Speech by Vice President Li Xiaolin at NCSL Annual Conference 

Salt Lake City, July 19, 2004    

Respected Ms. Kathy Higgins,
Ladies and Gentleman,
Friends, 

    Good morning! It is my great pleasure to attend NCSL 2004 Annual Meeting in beautiful Salt Lake City. First of all, please allow me, on behalf of Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, CPAFFC for short, and the Chinese delegation, to express our heartfelt thanks to the organizers of this great event for your invitation and gracious hospitality!

    The Chinese delegation consists of 13 provincial legislators from Jiangsu Province led by Ms. Bai Suning, Vice Chair of Jiangsu Provincial People's Congress. This afternoon Ms. Bai will brief you on the trends of higher education in her province and in China at large. There they are…

    As the most influential national bi-partisan organization of state legislatures, NCSL has contributed significantly to the understanding and exchanges between US legislatures and their counterparts from other countries in the world. Even since we established working relations with NCSL in 1996, the CPAFFC has dispatched yearly provincial legislators to attend NCSL annual meetings and received 2 visiting NCSL delegations in China. These friendly exchanges have greatly deepened the mutual understanding between Chinese and US legislatures. We cherish this communication channel, and are proud of our sound working relations. We will continue to work to strengthen our friendly tie.

    However, an important factor underlying our cooperation is, I believe, NCSL leadership's valuing of China-US relations, in particular their proper approach to the Taiwan Issue, which is at the core of China's national interests and a key element bearing upon China-US relations. However the Taiwan regime acts, the fact cannot be changed that there is only one China in the world and that Taiwan is part of China. We appreciate President Bush's reiteration of US' One China policy and its position of abiding by the spirit of the Three Joint Communiqués and opposing Taiwan Independence. We hope US could fulfill its promises to serve the basic interests of both nations and facilitate our bilateral cooperation. It is also our sincere hope that friends from NCSL could also understand and support our principled stand, relentlessly pushing forward the development of China-US ties.

    Founded in 1954, CPAFFC is one of the largest national NGO in PRC with over 300 local chapters all over China. We have forged friendly and cooperative ties with about 550 NGOs from 130 countries. We take it as our goals to build people-to-people friendship, facilitate international cooperation, safeguard world peace and promote common development. In that process we have received support and assistance from the Chinese government and various social circles for all our efforts and projects.

    Dear friends, China has seen great economic and social progresses in the past two decades. Seeing is believing. We welcome you to visit China, to invest and cooperate with us in various ways. We at CPAFFC are ready to offer our full support and assistance wherever you see the need.   

    I wish all distinguished guests health and wish this forum complete success!