Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning!

Today, I am very honored to be invited to attend the annual conference of Harvard China Review and have the opportunity to discuss issues about China with friends from both China and U.S. Harvard has been engaged in Chinese studies for a long time and is home to many distinguished Chinese experts, of which Harvard China Review is a new member. It is my hope that your research may lead to more findings in the days to come. During my term of duty, I and members of the Consulate would like to cooperate with you or even participate in your research. As a Chinese diplomat, I certainly feel proud that my country has become the object of study in the leading university of the world. Because it means my country is drawing the attention of the world, and there are so many things worthy of being researched. I also believe that the research you are doing will not only enlighten yourself, but also benefit China. China is opening its arm to the world, like an ocean taking in from different streams. We are willing to listen to different opinions.

The topic of my speech is “China’s achievements, problems and prospect.”

Over the two past decades, no other country has experienced the extend of changes that China underwent from the reform and opening. Chinese economy has maintained an average annual growth rate of 9.4%, China’s GDP quadrupled within 20 years and rose to the sixth place in the world. The population of extreme poverty has decreased from 250 million to 34 million. There is a leapfrog development in people’s living standard. Chinese people has more money in their pocket, they eat better, have more choices for clothing and enjoy better housing. Chinese cities change day by day. Every year I went back to China twice, and each time I saw new changes taking place in Beijing or other cities and provinces. A foreign friend once told me that he felt all the cranes in the world had gone to China, the whole China has become a construction site. Indeed, many things that are unthinkable in the past are now happening in China. China used only 20 years to accomplish a task that other countries would use 50 or 100 years to complete. The 1.3 billion people is creating a miracle in the land of China. In the meantime, China’s rapid development has contributed to the world economic progress. According to a World Bank report, the contribution of China to the world GDP growth is 14% over the past two decades, ranking the second in the world. China has become a new engine for economic development in the world. I used to be the Director General of the Consular Department in Foreign Ministry. In order to understand the exchanges between China and our neighboring countries, I had taken numerous trips along the Chinese border with neighboring countries. I found that all of them are benefiting from China’s economic development. Many cities on the border have become border trade hubs. Traders on both side of the border made good money. In one country, I was told the businessman there can make three times of profits from the trade with China. Business people usually keep their profit as secret. If he says it’s three times, then it could be 5 or 6 times. We can see from this example that the development in China can actually have ripple effect in other countries, bringing prosperity to them rather than threatening them. Those who say China is a threat cannot hold their ground.

However, in my view, no matter how much we have achieved in the past, we should not be complacent. Because we should have had this development early on. We were lag behind in the past, now we are making up for it by chasing others. But still, we shall give our achievements an applause, because they didn’t come easily, they were made despite lots of difficulties. For example, the economic sanction imposed on China after the June 4th disturbance in 1989, the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the unprecedented flood in 1998 and etc. All this didn’t stop China from advancing forward. Following the changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, some people predicted that China would be the next one in line. Their prediction didn’t realize. Today there are still people thinking China is on the verge of collapse, but I am afraid their estimation is doomed to fail.

China did make remarkable achievements in the past, but it’s also dangerous to rest upon the achievement. One should think of danger during peacetime. After 20 years of development, we have managed to feed our people and stepped into a better off society. But this state of better-off is at a rather low level and highly unbalanced. China’s biggest problem is its population, our annual net increase of population is equal to the whole population of Australia. That is to say, every year, we will have 16 million newborn babies, we will have to provide schooling to 16 million children, we will have to find job opportunities for 16 million young people, among them 2 million are college graduates. It is such a large-scale job. We have 900 million peasants and 30 million people living below the poverty line. While we have many first-class scientists, we still have 85 million illiterates. While we have High-tech industries and are able to send satellite to the outer space, primitive farming tools are still being used in the countryside. Huge disparity exists between eastern and western regions, and between urban and rural areas. China is a very unique society, it’s not easy for people in other countries to comprehend the complexity and difficulty. Being a leader in China is such a tough job. Sometimes I think, what if a leader in western countries becomes a governor in China, I doubt whether he could manage the province as well as he manages his own country. China is in a process of profound changes, it is a time when different problems emerge and interweave with each other. Agriculture, employment and social security, the reform of state-owned enterprise, the reform of the financial system, all these are imperative issues in front of us. How we deal with these issues will determine the future of China. If we have emphasized speed in the development in the past 20 years, then we should focus on the quality of development in the next 20 years, in other words, we should focus on how to solve these deep-seated problems. We have realized that the solution of these problems would only come from a sustained economic development. Without it, nothing is possible. That’s why we have set up our goal- to create a well off society in an all round way in the first 2 decades of this century. Here well off is not merely an economic index, but an overall social index in which people’s satisfaction of life was the key. It’s certainly not easy to realize the goal. Some people worry about the problems that China has now, they think China can’t make it through. I don’t agree. Of course we should take these problems seriously, but we can’t come to the conclusion that these problems are insurmountable. I believe the future of China is promising.

First of all, Chinese people has a time-honored tradition of making through difficulties. China has faced up to hardships that are bigger and tougher than what we have now. When our nation was first founded, the country was short of everything, no hard cash, no equipment, no skilled worker. But we did make it through, one step at a time, we didn’t fall apart. We launched our satellite and made economic development. History has told the same story over and over again that there is no obstacle that Chinese people can’t overcome. You may know the story of Monkey King. The monks from Tang Dynasty had to go through 81 tests before they could finally find the true canon. I think the story tells something about Chinese people, it figuratively shows how Chinese people is tested each step forward and how we go through the test eventually. The journey of building a well off society will not be an easy ride, the road will be bumpy. But it’s also a time to test the wisdom and the courage of Chinese people. Just as Premier Wen Jiabao has said “ Be it a person, a country or a nation, so long as one is not daunted by the hardship and has the courage to press ahead, one is sure to reach the luminous summit one day.”

China has a promising future also because China has a group of visionary and capable leaders. I attended the annual National People’s Congress last month and I returned impressed by the abilities of the new leaders. They are youthful and well educated, most importantly, all of them started their career from grass root level and made their way from local provinces to the central government. They share broad visions and are learned about world affairs. They are well familiar with the situation in China and understand what Chinese people think. They are keen to the problems and have confidence to overcome them. They are fully aware of their mission. I believe they are capable of clearing away the difficulties and leading China to a well off society.

The future of China is promising because China has adopted a peaceful foreign policy. We have been making friends not enemies. We treat other countries equally, sincerely and friendly. We never bully other countries. What we seek is mutual development and mutual prosperity, in other words, a win-win situation. As a result, our friends are all over the world and they see China as a promising land. In the past 20 years, foreign investment in China soared. China attracted the largest amount of foreign investment in 2002 and the momentum is still carrying on. China equals opportunity has become the common understanding among many business people. Lots of them are setting up their China strategy. China is like a magnet drawing the attention of people from different walks of life. We are glad to see that in fields like academia, education and culture, interests about China are also growing. All this has brought unprecedented opportunity for China’s development.

And last but not least, China is promising because of 10s of millions of overseas Chinese. They are the asset of China. Those overseas Chinese understand both China and foreign countries. They love the country where they live, but they also have a deep feeling toward their motherland and are concerned about her prosperity and unification. Through them China learns from other countries and by them China connects to other countries. They work hard for the country they live, but they also contribute to the development of China. They have played a part in the China’s accomplishment. And China will have a more bright future because of them.  
Ladies and Gentlemen, let me close my speech by following words. Let the achievement recorded in the history. Strive for more success and we will create a splendid future for China. (2003-4-12)