At their year-end stories filed back to the head office, Yu Qing, Sun Li and 15 other resident People's Daily journalists from around the globe have reported their interviews with a large number of foreign dignities, including ace political figures, experts and scholars, and the gist of the wide-range coverage of such interviews is as follows:
The contemporary world is amid an era of great, in-depth changes and readjustments, and China has ascended the global stage with an unprecedented, positive posture. With great historic changes occurred in this biggest developing nation, China has increasingly linked its future with that of the entire world. And the nation has integrated itself with the whole globe, and its future will also have a profound impact on the world.
After some three decades of sustained, fast growth, China's might has been inspiring. In recent years, it has worked very hard to spur the development of a harmonious world with its principled stand and substantial efforts. “China will persevere in taking the road of peaceful development,” and it represents not only a solemn statement but a serious commitment.
“Chinese socio-economic development has entered into a new epoch of rapid development, and I personally have had quite different feelings on each of my trips to China,” said Mikhail Titarenko, director of the Far-East Research Institute affiliated to the Russian Academy of Sciences. With regard to his latest China trip right after the conclusion of the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), he said he had felt the upbeat social ethos and atmosphere.
Chinese leaders, who not only look squarely at some problems in the course of social development but seek methods for their solutions, have now called for building up a socialist harmonious society with the guidance of a scientific outlook on development, said Tiharenko, who also serves Chairman of the Russia-China Friendship Association.
“What China impresses people the world over most in 2007 is in its economic sector,” Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said to PD reporters. The Chinese government has taken steady, proactive economic policies, which are expected to play a decisive role in sustained economic growth in the years to come. Moreover, he added, huge, immense consumption capacity has also played a positive role in social development but will bring in an endless flow of investment, he acknowledged. China has indeed entered into the mature, stable period of development.
Meanwhile, Joseph S. Nye Jr., a distinguished Professor of government at Harvard University, said he holds that China's soft power has increasingly beefed up, including the “Chinese language fever” currently emerging in countries worldwide, including the United States, which not only epitomizes the rise of Chinese soft power but constitutes a vital means of raising the soft power.
Joseph S. Nye Jr.. set forth the concept of “soft power” back in the 1990s, and the concept has so far affected the people's concept on international relations. In recent years, the Chinese government has exhibited and spread to the West via the effort to initiate a host of international cultural activities, and particularly through its vital endeavor to run Confucius Institutes in numerous countries globally, Such viable ways of promoting the Chinese culture among aliens, he maintained, are indeed conducive for people in the West to come to understand China and its splendid culture more profoundly.
A recent USA report suggests that the number of students in grade and high schools in the United states has risen rapidly and, according to a forecast done by an all-American second language education council, the Chinese language or Spanish would hopefully be the first option for this age group of students to choose to learn as the second language in a decade to come.
With respect to China's vital role in global and regional affairs in his interview with PD reporters, Koichi Kato, former secretary general of the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), first of all recalled the six-party talks of the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue. When talking about the over one-year protracted process of the six-party talks, he said China had made painstaking, vigorous efforts to save a desperate situation and made tremendous contributions in this regard.
The six-party talks had made an important breakthrough as the third phase of the fifth round of talks ended with a joint document on February 13. Again on October 3rd, the six-party talks Joint Statement for the second phase was adopted. And the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) promised to de-function or shut down its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon by the end of 2007.
The US and DRPK delegations now have face-to-face talks in many places around the world today, where they simply refused to meet to talk at the beginning of the first round of six-party talks. In China's entire process to act as go between, the role it has played is obvious to all, Kato said.
Furthermore, Mikhail Titarenko, director of the Far East Research Institute under the Russian Academy of Sciences, noted with a unique angle that China's reform and opening to the outside world is of vital importance to many countries in their economic development and social progress, and Russia itself has drawn on China's experience in its economic construction.
China has adhered to the road of peaceful development, and stands for resolving problems faced by the humankind fairly and reasonably on the established principles and norms of the international laws, he underscored, saying that the “China factor' that has arrested global attention is now indispensable for the establishment of a just and rational international order for the 21st century. The irreplaceable, crucial role China has played in the six party talks is precisely a eloquent proof. In fact, China, the most populous nation with the fastest economic growth on earth, has become a vital, important force in defense of world peace and stability, Titarenko said.
By People's Daily Online
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