Under the new generation of leadership headed by Hu Jintao, Chinese diplomacy has created more balanced and harmonious development. China is becoming a global power thanks to its growing economic strength. China conducts people first foreign policies, and has generally realized diplomatic democratization.

Entering the new century, China's diplomacy has worked fairly well. China is progressive when dealing with foreign affairs and makes no serious diplomatic mistakes.

What tasks and challenges does China face?

Currently, Chinese diplomacy faces three top tasks: economic development, sovereignty and security guarantees, and international responsibility.

First, China is at a crossroads in its development. Against the backdrop of the global financial crisis, how to realize sustainable development is an urgent problem that needs to be settled. The Chinese people have showed great enthusiasm and creativity in the past 30 years, and the country's market continues to be active. But development brings problems as well. Past development focused on the accumulation of a high quantity of low value-added products instead of the promotion of quality. The development of industries such as iron and steel, oil, coal, chemicals and machinery manufacture has caused big pollution problems. The pollution crisis reveals the limitations of China's development mode. Its industrial structure needs to be upgraded, its scientific and technological input is insufficient, and its primary products make up too large a proportion of industrial production. An industrial structure like this not only leads to high energy consumption, serious pollution and low value, but also causes complaints from the outside world.

Second, China faces challenges in sovereignty and security fronts. China has more than 30 neighboring countries, and more than a dozen of them have territorial disputes with China. How to deal with these disputes is a big obstacle to China's growth. A new round of the "enclosure movement" in the South China Sea puts great pressure on China. China must rely on international law and settle this problem through negotiation and diplomatic channels. Moreover, China also faces many non-traditional security threats, such as pandemic diseases like SARS and A/H1N1, the financial crisis and the "three evil forces" of terrorism, separatism and extremism, which threaten the country's safety and stability.

Third, China also faces challenges in international responsibility and duties. As a big country with thousands of years of civilization, China will make great progress and great contributions to mankind in the 21st century, if its growth can inspire the development of its neighbors and eventually the whole international community.

Together with China's growth and development come voices of suspicion and doubt from the outside world, as evidenced by the "China-threat" theory. These views inevitably contain hostile elements. But my opinion is, we must focus on our own business first and do it well. We should foster a healthy national mentality inside the country and map out flexible diplomatic policies. China still needs to promote itself in many fields. For example, China conducts its diplomatic activities mainly through official exchanges. It ought to increase communication with NGOs.

China should also increase its voice in international affairs by making concrete contributions to the world, such as offering more strategic foreign aid and international public goods. China's annual foreign aid generally equals only about 0.1 percent of its gross domestic product, while that of Northern European countries is about 1 percent. The Chinese people and officials should be encouraged to develop an international conscience because strategic foreign aid will also benefit the country. For example, stability in Afghanistan would give China a safer neighborhood. Public goods are like public welfare, their meaning extends beyond state interests. To promote the construction of a harmonious world, China should raise the proportion of foreign aid as well as that of public goods. I hope, after another 20 years, China offers foreign aid not for its national interests, but for the well being of the people and the world.

Besides, China should pay much more attention to the security of overseas students, overseas Chinese and cargo ships when making diplomatic policies. Currently, Chinese officials know much more about the requirement of civil society than before. The country's diplomacy will continue to change according to the people first principle for a long time.