In retrospect, profound changes and tremendous progress have taken place in East Asia. Looking ahead, we can say with full confidence that relatively sound conditions exist for East Asia to raise its economic and social development to a new level.

It has become the shared understanding of East Asian countries to maintain regional peace and stability, develop the economy, science and technology, expand mutually beneficial cooperation, and promote common prosperity. East Asian countries are committed to the development of their relations on the basis of mutual respect, treating one another as equals and non-interference in one another’s internal affairs and properly addressing some existing differences through friendly consultations. With political stability, East Asian countries enjoy good relations among themselves. This has provided an important prerequisite for the sustained economic growth of East Asian countries and the development of their economic cooperation.

East Asian countries have built up significant economic strength. Some have entered the developed stage, others have joined the rank of newly industrialized nations, and still others have embarked on the road of rapid growth. Endowed with rich human and natural resources, countries in this region have formulated their development strategies in light of their actual conditions, constantly readjusted their industrial structure, effected shifts in modes of growth, promoted scientific and technological progress, and strengthened external economic exchanges. All this has provided a broad scope for East Asian countries to engage in economic cooperation.

Through their long histories, the peoples of East Asian countries have created their own fine cultural traditions. These cultural traditions attach great value to social communities uphold such virtues as self-strengthening arduous effort, industriousness, frugality modesty and eagerness to learn. They stress harmony in handling human relations and stand for peaceful coexistence in international relations. These cultural conditions constitute valuable spiritual legacy. As long as East Asian countries keep up with the trend of the times and carry forward and apply those cultural traditions and wisdom with oriental features in light of their actual national conditions while vigorously absorbing all fruits of human progress and civilization, the development of economic cooperation in East Asia will be further boosted by these spiritual motivations.

All in all, East Asia in today’s world is a force that cannot be ignored politically, economically, culturally or geographically. The prospect for East Asia’s economic development is promising.

Of course, while fully recognizing the economic achievements in East Asia, we must also look squarely into the difficulties and obstacles on the road ahead. For instance East Asian countries suffer, to varying degrees, from untenable economic structures, flawed financial systems, crude modes of growth, backward infrastructures and the enormous pressures brought about by over-population and the increasing need for environmental controls. These problems need to be addressed seriously and resolved effectively.

Southeast Asia’s recent financial crisis has taught people a profound lesson. Normal functioning of the financial system is crucial to overall economic stability and development. To maintain a sound and stable financial order in a closely intertwined global economy, it is imperative for countries to work to improve there financial system, policies and supervision, to strengthen both regional and international financial cooperation and jointly ward off excessive speculation by international hot money. Only by doing so can we effectively maintain the international financial order.

We believe that as long as we work together, the peoples of East Asia will certainly build a better future in the new century.

Modern means of transportation, telecommunication and mass media have shortened the geographical distance of the world. The international community appears to be no more than a global village, in which peoples of all nations experience the inevitable cultural exchanges and clashes, while seeking common development in a harmonious and respectful relationship.

I’m with the view that in this modern world, the culture of any nation cannot develop in isolation. And I believe that different cultures should learn from each other’s strengths to offset their own weaknesses. Of course, the culture of a nation must withhold its own distinctive national characteristics in its extensive exchange with other cultures. Cultural exchange, I think, is by no means a process of losing one’s own culture to a foreign culture, but a process of enriching each other’s national curltures.

China will unswervingly carry out its independent foreign policy of peace in a comprehensive manner. China’s foreign policy serves to gain a long-term, sound international environment. Particularly, the policy aims to achieve an environment conducive to China’s socialist modernization drive, the maintenance of world peace and the promotion of joint development.

China will continue to foster positive relationships with the developing countries and especially surrounding countries, persisting in a good-neighborly and friendly policy. We will implement the outcome of the China-ASEAN informal summit and intensify the China-ASEAN partnership of mutual trust oriented toward the 21st century. We will further develop extensive cooperation and exchange with the developed countries of the west in a wide range of areas. We will also strengthen unity and cooperation with countries in Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and Central and Eastern Europe, striving to establish a just and rational international political and economic order.

China will continue to take part in multilateral diplomatic activities of a global, intercontinental and regional nature, and play a constructive role in the affairs of UN reform, the settlement of regional conflicts, peace-keeping, disarmament, arms control and environmental protection.

Chinese gardens can be divided into two categories, the imperial and the private. The former are seen most frequently in northern China, while more of the latter can be found in the south, especially in Suzhou, Wuxi and Nanjing.

Small and delicate, cleverly laid out and pleasing to eye, the streams, bridges, rockeries and pavilion of a private Chinese garden reveal a natural beauty of their own. Most of the bridges in these gardens are of stone, including straight, winding and arched bridges. The straight bridge consists of just one stone slab without any decoration, and is usually level with the riverbank or with the river to make the visitors feel as if they are surrounded by water. The winding bridge has low balustrades. The arch bridges can be divided into the single-arch and the multi-arch varieties. Streams in these gardens do not cover a large area, but fit in well with bridges and islets to yield a uniformed effect.

Rocks and rockeries are special features of southern Chinese gardens. Stones of grotesque forms are often attractive with undulated lines and water holes. Some large stones form sceneries of their own, while smaller ones are put together to form artificial hills to add to the fantastic attractiveness of the garden. Corridors form another feature of Chinese gardens. There are water corridors built along a riverside, flower corridors inserted among flowers, willow corridors among rows of willow, and bamboo corridors among rows of bamboo. For visitors, these corridors are good travel guides leading to various views of a big garden.

Corridors are dotted by windows of various shapes—square, round, hexagonal and octagonal. Many of the windows are decorated with very beautiful patterns and designs. Tourists can have an excellent view of the garden through these colorful corridor windows. The doors to the gardens, like the windows, are also carved in many different shapes, to bring more vividness and elegance to the surroundings.

Walls of these gardens are usually painted white. Hidden among the flowers, trees and hills, white walls stand in sharp contrast to the gray tiles and brown windows. Strolling about these gardens, with the tree shadows swaying on the white wall and willow reflections dancing in the ponds, tourists may then find themselves truly enjoying a moment of peace and relaxation in this paradise beyond the turmoil of the world.

In terms of Chinese food, it is popularly recognized that Chinese cuisine is world-famous for its perfect combination of “color, aroma, taste and appearance”. China’s unique culinary art owes itself to the country’s long history, vast territory and hospitable tradition. Chinese cuisine gives emphasis to the selection of raw materials, the texture of food, the blending of seasonings, slicing techniques, the perfect timing of cooking and the art of laying out the food on the plate, among the best-known schools of Chinese culinary tradition are the Cantonese cuisine of the south, the Shandong cuisine of the north, the Huai-Yang cuisine of the east and the Sichuan cuisine of the west. These four major varieties of Chinese food have been traditionally noted as “the light flavor of the south, the salty flavor of the north, the sweet flavor of the east and the spicy-hot flavor of the west”.

Our two sides have agreed to establish a good-neighborly partnership of mutual trust oriented towards the 21st century. To reach this goal, I would like to offer my observations as follows:

We should make the best use of the existing mechanism of all-round dialogue and cooperation to broaden our exchanges and cooperation in all areas, at all levels and through all channels, and strengthen the exchanges and contacts between leaders and people from all walks of life of our two sides to enhance our mutual trust, expand common ground and promote friendship.

We should give priority to our economic relations and trade, scientific and technological cooperation between our two sides in accordance with the principle of drawing on each other’s comparative advantages and mutual benefit and reinforce the cooperation in the areas of resources, technology marketing, banking, information, human resources development and investment to promote common progress.

We should intensify two-way dialogue, coordination and mutual support between our two sides on major regional and international issues and in the United Nations, APEC(Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation), AES(Asia-Europe Summit) and ARF(ASEAN Regional Forum) with a view to jointly safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of the developing countries and promoting their fair and equal participation in the international economic decision-making and operation without discrimination.

We should continue our efforts in handling the existing differences or disputes through friendly consultations on an equal footing and seek a progressive solution to the problems. Those differences that cannot be solved for the time being may be shelved temporarily in the spirit of seeking common ground while putting aside differences so that they will not stand in the way of the establishment and development of the good-neighborly partnership of mutual trust between the two sides.

China pursues unswervingly an independent foreign policy of peace, taking peace as the ultimate goal. As the largest developing country in the world with a relatively low level of productive forces on the whole, China needs a long term peaceful international environment and a good neighborly environment in particular to realize its modernization program through decades of arduous struggles. Even when China is developed, it will continue to adhere to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, live with other countries in amity in the spirit of mutual respect and treating others as equals, and never seek hegemony. China will always be a staunch force in maintaining regional and global peace and stability.

Freedom of the press is a relative term. In my opinion, firstly, the press should be unrestrained; secondly, the press should be responsible to society; and thirdly, the press should promote social stability and progress. The three aspects are integrated, equally important and inseparable. It is harmful to one-sidely stress only one aspect, as this would cause some problems.

The United States once faced this situation. It had much esteem for Liberalism at the very beginning. However, its undue emphasis on this idea resulted in the excessive abuse of the freedom of the press. This was the first period of development of the press theory. Later on, the American press perceived their own problems and therefore, put forward the concept of the responsible press, or the theory of social responsibility, bringing the development of the press theory into the second period of development. Now the world has entered a pose-cold-war period of peace and development. People all over the world yearn for a social environment characterized by stability, progress and peaceful development. They earnestly hope the media will play an even greater role in promoting social stability and progress, instead of causing social turbulence and retrogression. This post-cold-war period, I believe, characterizes the emerging third period of development for the press theory. In my opinion, China’s media is striving to put the three aspects I mentioned earlier into practice.

Many reports on China by the media of the West are not accurate, and sometimes very unobjective and very unfair. Reports on China’s development are rarely seen in Western newspapers. They show little concern for China’s rapid progress, but care only about the difficulties and problems. If one relied only on those reports and ignored the reality of China, the picture of China in one’s mind would be a society soon to collapse. But quite on the contrary, China in fact is a politically very stable society and economically rapid growing country.

We often report problems that exist in the government’s work. Readers may find that our reports on these problems are totally different from Western reports. We know these issues arose naturally in the process of our development. The purpose of our report is to let people offer solutions to these problems, not to stir up social turmoil and lead to misunderstandings and even to the distortion of what is really happening. Only by reporting in this way can a news medium be regarded as responsible to society.