On the morning of September 22, 2011, Chairman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress (NPC) Wu Bangguo who was paying an official friendly visit to Uzbekistan delivered a keynote speech titled Carrying Forward Good-neighborly Friendship and Achieving Common Development to the Legislative Chamber of the Supreme Assembly of Uzbekistan.

At 11:00 am, Wu, accompanied by Dilorom Toshmuhamedova, Speaker of the Legislative Chamber entered into the conference hall. All the members of the Legislative Chamber and the Senate of the Supreme Assembly stood up, warmly welcoming the distinguished guest from China, Uzbekistan's friendly neighboring country.

In his speech, Wu spoke highly of the China-Uzbekistan relations and elaborated with distinctive opinions and vivid facts China's diplomatic policy with its neighboring countries. He pointed out that China always attaches great importance to developing the friendly relations with the neighboring countries, firmly upholds the diplomatic principle of being a good neighbor and a good partner and is committed to good-neighborly friendship. China takes mutual respect as the political basis of good-neighborly friendship, peace and tranquility as the important guarantee and common development as the fundamental purpose. He stressed that to follow the path of peaceful development unswervingly is a strategic choice made by China in line with the development trends and its own fundamental interests and will not be changed because of the growth of China's comprehensive national strength. We deeply understand that China won't have more than 30 years of rapid growth since reform and opening up without a peaceful and stable external environment, without the mutually beneficial cooperation with other countries and without learning from the achievements of human civilizations. To realize socialist modernization and to enable the 1.3 billion of Chinese people to live an affluent and happy life, China must cherish the hard-won peaceful environment, implement the mutually beneficial strategy of opening up more resolutely and develop the friendly relations with all the countries in the world more sincerely. Practices have and will continue to prove that China's development means opportunities and contributions to its neighboring countries and the world at large and China was, is and will always be a positive factor and strong force of safeguarding regional and world peace and promoting common development. China is willing to join hands with the neighboring countries to deepen the good-neighborly friendship, expand the pragmatic cooperation and promote common development and is ready to be a good neighbor, a good friend and a good partner and to write a new chapter of peace, cooperation and harmony jointly with the neighboring countries.

Talking about China's relations with Central Asian countries, he noted that it is of greater strategic significance and more pressing than ever before for China and Central Asian countries to develop the all-round and high-level good-neighborly friendship and mutually beneficial cooperation under the current international situation. He raised three proposals to that end. First, political mutual trust should be strengthened in order to raise the level of strategic cooperation; second, closer economic ties should be developed based on the principle of mutual benefits and win-win results; third, security cooperation should be reinforced in order to enhance the capacity to defend real threats.

His speech received waves of enthusiastic applauses.

In the speech expressing welcome and gratitude, Toshmuhamedova noted that the peaceful development of China, a country with major influence in the world, has made great contributions to promoting peace and stability in the neighboring region and the world at large. The important speech of Wu helps Uzbekistan better understand China's foreign policy and strengthen confidence and determination to step up the friendly cooperation with China.

Li Jianguo, Vice Chairman and General Secretary of the Standing Committee of the NPC as well as more than 200 members of the Legislative Chamber and the Senate of the Supreme Assembly and officials of related agencies, including the deputy chairman of the Senate listened to the speech of Wu Bangguo.