Page 3 - ON BUILDING A HUMAN COMMUNITY WITH A SHARED FUTURE

SPEECH AT THE KÖRBER FOUNDATION

development by preserving world peace and preserve world peace using
its own development. Its peaceful development path is China’s response
to international concern about the direction of its development, and is
also an expression of its people’s confidence and active commitment to
realizing our own development goals. This confidence and commitment
are rooted in the deep traditions of the Chinese civilization, in our
perception of the conditions for achieving our development goals, and in
our understanding of general global development trends.
The Chinese nation is a peace-loving nation. A nation’s deepest
pursuits of the mind are determined by national character, passed down
from one generation to the next. With over 5,000 years of history,
the Chinese civilization has always held peace in the highest esteem.
The pursuit of peace, amity, and harmony is inherent to the Chinese
character. It runs deep in our veins. Already in ancient China, we find
the exhortation, “Regardless of size, a state partial to war will perish.”
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Handed down through the ages we find ideas such as, “Regard peace as
most precious”; seek “Harmony in diversity”; “Exchange weapons of
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war for the jade and silk of peace”; know that “If the nation is at peace,
the people live in comfort”; “Foster friendship with neighbors”; and
seek a state of “Peace under Heaven” and “Harmony under Heaven.”
Historically, China was long one of the most powerful countries in the
world. Yet it has no record of colonialism or foreign aggression. That
today we are committed to a peaceful development path is a continuation
and extension of this peace-loving nature that has been a cultural
tradition of our nation for thousands of years.
China has now set goals for its future development. First, by 2020,
we aim to double our national 2010 GDP and per capita personal income
and finish building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. And
second, by the mid-21st century, we aim to have turned ourselves into a
modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally
advanced, and harmonious. We refer to these goals as the Chinese Dream
of national rejuvenation. China has a population of over 1.3 billion.
As long as we are on the right path, we can quickly elevate the general
level of prosperity and raise the happiness index. But improving these
things for each individual is not quite as easy. Think of it this way: if we
all go for dinner, even with generous servings, depending on whether

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