China has consistently adhered to the five principles of peace***situation in its relations with all countries, including socialist countries, and has established and developed friendly and cooperative relations with many countries in the world on this basis. For example, in Asia, China has successfully resolved the border problems left over from history with Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Mongolia, and with Indonesia on the issue of dual citizenship for overseas Chinese, thus establishing an image of peace and becoming a model for consolidating peace in the region and strengthening the solidarity of Asian countries. According to statistics, by the time Premier Zhou passed away in 1976, more than 90 countries had recognized the five principles of peace***situation in documents issued with China***, and more than 100 countries had established diplomatic relations with China on this basis.
At the same time, the five principles have crossed the ideological divide and won the recognition of Western countries. In the 1950s, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, France, Belgium and other countries introduced this principle in relevant documents. after the 1970s, Japan, Britain, the Netherlands, the Federal Republic of Germany, Australia, the United States successively accepted this principle and included it in friendship treaties or joint statements with China. over the past 50 years, the Five Principles of Peaceful ****treatment have been written into more than 160 international documents. The agreement on the principles signed between two countries has been accepted by almost all countries in the world, which is very rare in the history of international relations.
From the time the Five Principles of Peace****, Chinese leaders' diplomatic thinking has been consistent, always standing on the fundamental, long-term position of the Chinese people and the people of the world. An example is foreign aid. Since the founding of new China, in its own difficult circumstances, to many countries in the world, especially some newly independent countries, to provide a large number of assistance programs, to benefit people's livelihood, building hospitals, schools, roads, but also sent a large number of medical teams to many poor countries.
According to statistics, China's foreign aid has been provided in eight main ways, namely: complete sets of projects, general materials, technical cooperation, cooperation in human resources development, foreign aid medical teams, emergency humanitarian aid, foreign aid volunteers and debt relief. Of these, package projects are the most important form of China's foreign assistance, which refers to China's assistance in helping recipient countries to build engineering projects in the production and civilian fields by providing assistance funds such as non-reimbursable aid and interest-free loans. By the end of 2009, China*** had helped developing countries build more than 2,000 complete projects of various kinds that are closely related to the production and life of the local people, covering a wide range of fields such as industry, agriculture, culture and education, health, communications, electricity, energy and transportation.
China has been implementing human resources development cooperation programs since 1953. At present, about 10,000 personnel from developing countries are trained in China every year. In addition, China has also trained a large number of management and technical personnel locally for recipient countries through technical cooperation and other means.
In 1963, China sent its first medical team to Algeria. Up to now, China has sent foreign-aid medical teams to 69 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean and Oceania. A foreign aid medical team means that China sends a team of medical personnel to a recipient country, and provides some medical equipment and medicines free of charge, to carry out fixed-point or itinerant medical services in the recipient country. The teams generally work in backward areas of the recipient countries where there is a lack of medical care and medicines, and the conditions are very difficult. By the end of 2009, China had dispatched more than 21,000 foreign medical aid workers to foreign countries, and the number of patients treated by Chinese doctors in recipient countries had reached 260 million. In 2009 alone, for example, China had 60 foreign-aided medical teams,**** 1,324 medical team members providing medical services in 130 medical institutions in 57 developing countries.
Over the years, China has actively participated in foreign emergency relief operations and played an increasingly important role in the international emergency humanitarian relief cause. Emergency humanitarian assistance refers to China's provision of emergency relief materials, cash remittances or dispatch of rescue personnel on its own initiative or at the request of the affected country in the event that the country or region concerned suffers from various serious natural disasters or humanitarian catastrophes, in order to alleviate the loss of life and property of the people in the affected area and to help the affected country to cope with the difficult situation caused by the disaster. In September 2004, the Chinese government formally established an emergency response mechanism for emergency humanitarian relief assistance in order to make rescue operations more rapid and effective.
In order to further alleviate the debt burden of countries with economic difficulties, the Chinese government has announced on six occasions that it will forgive the debt of heavily indebted poor countries and least developed countries with which China has diplomatic relations for their interest-free loans due to China. Debt relief refers to China's cancellation of the matured government debt of some developing countries to China. The Chinese Government has never exerted repayment pressure on recipient countries' government debt to China. When a recipient country encounters difficulties in repaying its matured interest-free loans, the Chinese Government has always adopted a flexible approach and extended the repayment period through bilateral negotiations. By the end of 2009, China had signed debt-relief protocols with 50 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and Oceania, and forgiven 380 mature debts amounting to 25.58 billion yuan.
Today's world is in a period of great development, great change and great adjustment. The concepts of peace, development and cooperation have become more popular. The world multipolarization, economic globalization, deepening economic interdependence of countries, emerging market countries and developing countries growing rapidly, the international economic order is undergoing profound changes. At the same time, it should be noted that, since the onset of the international financial crisis, the pace of recovery of the world economy has remained slow, the foundation is still weak, and there are still many uncertainties, and the deep-rooted impact of the crisis has yet to be eliminated. International and regional hotspot issues are emerging one after another, the imbalance between North and South has become more prominent, and various forms of protectionism have resurfaced. Humanity's survival and development are facing a series of new global challenges, including climate change, energy security and food security.
China's leaders have repeatedly said on different occasions that China is willing to actively participate in discussing and resolving major issues in the development of the world economy, and to work with other countries to address the challenges. The steady development of China-Russia relations illustrates this point. China and Russia are both important emerging market countries in the world. The sustained and stable development of the two countries not only provides each other with development opportunities, but also contributes to the promotion of the world economy. In recent years, thanks to the efforts of both sides***, economic and trade cooperation between the two countries has seen a strong recovery, and China and Russia have become each other's major trading partners. Not long ago, during his visit to Russia, President Hu Jintao and President Medvedev agreed to work to increase the trade volume between the two countries to 100 billion U.S. dollars by the year 2015 and to 200 billion U.S. dollars by the year 2020. This will lay a solid foundation for further cooperation and development of the two economies.
This is also illustrated by the development of relations between China and Germany, which in 2004 declared a partnership with global responsibility within the framework of the China-EU Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Close economic cooperation is an important pillar of Sino-German relations. Thanks to the joint efforts of the two countries***, economic and technical cooperation has borne fruit and brought tangible benefits. Last year, trade between the two countries amounted to more than 140 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for nearly one-third of China's total trade with the EU. Germany has set up more than 7,000 enterprises in China, with an actual investment of more than 17 billion U.S. dollars, ranking first among EU countries. Germany is also the country that China has imported the most technology from Europe. The two sides have signed more than 15,000 contracts on technology introduction, with a contract value of more than 50 billion dollars. Especially in response to the international financial crisis, the two countries close communication, coordinated action, for the world economic recovery has made a positive contribution.