Dear teachers and students:

Good afternoon.

It is my great pleasure to visit Wayne State University in this beautiful spring. I know many friends are following closely China’s development and China-US relations. Today I want to share with you about Chinese modernization and what opportunities it brings to China-US relations and the whole world.

Last October, the Twentieth National Congress of the Communist Party of China was successfully convened in Beijing. It elected a new central leadership with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core, and drew up the grand blueprint for the Chinese people to build a modern socialist country in an all-round way and advance the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts. The important message sent by the Congress to the outside world is that China will continue to unswervingly follow the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, which has proved to be a great success. China will advance the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with Chinese modernization and bring new opportunities to the world with China’s new development. This is the biggest stabilizing factor that China provides to the unstable international landscape.

Chinese modernization has the following important features:

First, Chinese modernization is about achieving common prosperity and creating a better life for all the 1.4 billion Chinese people. Since the policy of reform and opening-up was introduced 40 years ago, over 800 million Chinese people have been lifted  out of poverty, and over 400 million people joined the middle-income group. In 2022, China’s GDP exceeded 120 trillion RMB yuan, or 18 trillion US dollars, remaining the world’s second largest economy and the largest trader in goods. At the same time, China’s development is still very uneven and inadequate, with a per capita GDP of just over twelve thousand US dollars. To continuously meet the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life, we need to both make the pie bigger and share it fairly. We must fully implement the new development philosophy, and promote high-quality development. China will continue to advance the reform of the socialist market economy, open wider to the outside world at a high level, stimulate greater economic vitality and continue to create new opportunities for development.

To create a better life for 1.4 billion people, we must adhere to green and low-carbon development, promote harmonious coexistence between man and nature, and build a clean and beautiful China. Lucid waters and lush mountains are as invaluable as gold and silver. China attaches great importance to ecological and environmental protection and takes an active part in global climate governance, leading the world in afforestation and development and utilization of renewable energy with one-third of the world’s installed capacity of wind and solar power. China has the biggest output and sales of new energy vehicles, with half of the world’s NEVs running on Chinese roads. China has made the solemn pledge of achieving carbon peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060. China will work with all parties to pursue green development, build a community with a shared future for all life on earth to protect our shared planet.

Second, Chinese modernization follows the path of peaceful development, which not only benefits the Chinese people, but also promotes common development and civilizational progress of the world. The world today is filled with turmoil and transformation. Instability, uncertainty and unexpected developments have become the norm. People of all countries are equal members of the global village and belong to a community with a shared future. Only by adhering to mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation can we effectively deal with various traditional and non-traditional threats and challenges and safeguard the security of mankind. Standing at an important juncture in historical evolution, all countries should uphold mutual respect and trust, openness and inclusiveness, should always respect other countries’ choice of development path, the principles of the UN Charter, and the diversity of world civilizations. We should choose dialogue over confrontation, partnership over alliance, and win-win over zero-sum. We should oppose hegemonism, bullying, “clash of civilizations” and ideological confrontation, oppose the resurrection of the “Cold War” to avoid the trap of the zero-sum games, wars and conflicts. 

The Chinese culture and philosophy have always cherished peace, harmony and amity, and the Chinese nation has always been a peace-loving nation. Since the founding of the People’s Republic more than 70 years ago, China has never provoked a conflict, occupied one inch of foreign soil, or started a proxy war. China has the best peace record among the world’s major countries. In advancing modernization, China will neither tread the old path of colonization and plunder, nor the crooked path taken by some countries to seek hegemony once they grow strong. What China pursues is the right course of peaceful development and win-win cooperation.

China’s path to modernization pursues its own development, as well as brings great opportunities for global development. China will continue to adhere to the basic state policy of opening up, expand market access, comprehensively optimize the business environment, deliver national treatment for foreign businesses, actively increase imports of high-quality products and services, and share market opportunities with other countries. China is the main trading partner of over 140 countries and regions, making 320 million US dollars direct investment around the world each day  and attracting over 3000 foreign businesses every month. Over the past decade, China has contributed more to global economic growth than all the G7 countries combined. As China’s 1.4 billion population enters modernization, more than doubling the world’s population entering modernization, China will inject a much stronger impetus for global economy. 

Since the beginning of this year, both the driving force and momentum of China’s economic growth have been strong. Several international institutions have revised up their growth forecasts for China. We expect our growth this year to be around 5%. If China can meet this target, it would contribute one-third of global growth. With the continuous release of China’s large-scale market advantage and domestic demand potential, it will bring new and greater opportunities to the economic recovery and development of countries around the world.

Dear teachers and students,

No matter what changes might take place in the world, China will stay committed to peaceful development and win-win cooperation. A China that is stable and dedicated to development, a China that is down-to-earth and pressing ahead with fortitude, and a China that is confident, open and sharing will surely be a strong force for global prosperity and stability.

To build a safer and better world requires all countries to work together and major countries to set good examples. China and the US are the two largest economies in the world and permanent members of the UN Security Council, the future of China-US relations concerns not only the well-being of both peoples, but also the future of the humanity. The development history of China-US relations in the past decades has repeatedly told us that both countries would gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation. Mutual respect and win-win cooperation is the only right choice for both sides.

Regrettably, in recent years, China-US relations have dropped to a low point since the establishment of diplomatic ties. Some politicians have framed a false narrative of “democracy versus authoritarianism” and have been playing up an ideological confrontation with China and stigmatizing and demonizing China’s political system and development path. The US has identified China as the primary rival and the most serious long-term challenge and many people believed it has adopted in a policy of all-round containment against China. The US has violated its commitments to Chinese people on Taiwan question by upgrading its official exchanges with Taiwan authorities continuously, supporting and conniving at “Taiwan independence” separatist forces, and using Taiwan to contain China. All these have raised tensions across the Taiwan Straits.

Fundamentally speaking, the deterioration of China-US relations arises from US’s misunderstanding of China, the world, and itself, and its serious misreading and misperceptions of China’s strategic intentions, which has derailed the right track of China-US relations. In this regard, I would like to share some views on China-US relations:

First, China is not the enemy of the US. The purpose of China’s development is to meet its people’s aspirations for a better life, rather than to replace or exclude others. China has never bet against the United States. We always place the development of the country and the nation on the basis of our own efforts and rely on the diligence and hard work of all Chinese people, as well as the policy of openness, inclusiveness, and win-win cooperation. The world is big enough for China and the United States to develop independently and together. China-US relations is not a zero-sum game of you-win-I-lose.

Second, the nature of China-US exchanges and cooperation is mutually beneficial and win-win. China and the US are closely intertwined economically. Both benefit from the other’s development, which helps explain why the bilateral trade volume has increased from 2.5 billion U.S. dollars of 1979 when the two countries established diplomatic relations to 760 billion dollars of 2022. According to US statistics, China-US trade supports over 2.6 million jobs in the US, and exports to China have benefited 250,000 American small and medium-sized enterprises. At present, there are 70 thousand American enterprises operating in China, with an annual sales revenue of over 700 billion US dollars and a profit of 50 billion US dollars. For General Motors based in Michigan, China is now its largest market. And Ford is in discussion with China’s new energy company CATL to cooperate in manufacturing batteries for new energy vehicles, which will create more than 6,000 direct jobs in Michigan and promote the development of new energy industry in the US. These are fully the choices of the people and the market. Countries may have both cooperation and competition in economic development, competition should be about mutual learning, catching up with each other and making common progress, rather than setting up obstacles to hinder and taking others down. Initiating trade wars or technology wars, building walls and barriers, forcing “decoupling and breaking chains” is a complete violation of the principles of market economy and international trade rules, which will hurt the interests of others as well as one’s own. The respective success of China and the United States is an opportunity rather than a challenge to each other. The two countries should and can learn from each other, promote mutual success, and achieve mutual benefit, win-win results, and common development.

Third, the people-to-people exchanges and cooperation between China and the US cannot be stopped. Both Chinese and American people are hard working, warm and kind-hearted and attach great importance to their families and respect honesty and integrity. They both hope and believe that they can create a better life with their hard work. All of those are the most important commonality between our two peoples, and form an important foundation for people-to-people exchanges. The two peoples look forward to better mutual understanding, more exchanges and cooperation. There are 50 pairs of sister provinces and states and 234 pairs of sister cities between China and the US. Before the pandemic, there were more than 300 flights flying between the two countries every week, and more than 5 million passengers traveling across the Pacific Ocean every year. Many American young people love Chinese culture and are learning Chinese with great interest. NBA is a household name in China. For Chinese young people, the US is one of the most popular destination to study abroad. Year after year, young Chinese students studied and graduated from American universities, many of them contributing to China’s modernization drive, many others having played an important role in helping the US maintain its long-term scientific and economic lead in the world.

 Fourth, China and the US share important responsibilities in addressing global challenges, maintaining world peace and promoting global development. The world today is not peaceful, with various global challenges emerging one after another. China and the US should work together to shoulder their responsibilities, play the due role of major countries, and provide more public goods in helping the world defeat the pandemic, promote post-COVID recovery, deal with the climate crisis, achieve green, low-carbon and sustainable development, prevent nuclear proliferation and promote cyber security.

Fifth, the Taiwan question is the most important and sensitive issue in China-US relations. The one-China principle is the political foundation of China-US relations. The Taiwan question is at the heart of China’s core interests. There is only one China in the world. Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory. Taiwan’s return to China is an important component of the post-WWII international order, as is stated in black and white in the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation. As a result of the civil war in China in the late 1940s, the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have fallen into a state of protracted political confrontation. But China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity have never been divided, and the fact that both the mainland and Taiwan belong to one and the same China has never changed. Just as the US will not allow Hawaii or Florida to be splitted from the federation, the Chinese people will never sit idly by if anyone attempts to split Taiwan from China. Taiwan separatist forces and “Taiwan independence” are the biggest threat to the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait. To safeguard peace across the Taiwan Strait, we must resolutely oppose and stop “Taiwan independence”. The US should abide by the one-China principle and the three China-US joint communiqués as well as its political commitment to China on the Taiwan question, stop hollowing out the one-China principle, stop condoning or abetting “Taiwan independence”.

Dear teachers and students,

President Xi Jinping pointed out that, “The most important event in international relations over the past 50 years was the reopening and development of China-US relations, which has benefited the two countries and the whole world. The most important event in international relations in the next 50 years will be for China and the US to find the right way to get along.” In November last year, when President Xi Jinping and President Biden met in Bali, Indonesia, President Xi stressed the importance to abandon the zero-sum game thinking where one side out-competes or thrives at the expense of the other, and to define China-US interactions by dialogue and win-win cooperation, not confrontation and zero-sum competition, and to bring China-US relations back on the right track of healthy and stable development under the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation. President Biden reaffirmed his “five-noes”statement, and further indicated that the US does not support “two Chinas” or “one China, one Taiwan”, does not seek to use the Taiwan question as a tool to contain China, and has no intention to seek “decoupling” from China, to start a new “Cold War”, or to contain China. The candid and in-depth communication between the two presidents was constructive and strategic, and pointed out the direction for the development of China-US bilateral relations. China and the US should follow through on the important common understandings between the two heads of state. It is our common responsibility and a proper answer to the history to choose peace and stability, dialogue and cooperation, respect and inclusiveness, openness and win-win.

It is our common responsibility to present a healthy and stable China-US relationship to our two peoples and to the whole world.