China-U.S. ties at new historical starting point

Hosting the Olympic Games has not "pushed China to the heaven at a single stroke", so to speak. China remains a developing country in every sense of the term. A few days ago, I received a photo of my junior high school classmates, and half of my 52 classmates have already passed away. Why so? Because ours is still a developing country. Of my five brothers and sisters, the three in the countryside have all passed away. Why? Because ours is still a developing country. China is large in population but still weak in economy. For a country like ours, no matter how great our financial and material strength may be, when divided by 1.3 billion, it will result in a very small per capita figure.

The number of people with a disability in China stands at 84 million, 20 million more than the total population of France. Each year, we need to provide employment to 24 million people. There are over 10 million people living in abject poverty. In addition, this year more than 10 million people were directly affected by the massive earthquake in Sichuan. Just imagine, what a complicated, gigantic and daunting challenge it must be to meet even the basic needs of the over 100 million disadvantaged people and enable them to live a decent life. For these reasons, there is still a long way to go before China can truly become prosperous and strong. So far, we have only completed the first few steps in this long march.

China's development has brought opportunities for prosperity, development and cooperation to all countries, including the United States, and China is an important stabilizing force for gradual and orderly changes in the international system.