The most important issue is the reunification of the motherland. Peaceful reunification has become the common aim of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. The idea is not that one party should swallow up the other. We hope the two Parties will work together for national reunification and both contribute to the Chinese nation.

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The modernization we are striving for is modernization of a Chinese type. The socialism we are building is a socialism with Chinese characteristics. This is because we are acting according to our own concrete realities and conditions and mainly relying on ourselves.

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The Communists in any country should decide for themselves what road to take for revolution, because people in other countries are not familiar with the circumstances there. If foreigners presume to give orders, they will make mistakes. Why were we able to achieve victory in the Chinese revolution? Because the Chinese Communists led by Comrade Mao Zedong thought independently and, by integrating the universal principles of Marxism-Leninism with specific Chinese conditions, found the revolutionary road, forms and methods suited to China. Similarly, the victory of the October Revolution was a product of Lenin's integration of the principles of Marxism with Russian revolutionary practice. So if the Communists in a particular country want to make a successful revolution, the fundamental lesson is that they must find their own road in light of the conditions in that country.

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I recently travelled from Jiangsu to Zhejiang Province and from there to Shanghai. On this trip I found things were going very well. People were in excellent spirits. There were many new houses, there were plenty of consumer goods on the market, and cadres were brimming with confidence. Prospects are obviously bright for our modernization programme. There should be more detailed overall planning for quadrupling gross annual industrial and agricultural output by the end of the century. Every province and autonomous region and every municipality directly under the Central Government should have a specific plan, so that it knows exactly what to do. This includes backward regions such as Ningxia [Hui Autonomous Region], Qinghai [Province] and Gansu [Province]. We must help the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities solve their most pressing problems and thus create the conditions that will enable them to fulfil their plans.

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According to the latest statistics, gross industrial and agricultural output in 1982 increased by 8 per cent, greatly exceeding the originally planned figure of 4 per cent -- something that had not happened in the previous two years. This raises a question: What will come of achieving a much higher growth rate than projected in the annual plan? We must investigate and study this question right away and analyse it correctly. However, this doesn't mean we should alter our Sixth Five-year Plan. Long-term plans should be more flexible, while annual plans should be more specific, though of course they should have some flexibility too. We should pay attention to improving economic efficiency, instead of just going after increases in the value and quantity of output. Experience shows that whenever our plans have been too ambitious, we have overreached ourselves. This has been a bitter lesson for us. We are already aware of this mistake and will continue to guard against it in future. But now we face the opposite situation. In short, the principles for drawing up plans are: they should be specific, flexible and achievable if we work hard.

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Plant trees everywhere and make our country green in the interest of future generations.

(Message for a conference held by the People's Liberation Army to review the experience in afforestation and to honour outstanding units and individuals for their work.)

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Both China and India are developing countries, but they are not without importance in world affairs. They have the biggest populations: added together, they amount to 1.7 billion, more than one third of the world's people. As the two countries are neighbours, we cannot afford not to understand each other and promote the friendship between us. In the mid-1950s we cooperated very closely. The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, jointly initiated by Premier Zhou Enlai and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, have been recognized the world over.

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The objective for the two decades from 1981 and the end of this century has been set: on the basis of steadily improved economic performance, we shall try to quadruple the gross annual value of industrial and agricultural output by the year 2000. Can it be done? The Twelfth National Congress of the Party says it can. And I also believe it can. But whether it really will be done depends on the success of our work in the years to come.

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September 24, 1982

Our basic position on the question of Hong Kong is clear. There are three major issues involved. One is sovereignty. Another is the way in which China will administer Hong Kong so as to maintain its prosperity after 1997. And still another is the need for the Chinese and British governments to hold appropriate discussions on ways to avoid major disturbances in Hong Kong during the 15 years between now and 1997.

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We have just held the Twelfth National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Thanks to that congress, the political situation in our country will be more stable than ever before. This will make it possible for us to concentrate all the more on economic development.

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