Your Excellency,
Dear Comrades,
 
On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC), it is a pleasure for me to be here with you to celebrate this great day. First of all, I would like to thank the Communist Party of India (Marxist) for its kind invitation and sponsorship of this function. I would also like to take this opportunity to brief you the CPC's 80 years history and the principles of the CPC for developing party-to-party relations.

It has been 80 years of glorious journey of the Communist Party of China (CPC) since it was founded in 1921. The birth of the CPC ushered in a new era in China's history. Under the leadership of the CPC, the Chinese people, through decades of arduous and unflinching struggle, established the People's Republic of China. After the founding of new China, relying on self-reliance and hard struggle, the CPC has been leading the Chinese people to unfold a large-scale socialist construction and turned China from a country of extreme poverty to a country primarily thriving and prosperous. The eight decades of the CPC have dedicated itself to the cause of seeking truth for saving the nation, opening up path for national rejuvenation, scoring splendid achievements and maintaining world peace and promoting human progress in coherence with the global trend.

The mankind has entered into the 21st century. Deep and complicated changes have been taking place. The trend of multi-polarization and economic globalization is intensified. Great progress has been made in science and technology. All these have brought unprecedented opportunities and challenges to our economic development. As a ruling party with 80 years of glorious history and 64 million members in a country with a population of nearly 1.3 billion, the CPC is confident and capable to lead the Chinese people to accomplish the historic mission of national rejuvenescence, state prowess and the people's happiness.

Since its founding in 1921, the CPC has emphasized international contacts. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the CPC's contacts with foreign partners have always been an important part of China's overall diplomacy and have played an active role in promoting mutual understanding, friendship, exchanges and cooperation between China and the rest of the world and in maintaining international as well as regional peace and stability. After the Third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee in 1978, China was ushered into a new phase of reform, opening-up and socialist modernization. Based on a scientific judgment of the international situation and characteristics of the times, the Party's collective leadership of the second generation with Deng Xiaoping at the core, drawing lessons from the international communist movement, laid down the four principles guiding the Party's relations with foreign parties, namely, "independence, complete equality, mutual respect and non-interference in each other's internal affairs". The leadership further mapped out a whole set of blueprints for new party-to-party relations, the main idea of which are:
First, parties should build a "new, healthy and friendly relationship" between them.
Second, parties should make decisions on their internal affairs independently in line with their own conditions rather than the interests of other countries or the wills of other parties.
Third, a party should not label parties of other countries based on its own experiences.
Fourth, parties should stand on an equal basis, respect each other and not meddle in others' internal affairs no matter they are big or small, strong or weak, in power or not.
Fifth, parties should carry out inter-party cooperation and exchanges, in the spirit of "seeking convergences and reserving differences", that should not be hindered by ideological differences.
Sixth, inter-party exchanges and cooperation should be oriented to boosting state-to-state ties.
Seventh, parties should look forward into the future rather than haggling over the problems left by history.

Under the guidance of Deng Xiaoping thought for party-to-party relations and under the leadership of the collective leadership of the third generation of the CPC with Comrade Jiang Zemin at the core, the CPC has fostered a new type of party-to-party relationship of exchange and cooperation with various political parties wishing to have interactions with the CPC. All-round in-depth and multi-channel inter-party contacts and exchanges of the CPC have taken shape in various forms of liaison with more than 400 parties and organizations over 140 countries and regions around the world. Sticking to the four principles guiding the party's foreign contacts, the CPC will further develop friendly exchanges and cooperation with foreign political parties, exchange experiences of party construction and state running and promote China's friendly ties with other countries of the world, thus make new and greater contributions to world peace, development and progress.

For many years, the CPI(M) has made unswerving efforts for the establishment and development of friendly relations with the CPC and for the promotion of friendship and cooperation with China for which I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks. Early this year, H.E. Mr. Li Changchun, member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPC, paid a visit to India. During his stay in India, he has been warmly and generously received by the CPI(M). The visit has further strengthened the contacts and mutual understanding between the CPC and the CPI(M) and has promoted the development of bilateral relations. We are deeply confident that in the new century, under the correct leadership of the CPC, China will further advance its cause of reform, opening-up and socialist modernization. China's relations with foreign countries as well as CPC's foreign contacts will be further developed. The cooperation between China and other countries, foreign political parties and friends including those of India will score great success so as to further promote world peace, stability and development and make more contributions to the progressive cause of the mankind.

Thank you.