Olympic Games
The 29th Summer Olympic Games will start to be held on August 8, 2008 in Beijing,
China. By then China will become the spotlight of the whole world. It is less than 5
months to the Beijing Olympic Games. Everybody is looking forward to this great
event.
"One World, One dream" is the slogan for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and
The Official Mascots of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, called Friendlies. The Five
Friendlies embody the natural characteristics of the Olympic Flame and four of
China's most popular animals, which are the Fish, the Panda, the Tibetan Antelope,
and the Swallow. Each of them has a name, 贝贝(Bei Bei) 晶晶(Jing Jing) 欢欢
(Huan Huan) 迎迎(Ying Ying) and 妮妮(Ni Ni), if you put their names together, it
means Welcome to Beijing.
In order to guarantee the Olympic Games’ success, the host country need to be
invested in the best quality and most advanced technology, equipment and products,
triggers a relevant technology and products to upgrade and promote the industrial and
technological structure of the high grade. So the Chinese government decided to build
a new stadium--the Beijing National Stadium, we also call it as the Bird's Nest, to
present how we are thinking highly of the Olympic Games in 2008. It’s a very
attractive modern architecture, just like a real bird’s nest. It will be the main track and
field stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics and will be host to the Opening and
Closing ceremonies.
We’ve already knew a lot of examples of both successfully hosting the Olympic
Games and improving the city's economic development. Because the Olympic Games
is the largest global sport events with such a wide influence, so I believe this time the
Olympic Games will still contribute to the rapid economic growth in Beijing, even in
the whole China. There will be more great employment opportunities for people and
more production for export after all.
But our economy has been growing very fast already before the Olympic Games.
Economy
The economic globalization was an essential attribute of world economic
development. Whether each country could understand and deal with economic
globalization properly was an important reason why the world economic growth was
unbalanced. China went along with the economic globalization, regarded opening up
to the outside world as the basic state policy, so that finally lead to obtain great
achievements and attract worldwide attention. In the future, with the China's economy
expanding, the positive role of China to the world economic development would be
more remarkable.
The achievements since 1978 when China opened up to the outside world, we actively
and effectively deal with the opportunity and challenge that the economic
globalization brought. Compared with experiences of other countries of economic
globalization, there was both generality and uniqueness in success of China. From
national conditions of China, we steadily promoted reform of economic system and
accomplished transition successfully from the planned economy to the market
economic system and provided effective system assurance for participating in the
economic globalization; and we regard science and technology as the primary
productive force, focus more on education and human resource to strengthen the
international competitiveness constantly; also we have introduced many foreign
capital and advanced technologies in order to develop foreign trade. From 1978 to
2007, total trade value of China increases by 57 times, annual average growth up by
16%, absorbing more than US$ 600 billion of direct foreign investments totally,
introducing more than US$ 300 billion of foreign advanced technology totally. To
avoid the financial disturbances that frequently take place in some developing
countries, China insists on utilizing the direct foreign investments, opening the
domestic capital market actively and reliably and controlling the risk of opening to the
outside world effectively.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), China's gross domestic product
(GDP) reached 24.6619 trillion yuan (3.43 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2007, up 11.4
percent year-on-year. The growth rate was 0.3 percentage points higher than the level
in 2006. The consumer price index (CPI) was up 4.8 percent, exceeding the
government's target of 3 percent. The CPI was also 3.3 percentage points higher than
in 2006.The United States and China had been powerful engines for the current cycle
of global growth. Although the mounting possibility of the U.S. economy moving into
a recession was bound to have a negative effect on the world economy, many of
Chinese economists still positively believe that the China's economic prospects will
maintain steady and rapid growth in 2008. China's rise was the rise of the big market
with 1.3 billion to 1.5 billion people. Such a large market that was increasing
constantly and opening day by day was new opportunities for both Asia and the world.
We have all the reasons to believe that China's strong growth momentum can be
maintained in the next 15 to 20 years.
U.S.-China Relations
The relationship between the United States and China over the fifty years since China
was established on October 1, 1949 has been very complicated.
The first step in formally normalizing relations between the United States and China
was the Nixon’s visit in 1972. Since Nixon's visit, tens of thousands of Americans
have visited China either for traveling or business, and many thousands of Chinese
have come to the United States to study and to work. And the amount of trade has
increased, especially the export volume. Goods made in China have become more and
more popular in the U.S. because you can always easily find something that is made
in China here.
However, there is still a big trouble in the relations, that is, Taiwan issue. This issue
has always been the single most important and most sensitive issue at the core of the
normalization of China-U.S. relations. It is pretty much around one question, is
Taiwan a separate country?
The history of Taiwan issue should trace back to the end of World War II. During
World War II, the island was occupied by the Japanese. After the war, it finally
reverted back to China again. But in order to better maintain its interests, the US
government supported Taiwan to launch a nationwide war against the communist
party by providing money, weapons and soldiers. However, the US government failed
in its efforts eventually. While never officially recognized as a separate nation, the
Taiwanese have followed a democratic government, even going so far as to elect its
own President and grow in economic power on its own, outside of the mainland of
China. On July 9, 1999, Taiwan issue had been getting aggravated while the "two
states theory of Taiwan Independence” was declared. Since The U.S. continued to sell
Taiwan advanced weapons of various types and sensitive military technology, the
relations between China and US have always been somewhat strained.
History has proved that the way the United States handles the Taiwan issue has a
direct effect on the China-U.S. relations, in order to get along with the development of
the international situation and the growth of new China, the United States began to
readjust its hostile policy towards China, the U.S. government declared: "The United
States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Straits maintain
there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The U.S. Government does
not challenge that position."