| China Daily
As the People’s Republic of China marked the 77th anniversary of its founding on Oct 1, celebrations in many parts of the world have brought together government officials and business leaders, who lauded China’s development and called for enhanced bilateral cooperation.
At a reception at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Wednesday to celebrate the anniversary, President Xi Jinping called on the nation to forge ahead with firm confidence and take solid steps to achieve the great national rejuvenation.
Xi said: “We are immensely proud of the remarkable achievements of New China and fully confident in the bright prospects for Chinese modernization.”
In recent days, Chinese embassies and consulates worldwide have hosted a series of events to celebrate the National Day. Attending officials from various countries highly praised China’s development achievements and expressed a desire to deepen mutually beneficial cooperation.
At the United Nations’ headquarters in New York, leading officials emphasized China’s important role in multilateral cooperation.
Guy Ryder, UN under-secretary-general for policy, said China is “a very active defender of multilateralism”.
“It’s difficult to imagine, impossible to imagine, the United Nations without the People’s Republic of China,” Ryder said.
Movses Abelian, UN under-secretary-general for General Assembly and Conference Management, also extended his greetings, offering wishes “for prosperity, harmony, and the best to all people of China”.
The celebrations were also observed by Chinese Americans in the US. Jack Ding, a city council member in Sonoma, California, said that, as a Chinese American, he drew strength from Xi’s speech.
Sherry Hu, mayor of Dublin, California, said that a trip to China in April gave her a firsthand look at the country’s development.
“I saw how fast the high-speed trains are, how convenient they are to board, and how efficiently crowds are managed at the airports. I felt proud of these achievements,” Hu said.
The celebrations also came at a significant moment for China-US relations, shortly after Xi concluded his state visit to the US.
Rachel Washington, regional director of the US Department of State’s Office of Foreign Missions in Los Angeles, congratulated China on the National Day and highlighted the importance of continued high-level bilateral engagement.
“As Chinese citizens around the globe prepare to celebrate National Day and Golden Week, the United States congratulates the People’s Republic of China on its founding, and we celebrate with you,” Washington told China Daily.
“We celebrate the United States and China as the world’s two largest economies. We celebrate the continued diplomacy between our nations at the highest level, and we celebrate the fact that continued leader-level diplomacy is helping build a constructive US-China relationship and strategic stability based on respect, fairness and reciprocity.”
Paul Triolo, a partner at DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group who works with companies doing business in China, said: “I think going forward the most important thing will be that the two nations continue to work on how to have a more constructive and strategic and stable relationship.”
Sean Stein, president of the US-China Business Council, said its impact should not be viewed only through trade and investment statistics.
“What we should really look at is the number of lives that have been transformed, the businesses that have been established, the relationships that have been built, the patients who have gained access to new treatment, the worker whose livelihood depends on overseas customers, and the many, many, many young people who studied side by side on both sides of the Pacific over the years,” Stein said.
Lawrence Loh, director of the Centre for Governance and Sustainability at the National University of Singapore Business School, said: “China has undoubtedly made great strides, particularly in the recent decade, when it emerged as a formidable global leader excelling in various economic and technological fields.
“Most notably, it has contributed as a responsible superpower to advance humanitarian and environmental causes for the greater good.”
Speaking at a reception held by the Chinese embassy in Ghana last week, Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings, Ghanaian minister for environment, science and technology, noted that Ghana and many other developing countries have much to learn from China’s experience.
Agyeman-Rawlings lauded the compassionate and skillful manner in which Chinese medical teams take care of Ghanaians, showing the ever-growing strong and brotherly bonds between the two countries.
Addressing a reception held by the Chinese embassy in South Africa on Wednesday, former South African president Kgalema Motlanthe said, “May the next chapter of South Africa-China relations contribute to a shared future for humanity and the construction of an international order founded upon equality among nations, mutual respect and shared humanity.”
** Lireda Zhu in San Francisco, Rena Li in Los Angeles, Yifan Xu in Washington, DC, and Minlu Zhang at the United Nations and Xinhua contributed to this story.
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