China committed to peaceful development, harmonious world

BEIJING—Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan reiterated China’s commitment to its peaceful development and harmonious world strategies at an international seminar in Beijing on Thursday.
Addressing the opening ceremony of the seminar, Tang cited Chinese President Hu Jintao’s pledge at the the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in mid October that China would follow the path of peaceful development and promote the building of a harmonious world of durable peace and common prosperity.
Tang said following the path of peaceful development means China is committed to building socialism with distinctive Chinese features, and it would uphold a peaceful international environment to develop itself and contribute more to world peace and common development through its own development. It means China will actively participate in economic globalization and regional cooperation while mainly relying on itself to achieve all-round, coordinated and sustainable development through reform and innovation. China will open itself wider to the outside world and promote cooperation of mutual benefit with all other countries, he said. It means China will never seek hegemony or external expansion and will remain a staunch force for world peace and common development.
He said the path of peaceful development is fully consistent with China’s historical and cultural traditions, and in the common interests of China and the world. “In the 100-plus years after the Opium War in 1840, China was subjected to bullying and humiliation by foreign powers.... Having suffered from the scourge of wars, the Chinese people deeply cherish peace,” Tang said. The strategy of building a harmonious world was a major strategy and a new vision of the CPC and the Chinese government.
The strategy calls for promoting enduring peace, common prosperity and harmonious co-existence between man and nature, and the principle that enduring peace would promote common prosperity in the world and help settle global issues and, in turn, help realize enduring peace, he said. This new vision calls on the international community to respect each other in politics; make decisions based on consultation on an equal footing; make concerted efforts to promote democracy in international relations, in economy; cooperate with each other; draw on each other’s strengths and work together to ensure balanced progress in economic globalization so that we can all benefit from it; learn from each other’s cultures.—Xinhua