Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid said that the world will be a better place to live if peoples from different countries and systems should be able to live together.

In an exclusive interview with Xinhua on the eve of the new millennium, the president said, "the most important situation we have to face in the next millennium is how to build the trust between peoples from different countries and also peoples who live in different systems."

He stressed that the third millennium due to start on January 1, 2000 belongs to the entire world, not just a single system. "So, we don't want to impose anything on other people and we don't want other people to impose anything on us either."

Refusing to accept any country's role as the world policeman, Wahid noted, "No nation, large or small, populous or not populous, could rule the world alone."

On the relations between Indonesia and China, the president said, "Indonesia and China have been close to each other in the past... and we would like to continue in this way....It is the time (for Indonesia and China) to work closer and closer."

Wahid said that the differences between the systems of China and Indonesia should not be regarded as a constraint to firming up their bilateral ties, because the two countries have the same target of enhancing the living standard of their people.

The president also said some discriminative laws against the minority ethnic Chinese in the country are being reviewed.

He believed that if obstacles could be removed, the all the races comprising the Indonesian population would be in better understanding of each other and would make common efforts to make the world a better place to live.