marched toward the world and the world has entered China. It's impossible for any country, especially one as large as China, to develop in isolation from the world. With regard to the phenomenon of today's economic globalization, despite the world's divergent comments and judgments of value, we can only guide this phenomenon along its course of development since it is an objective reality brought about by the advancement of productive forces. On state-to-state relations, we stand for avoiding conflicts caused by ignorance and prejudice, and properly handle conflicts caused by interests, and striving for all-win and win-win results among countries. On relations among different civilizations, we stand for seeking for the common value core of different civilizations in the spirit of equality and tolerance, conducting wide civilized dialogues and profound cultural exchanges. The Chinese people have a strong sense of identification and pride in their country, culture and civilization, but this absolutely does not mean that such identification can advance toward exclusiveness, arrogance and vanity.

Today, mankind is in the times of radical social changes. Today, getting Chinese things done well bears particularly important significance to both Chinese and world people. Ours is a country with a population of 1.3 billion, and objective conditions require us to take on a road of industrialization featuring the saving of resources, stress on ecology and sustainability of development. Some foreign critics say that the current radial changes happening in China, just like the early-stage British industrial revolution, is a rare event happened once every century in human history. This is both an opportunity and a heavy task for us. China's peaceful rise is a century-old dream of the Chinese people, a goal for which people from generation to generation have struggled and a glorious duty of later generations.

China's peaceful rise facilitates world peace and stability, which will make the world pattern more balanced and the international community more safe; China's peaceful rise will make human civilizations and cultures richer and more colorful, and provide humans with more modes and cultural experience; China's peaceful rise will bring new example and source material to the history of international relations, and proves man's ability to handle the long-standing problem of conflicts between countries in a rational and peaceful way. China's peaceful rise will testify that a backward country with a time-honored traditional culture is able to realize modernization with its own characteristics through its own efforts and wisdom, like the rebirth of a phoenix from fire.

By People's Daily Online

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