Over the past five decades, since the founding of the People's Republic, China-U.S. relations have traversed a course featuring in the beginning a mutual confrontation, estrangement and then to the gradual improvement and growth. Looking back at the course of development of China-U.S. relations in the past five decades, inspite of all these twists and turns and ups and downs, the general trend of this relationship is gradually moving forward. This development has embodied the energy and the efforts made by the pioneers of our two countries with vision and has also reflected the common aspiration of the Chinese and the American peoples. It also goes with the trend of the development in the international situation towards peace and development. History has proved, and it will continue to prove, that confrontation and antagonism are undesirable.
Exchanges are better than estrangement and cooperation better than confrontation.
The 21st Century should be a century much better than the 20th Century and the 21st Century should be a century of peace and of development. China and the United States, as the largest developing country and the largest developed country in the world, should further enhance mutual understanding, expand cooperation and work together with the rest of the world to build a more splendid new century.