Page 232 - SELECTED WORKS OF DENG XIAOPING Volume III

REFORM AND OPENING TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD
CAN TRULY INVIGORATE CHINA

May 12, 1987

Although I have not been to your country, I know that much land in
the Netherlands was reclaimed from the sea, and your spirit of hard work is
marvelous. In China we have a saying, “The foolish old man removed
mountains.” This represents a tradition of our nation. One might say of
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your people “The foolish old man reclaimed land from the sea.” China’s
average per capita amount of arable land is small, and yours is even smaller,
but you have been successful in your work, and your country has become a
big exporter of farm products. So we should learn from you.
We are happy to see you here in China for the second time. When you
came in 1973 the “cultural revolution” [1966-1976] was still going on. At
the time the Gang of Four was in power and running wild, and the people
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were oppressed and deeply worried about the future of the country. The
society as a whole was at a standstill. The first couple of years after the
“cultural revolution” were a period of hesitation. It was not until December
1978, when the Eleventh Central Committee of the CPC convened its Third
Plenary Session, that we began to invigorate the country by devoting all our
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energies to things the people wanted us to do. In the eight years since that
session we have taken the first step in our new Long March towards
modernization. Our decision to concentrate on economic development was
correct. To make economic development a success, we decided to open up
domestically and internationally, which has also proved correct.
In the last eight years we have only taken the first step. We have scored
notable achievements in developing the economy, but we still have not
shaken off poverty and backwardness. Our first goal is to achieve compara-
tive prosperity by the end of the century, or in thirteen years from now. Our
next goal is to reach the level of the moderately developed countries in the
first 50 years of the next century. By then the overall strength of our country
Excerpt from a talk with Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers of the Netherlands.

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