Facing a complex and volatile international security situation, the Chinese government and armed forces stay committed to regional and world prosperity and stability. Those who are familiar with China’s modern history must know that the country was once poor and weak and went through enormous misery. The Chinese people know very well the value of peace and the cruelty and destructiveness of war. Over the years some have been recklessly hyping up, exaggerating and dramatising the China threat theory, partly due to the lack of understanding of China’s history, culture and policies, but more likely due to misunderstanding, prejudice or even a hidden agenda of their own.

The Chinese are a great nation, incapable of permanent suppression by foreigners. They will not consent to adopt our vices in order to acquire military strength; but they are willing to adopt our virtues in order to advance in wisdom. I think they are the only people in the world who quite genuinely believe that wisdom is more precious than rubies. That is why the West regards them as uncivilized.

The Chinese are formidable, clever, hard-working, disciplined people. They’ve achieved economic miracles. They’re not supermen. We can beat them if we do the things America does best.

China is now suffering from poverty, not from unequal distribution of wealth. Where there are inequalities of wealth, the methods of Marx can, of course, be used; a class war can be advocated to destroy the inequalities. But in China, where industry is not yet developed, Marx's class war and dictatorship of the proletariat are impracticable.

China's protracted war has exacted and will continue to exact great sacrifices from the Chinese people, but at the same time this very war has tempered them. It has awakened and united the Chinese people to a greater degree than all their great struggles in the last hundred years. The Chinese people face not only a formidable national enemy but also powerful domestic reactionary forces which are in fact helping the enemy; this is one side of the picture. But the other side is that the Chinese people are not only more politically conscious than ever before but have built powerful Liberated Areas and a nation-wide democratic movement that is growing day by day. These constitute favourable domestic conditions. If the defeats and setbacks in the Chinese people's struggles of the last hundred years were due to the absence of certain necessary international and domestic conditions, then today the situation is different--all the necessary conditions are present. There is every possibility of avoiding defeat and winning victory. We shall be victorious if we can unite the whole people in resolute struggle and give them proper leadership.

A dangerous tendency has shown itself of late among many of our personnel -- an unwillingness to share weal and woe with the masses, a concern for personal fame and gain. This is very bad. One way of overcoming it is to streamline our organizations in the course of our campaign to increase production and practice economy, and to transfer cadres to lower levels so that a considerable number will return to productive work. We must see to it that all our cadres and all our people constantly bear in mind that ours is a large socialist country but an economically backward and poor one, and that this is a very big contradiction. To make China prosperous and strong needs several decades of hard struggle, which means, among other things, pursuing the policy of building up our country through diligence and thrift, that is, practicing strict economy and fighting waste.

As an old soldier who went through the winds of war in the first half of this century, I am keenly aware of the deep scars that agonizing chapter has left on the hearts and minds of our people. It teaches us that to live a peaceful tranquil and dignified life, our people must have the capability to defend themselves. It teaches us that the miseries the Chinese people went through in recent past must not be repeated either in China or in any other part of the world. Peace should be enjoyed by people of all countries. Even if China becomes stronger in the fixture, it will never embark on external aggression and expansion.

[T]he backward homeland of my childhood has become the world’s second-largest economy... massive new cities... astonishing technological wonders. Yet... the world is... asking the same questions... comparing China to former Communist... autocratic... repressive regimes.

China pursues a defense policy that is defensive in nature. This is out of the need for safeguarding state sovereignty and territorial integrity and maintaining lasting peace and stability for the country. China has never invaded any country nor has it stationed a single soldier abroad. However, there are still some people around the world who keep spreading the fallacy of the "China threat", arguing that a stronger China will threaten others and become a destabilizing factor in the Asia-Pacific region. I believe these people have ulterior motives. They are not happy to see China in development and progress. As is known to all, China's modern history is one that saw its territories ceded and its people subjected to foreign aggression, plunder and enslavement.

I normalized diplomatic relations with China in 1979. Since 1979, do you know how many times China has been at war with anybody? None. And we have stayed at war. (Carter said the United States is) the most warlike nation in the history of the world... How many miles of high-speed railroad do we have in this country?... We have wasted, I think, $3 trillion (military spending) ... China has not wasted a single penny on war, and that's why they're ahead of us. In almost every way... And I think the difference is if you take $3 trillion and put it in American infrastructure, you'd probably have $2 trillion left over. We'd have high-speed railroad. We'd have bridges that aren't collapsing. We'd have roads that are maintained properly. Our education system would be as good as that of, say, South Korea or Hong Kong.... I wasn't comparing my country adversely to China... I was just pointing that out because I happened to get a phone call last night.

I think the Chinese are a people of survival. We are all wonderful survivors. We have risen in population during the last century, a century in which wars and famines have happened all the time. We have survived natural and political disasters almost every other year during the last sixty years. Without optimism I don’t think my people could live until today. I have gone to poor rural areas in China and seen destitute people joke and jest and laugh. I can imagine Chinese at the bottom of society, surviving like them over thousands of years. They must have a good sense of humor to go through hardship, and they must have learned how to steal whatever small pleasure they can to hold on to their dear life. I can’t imagine that any people could survive so many centuries of sorrow if to live only means to suffer. They have learned to steal joy, however little, out of the overall suffering.

At the time of the victory of the democratic revolution China was extremely and backward in economy, with the proletariat accounting for only a tiny portion of the population and the peasants for more than 80 per cent. Was it possible for a big country in such circumstances to switch over immediately to the socialist revolution upon the victory of the democratic revolution? More than a few people, at home and abroad, inside our Party and outside, expressed their doubts or simply thought it impossible.

The Chinese sometimes arrived poor. Some started by just selling noodles on the street. But they work hard and move up. Most, though, came with many advantages, with money and contacts or easy access to loans through their own banks and networks, but the problem is not the, the problem is that we don't have a level playing field.

The achievements China has made come from the hard work, diligence and creativity of more than one billion Chinese people; not from aggression, expansion, and pondering. Wherever China goes, we focus on building capacity, seeking cooperation and promoting development. This is widely recognised by the international community. As a Chinese saying goes, adjust course should be pursued for common good. China is ready to join hands with all countries on the path towards modernisation, and create new opportunities for global stability and prosperity.