President Bush and Mrs. Barbara Bush,
Dr. Popadiuk,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am delighted to come to beautiful Texas in this golden fall and charmed by the unique cultural and natural scenes here.

May I begin by thanking President Bush and the Bush Library for holding this function in my honor. This is a library that showcases President Bush's many-sided achievements, including his contribution to the growth of China-US relations. President Bush is an old friend of the Chinese people. In 1974, shortly after our two countries resumed contact, he went to Beijing and served as the Chief of the US Liaison Office. Whether in public life or as a private citizen, he has always cared about and supported stronger ties between China and the US, and has done a great deal of commendable work to this end. I hope that with the personal involvement and guidance of President Bush, the library that bears his name will become yet another American center for China studies and China-US friendship activities.

Nearly 24 years have passed since our two countries established diplomatic relations. The period coincides with China's reform and opening-up program and its dynamic modernization drive. It is during these years that China attracted worldwide attention by pulling off a remarkable success story in development.

By pushing forward reform and opening-up in an all-round manner and concentrating resources on economic development, we have basically put in place a socialist market economic system and achieved greater emancipation and development of the productive forces. In 2001, China's GDP was 7.4 times that of 1980, which was translated into an average annual growth rate of 9.5%. In rural China, 220 million poor people have since been lifted out of poverty and ensured their basic needs for food, clothing and shelter. The living standards of all China's ethnic groups are notably higher than ever before.

By vigorously developing socialist democratic politics and carrying out political restructuring, we have expanded democracy, improved the rule of law, and protected our people's rights as masters of the land. China's democratic institutions are improving steadily and our grass-root democracy represented by villagers' self-rule in the rural areas and community-based democratic management in the urban areas is making substantive headway.

We have implemented the strategy of national revitalization through science and education and continued to make progress in various cultural undertakings. The access of the Chinese people to education and health care has never been better, and their moral, ethical, cultural and educational aptitude continues to improve.

Adhering to the basic policy of opening to the outside world, we have conducted extensive exchanges and cooperation with the rest of the world and actively drawn upon the advanced achievements from other countries and civilizations. With its WTO accession, China has entered a new phase in its opening-up. We will make good on our commitments, vigorously conduct economic and technical exchanges and cooperation with other countries and further promote our all-directional openness to the outside world.

China has now entered a new stage of development characterised by the building of a well-to-do society throughout the country and faster tempo in our modernization drive. Our objective is to basically make China a modern country by the middle of the century.

Despite our rather impressive track record, ours remains the world's largest developing country. Compared with the developed countries, we still have an enormous distance to cover either in the level of productive forces or that of science, technology and education. It will still take long and hard efforts for China to achieve modernization and deliver a better and more comfortable life to its people of hundreds of millions.

This November, the Communist Party of China will convene its Sixteenth National Congress, where some strategic decisions will be made on advancing at all fronts China's reform, opening-up and modernization drive.

China's development in the past twenty years and more has proved that persisting in reform and opening-up and building a Chinese-style socialism are consistent with China's national conditions and the shared aspiration of the Chinese people of all ethnic groups. We will act in accordance with the "Three Represents", that is to represent the requirements of the development of China's advanced productive forces, to represent the orientation of the development of China's advanced culture, and to represent the fundamental interests of the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people, persist in taking economic development as our central task, promote social undertakings in an all-round way and achieve a coordinated development of the material, political and spiritual civilization in Chinese society.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The more developed, more open and more intimately connected with the outside China is, the greater our need would be for an international environment of lasting peace and stability. Strengthening peace and development at both regional and global levels serves China's fundamental interests.

The Chinese nation has inherited from ancient times a fine tradition of honesty, harmony and good faith - values that China consistently abides by in the conduct of relations with other countries. The very purpose of China's foreign policy is to safeguard world peace and promote common development.

Confucius said more than two thousand years ago, "In human relationships, a gentleman seeks harmony but not uniformity." That is to say, harmony but not sameness; reserving differences without coming into conflict. Harmony promotes co-existence and co-prosperity; whereas differences foster mutual complementation and mutual support. Harmony without sameness is an important principle in the development of all social affairs and relationships and in guiding people's conduct and behavior. Indeed, it is the essential factor of the harmonious development of all civilizations.

Our world is a diverse and colorful place. It is perfectly normal for things, countries, nations or regions to be different one way or another. This, to a certain extent, is inevitable. We believe that the world's civilizations, social systems and development models can come together for exchanges and emulation. They can learn from one another, benefit from their respective strengths in a peaceful competition and achieve common development by seeking common ground while putting aside differences.

As an Asia-Pacific country, China deeply cares about peace and stability in the region. In the spirit of good-neighborliness, we have resolved the land boundary question with most of our neighbors through peaceful negotiations. We have maintained consultation with the ASEAN on the formulation of a code of conduct in the South China Sea area. China now lives in peace and harmony with all its surrounding countries.

China is an active participant in such multilateral cooperation mechanisms as APEC, ARF and 10+3. We have issued with the ASEAN member countries framework documents on closer bilateral cooperation in the new century and decided to set up a China-ASEAN Free Trade Area in ten years.

China is a staunch force dedicated to peace in the Asia-Pacific region. The US is a major Pacific power. We stand ready to work with the United States and other countries in the region to promote a peaceful and prosperous Asia-Pacific.

An early accomplishment of the peaceful reunification of China with an early solution of the Taiwan question is conducive to peace and stability in Asia-Pacific and the world at large. It contributes to a stable and growing China-US relationship and will provide more effective safeguards to US interests in Taiwan.

In early 1995, I put forward an eight-point proposal on the solution of the Taiwan question. Our commitments are clear: after reunification, Taiwan may maintain its economic system and lifestyle, it will manage its party, government and military affairs on its own and the rights and interests of people in Taiwan will be effectively protected. We have the maximum sincerity and will exert our utmost efforts to make peaceful reunification a reality.

In recent years, personnel exchanges between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits have been on a steady increase. Interactions in the economic, cultural and other fields are expanding. The people in Taiwan share our strong desire for an early opening of the three direct links.

As far as solving the Taiwan question is concerned, no formula is better than "peaceful reunification and one country, two systems", and nothing threatens peace and stability in the Straits more than "Taiwan Independence". The US has repeatedly reaffirmed its commitment to the three Sino-US Joint Communiqués and the one China policy. We hope the US side will stick to this right position.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In today's world, mankind remains confronted with many severe challenges. Terrorism, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, regional conflicts and environmental degradation, just to name a few, all pose a serious threat to world peace and development.

Both China and the US are victims of terrorism. In the war against terror, the Chinese and Americans have stood together and carried out effective cooperation. China will continue to step up its consultation and cooperation with the US on counterterrorism and join the rest of the world in the concerted fight against this common scourge.

To prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, maintain peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, South Asia and Middle East and protect the world's environment, these are major issues of concern to the people the world over. China and the US ought to step up consultation and cooperation in these fields, for this serves the common interests of the two countries. We stand ready to keep in touch with the US, cooperate more closely with each other in search for a fair and reasonable solution to these problems, and promote peace and stability in the world.

China is the world's largest developing country and the US the largest developed country. Our economies are highly complementary and our cultures have distinctive features to make us proud. There exist vast potential and broad prospects for bilateral cooperation in the economic, trade, energy, environment, science, technology, education and other fields. A constructive and cooperative relationship between us is in the fundamental interests of the Chinese and Americans and meets their common aspiration. The development of such a relationship is bound to make our two peoples both winners.

Let us keep up our good work, increase our understanding, expand our consensus and enhance our cooperation so as to build an even better future for China-US relations.

Thank you.