In your opinion, what is the real image of China and of the Chinese people?

The image of China can be concluded in the following words: peace and development, civilization and progress, democracy and rule of law, reform and innovation, and win-win cooperation. These words are the best description of contemporary China.

I'd like to point out that China's commitment to peaceful development must be closely followed when presenting the image of China to the rest of the world. China's pursuit of peaceful development is a solemn political commitment to the international community. It's an inevitable choice of the Chinese people after their long subjection to imperialist powers' invasion, pillage and oppression. It is also an inevitable choice of the Chinese history and cultural tradition. This choice goes in line with the historical trend of peace, development and cooperation. By pursuing this road of peaceful development, domestically, we mean to build socialism with Chinese characteristics while concentrating on our reform, construction and development. We try to build a society featuring democracy, rule of law, fairness and justice, sincerity, vitality and the harmonious coexistence of human beings and nature. At the same time, we will always go along with the trend of economic globalization, uphold the banner of peace, development and cooperation, and join hands with all other countries to build a harmonious world of lasting peace and common prosperity. The core of China's road to peaceful development is to make use of the precious opportunity of world peace to achieve its own development and to safeguard and promote world peace and common development through its own development. China will never seek hegemony and will remain as a staunch force to safeguard world peace and promote common development.

I'd like to point out that it's a time-consuming project to help the world get an objective and full understanding of China, as China is a big country featuring uneven development in different regions. In addition, it is also undergoing rapid development and changes with each passing day, which is reflected not only in the increasing number of high buildings and cars, but also in the changes of the Chinese people's way of thinking. From the point of view of history, China has conducted reform and opening-up for only a bit more than 20 years, so its contact with the rest of the world is still quite limited. It's thus natural that foreigners may find that some Chinese are easy to communicate with while others are not. With the advance of China's reform, opening-up and international exchange, the communication and understanding between China and other countries will grow and improve further and further.

Do you think that international public opinions toward China are changing?

Along with changes in the international situation and China's economic and social development, some important changes have taken place in international public opinions toward China. First, with the growth of China's international status and national strength, foreign governments, media and ordinary people alike all want to know more about China. The proportion of reports about China in foreign media has kept rising. Second, positive, objective and neutral reports about China in foreign media are increasing. There are more and more foreign video and audio products that sing the praises or present objective descriptions of China. Third, in their reports about China, foreign media tend to use more information and facts issued by China's authoritative departments and news agencies like your magazine that target foreign readers. However, as there exist quite a lot of differences, including those in ideologies, between China and other countries, generally speaking, reports about China in the West are still quite limited, and unreal, incomplete or even negative comments remain a common phenomenon. International public opinion toward China may pose a grim challenge to us for quite a long time in the future, so unremitting efforts are necessary to improve the current unfavorable situation.