It is a great privilege for me to be invited here and share with you some of my thoughts on China-India relationship and China's future.

The two-day National Seminar on "China and the Contemporary World" is of great importance, especially as it is held at Jadavpur University, a renowned institute accredited with Five-Star status by India's National Assessment and Accreditation Council. From my view, this seminar is consistent with the mutually beneficial needs of India and China to have a better understanding of each other.

Now, the whole world is talking about China and India. The reason is very simple: the combined population of the two countries makes up almost 40 per cent of humanity, the two economies are among the largest in the world and both are rising. It is not an overstatement to say that the development of the two nations and the relations between the two countries will have a great influence on the future of the world in the coming decades.

The Chinese and Indians are proud people and we are both looking forward to the glorious revival of our civilizations. But as far as the relationship between the two countries is concerned, we are not well prepared. There is a lack of understanding of each other.

Six months ago PTI reported that (I quote) "a leading defense expert (in India) has projected that China will attack India by 2012 to divert the attention of its own people from 'unprecedented' internal dissent, growing unemployment and financial problems that are threatening the hold of Communists in that country." (End of quote)

Then one month later, a Chinese blog writer put an article on the web, declaring that India will attack China in the first week of October, 2009. The reason for him to make such a shocking prediction, according to the article, was that the Indian government had issued an ultimatum that all the Chinese working on various projects in India must leave the country by the end of September.

Now all of us know that nothing happened in the first week of October last year in the area of the Line of Actual Control between China and India. On the contrary, on the 1st of October, Indian officers and soldiers came to the Chinese side to celebrate the Chinese National Day just as their Chinese counterparts did on India's Independence Day.

And I am also confident that history will prove the prediction for 2012 to be badly wrong. Interestingly, an American movie entitled "2012" was on show recently. It was commercially quite successful. To watch "the end of the world" in cinema might be entertaining, but to talk about war between countries is something very serious.

Sino-Indian relations are too important to be left to those pundits and blog writers, to prejudice and ignorance. In this sense, I perceive the importance of this Seminar.

Today I would like to raise five questions related to current Sino-Indian relations and provide all the answers. However, the answers are not given by me, but rather, they are selected from statements or comments of prominent Indian political and media persons.

Question one, whether China is a threat to India?

I have no doubt that the answer to this crucial question is a fundamental judgment, which guides any policy making and academic thinking regarding China-India relations. On January 7, 2010, H.E. Mr. S. M. Krishna, Minister of External Affairs of India, made a clear-cut statement, saying (I quote), "Let me reiterate that Government of India does not view China or China's development as a threat." (End of quote)

I think this judgment is based on a basic assessment about the situation of the area along the Line of Actual Control between our two countries. H.E. Mr. Krishna said a few months ago that (I quote again), "The Indo-Chinese border, which is long and not demarcated as yet, is one of the most peaceful and tranquil borders." (End of quote)

Question two, what is the general situation of the current Sino-Indian relations, or whether the media presents a true picture?

A few months ago, on November 22 last year exactly, H.E. Dr Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for External Affairs of India, described the Sino-Indian situation thus (and I quote): "We do have differences in some areas, notably over the border between our countries. I believe dialogue and diplomacy hold the key to resolving these differences. We decided more than two decades ago not to let such issues come in the way of cooperation in functional areas, even as we try to find solutions to our differences. This has helped our two sides in our common quest for peace and prosperity. The border has been largely peaceful and tranquil, while China has emerged as our largest trading partner, at over $50 billion in annual trade, and the biggest overseas project contractor. Tourism, particularly of Indian pilgrims to the major Hindu holy sites in Tibet, Mount Kailash and Lake Mansarovar, is thriving. Indian information technology firms have opened offices in Shanghai and Hangzhou, and Infosys recruited nine Chinese this year for their headquarters in Bangalore. There are dozens of Chinese engineers working in (and learning from) Indian computer firms and engineering companies from Gurgaon to Bangalore, while Indian software engineers in Chennai and Bangalore support the Chinese telecoms equipment manufacturer Huawei. Seven thousand Indian students are currently studying in China. It should be our endeavor to consolidate these gains." (End of quote)

Question three, whether China and India have common interests in world affairs?

This is about a wider aspect of the matter and goes beyond China-India relationship itself. In an interview given to All India Radio broadcasted on October 16, 2009, Her Excellency, Mrs. Nirupama Rao, Indian Foreign Secretary, said (I quote), "Both governments understand that a peaceful relationship between India and China is not only good for the two countries but it is good for this region, it is good globally also. Just look at the number of issues on which we can cooperate. We are cooperating whether it comes to the Doha Development round, whether it comes to climate change issues, whether it comes to cooperation in multilateral fora, in the reform of the international financial system in the wake of the global economic crisis. There are many other issues in the relationship where we have common ground, where there is a meeting of minds, so I think, we must look at this whole relationship in the larger perspective." (End of quote)

Question four, whether China's experience of development is relevant to India and vice versa?

The answer is yes. Mr. Shekhar Gupta, Editor-in-Chief of the Indian Express and a well-known commentator, published an article in his newspaper last November entitled "Opportunity, Made in China". He wrote in the article (I quote), "If we want to, we will learn to look at China through a new prism, as an opportunity, rather than as a threat or enemy. Opportunity, because you can use the Chinese example to push for faster decision-making, decisive governance, economic reform to at least slow down the pace by which we are falling behind. If you merely focus on the military, you will be trapped forever in the 'threat' syndrome and losing the real battle before you even joined it." (End of quote)

And finally, question five, whether China and India, as the two most populous countries in the world, will be locked in an inevitable severe competition since the world's resources is limited?

To this question, H.E. Mr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India, said more than once that the world is big enough for both India and China to realize their developmental aspirations.

Dear friends, all these five quotations are from outstanding Indians. As a Chinese diplomat, I do appreciate these statements and comments. They are so beautifully expressed and are just what I want to say today. I believe that their words must be more convincing on this occasion.

After going through the five questions and answers about the bilateral relationship between China and India, let's now move on to the next topic: China's future.

The organizer of the seminar asked me to join the panel discussion on "China as an Emerging Super Power". But due to my prior commitment, I would not be able to attend the session tomorrow. Instead, I would like to take this opportunity to say a few words about China in the coming years.

We have just celebrated the 60th anniversary of the founding of New China, the People's Republic of China. The past sixty years could be roughly divided into two periods, each comprising of 30 years. In the first 30 years i.e. from 1949 to 1979, China consolidated its sovereignty and national unity, casting off foreign invasion and interference forever. This was the main achievement during that period. But at the same time, economic development was not satisfactory as quite a lot of policy mistakes were made. In the second 30 years i.e. from 1979 to 2009, reform and opening-up policy was ushered in, and with an annual average GDP growth rate of 9.8% for three decades, China achieved tremendous economic and social development, so that now people in the world, including this seminar, are talking about "China as an Emerging Super Power".

Now, China is entering a new period of another three decades. The future of China has drawn much attention, discussion and even contention among scholars all over the world. A famous American scholar of future studies, John Naisbitt, is one of them. Almost 30 years ago, he published his renowned book, Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives. And recently, he published a new book entitled Chinese Megatrends: The 8 Pillars of a New Society, which led to a new round of heated discussion about China's future.

Here, I would like to present to you some opinions of Chinese scholars regarding China's future development. Before doing so, I must make it clear that these opinions are not necessarily opinions of the Chinese Government. But since these are views of Chinese scholars themselves and may be different from those of Western scholars, I think they might be useful for your reference.

Some Chinese scholars have identified 10 megatrends which will shape China in the next 30 years.

First, expansion of domestic demand. In the past thirty years, Chinese economy has largely been export-oriented. Because of the current world financial crisis, the global market is shrinking. It has been proven that an export-oriented economy is not sustainable for a big country like China. Fortunately, with a 1.3 billion population, China itself is the biggest potential market in the world. In the not too distant future, Chinese economy could be transformed and the huge domestic demand will drive the Chinese growth to a new high.

Second, larger role of private sector. Currently private sector accounts for half of the Chinese economy. While public sector will continue to play a leading role in China, private investment will be further encouraged and reforms will be brought into some public monopoly industries.

Third, acceleration of urbanization. In 1978-79 when the first 30 years came to an end, China's urbanization rate was merely 8%. Thirty years later, in 2009, it has risen to 46%. That means in the past 30 years urbanization in China has grown by over one percentage point each year. However, from the global perspective, the level of urbanization of China is not high, as the average urbanization rate of the world is 55% and that of developed countries is as high as 85%. It is foreseeable that more and more Chinese farmers will move into cities and towns and China's Household Registration Policy will become more flexible.

Fourth, towards a low-carbon economy and society. Chinese economy has obtained a very high growth rate in the last 30 years, but the environmental cost is high. Now China has become the largest carbon dioxide emitting country in the world, although in terms of per capita emission, according to UN statistics, China's position is still low, ranking 96th out of 200 plus countries and regions. China is fully aware of the seriousness of the challenge of climate change and has set an ambitious target to reduce emission. With decisive governance, China can be expected to achieve great improvements in this field sooner rather than later.

Fifth, manufacturing shift within China. The history of world economy in the past 200 years has witnessed waves of manufacturing shift from developed countries to developing ones because the former could no longer afford the steadily increased cost of labor, land and other inputs. Britain, America, Japan and even the Four Asian Tigers of Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore are no exceptions. As a new manufacturing center, China now is facing the same problem. But in the case of China, the pattern of manufacturing shift might be different. Currently, China's manufacturing industries are mainly concentrated in East and South Coastal Regions. Being a vast country, China could make the manufacturing shift within the country itself, say, from East Region to West Region and from South Region to North Region, rather than from China to other countries. Therefore, there is still enough room for further development of manufacturing industries in China.

Sixth, promoting Chinese currency RMB as an international currency. It might be too early to talk about this. But a new trend is emerging. China has signed agreements with eight border trading partners including Vietnam, Mongolia, Laos, Nepal, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, North Korea and Kazakhstan to allow free choices of selecting local currencies as trading currency. And recently the Chinese Government announced the "Tentative Management Method of Using RMB as Trading Currency in International Trade".

Seventh, dealing with an aging population. The age structure of a population is a factor too important to be ignored in a nation's long term development. In the past 30 years, China's population structure was quite young so it enjoyed much of the demographic bonus during that period. However, by 2020, China will face the problem of an aging population, and its population policy needs to be adjusted.

Eighth, implementation of political reform. Political system reform was first proposed by Mr. Deng Xiaoping, the general architect of China's economic reform and socialist modernization. For years, the Communist Party of China has been emphasizing the importance of expansion of socialist democracy and improvement of the socialist legal system. Of course, the political reform will be implemented step by step, not at the cost of stability and development.

Ninth, reunification of Taiwan with China. In the forthcoming 30 years, China will grow even stronger, the economic, social and cultural exchanges between the Mainland and Taiwan will be wider and deeper, and reunification of Taiwan with China, on the basis of Peaceful Reunification and One Country, Two Systems, might be put on the agenda.

Tenth, for a positive, cooperative and comprehensive relationship with the US. Under the principle of respect for each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity, China will attach even more importance to its ties with the United States for a fundamental purpose, which, in President Obama's words, is that "United States does not seek to contain China's rise."

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your patience. The next 30 years might be a little bit too far away from us and I come back to 2010.

This year will be an auspicious year for China-India relations. The two countries are going to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic relations. "China Festival" and "India Festival" will be held in India and China respectively. The preparation for the state visit by the Indian President to China is going on. I am sure those activities will further promote the people to people exchanges and strengthen bilateral cooperation.

Finally, I wish your Seminar all success.

Thank you!