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Roundup: Reunification to Revive China in New Century
"We people across the Taiwan Straits are both Chinese; we must reunify," Chen, a 26-year old Taiwan lady, said.
"We miss much more than ever our compatriots on the other side of the Taiwan Straits, since Hong Kong and Macao have returned to the motherland at the turn of new century," said Li Mo'an, director of Whampoa Military Academy Alumni Association, a powerful organization bent on reunifying of the Chinese mainland with the Taiwan Island.
In retrospect of historical evolution, many ancient civilizations perished in world history, while the Chinese nation has surprisingly preserved its unique culture and unification, although it was punctuated by intermittent and transitory disruptions.
"Comprehensive analysis of China's 5,000-year-old civilization shows that reunification is the main trend in China's annals, and state disruptions made short appearance only in periods marked by declining national strength," said Zhou Nan, former director of the Hong Kong branch of Xinhua News Agency. The branch was renamed as the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) with regard to the fact that Hong Kong returned to China in July 1997.
The Chinese nation suffered a lot 100 years ago. At the beginning of the 20th century, China suffered foreign invasions and large parts of Chinese territory were partitioned, including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, which have been inalienable parts of China.
Now, 100 years later, when humankind will greet the first twilight of the 21st century, a prosperous and democratic new China has risen in the eastern hemisphere.
After Hong Kong and Macao's return to the motherland, they have maintained their economic prosperity and social stability assured
by the "one country, two systems" policy, which, together with blood ties, will promote a positive relationship across the Taiwan Straits.
Reunification, to which a good many of the country's patriots devoted their lives, was a sheer unrealistic dream a century ago when China was at its weakness and in poverty.
To save the country, a group of elite intelligent Chinese people founded the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1920s and shouldered the responsibility of restoring the country's glory.
In the past half century since the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in October 1949, the country boasted a miraculous year-on-year economic growth rate by 7.7 percent, or two and-a- half times the world's average during that period. In 2000, China's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is expected to exceed 1000 billion US dollars, indicating that the country has begun to have relative affluence.
In the last few years of the 20th century, the Chinese people witnessed the country resuming exercise of sovereignty over Hong Kong and Macao and thereby shed its century-long shame imposed on the nation.
With the founding of the PRC, the first generation of CPC leadership headed by Chairman Mao Zedong led the Chinese people in winning independence and liberation for the nation.
Then, 30 years later, Deng Xiaoping, chief architect of China's reform and opening up, inspired the unprecedented "one country, two systems" policy that was highly thought of by statesmen worldwide.
Today, the third generation of CPC leadership with Jiang Zemin at its core has made true of the policy both in the special administrative regions (SAR) of Hong Kong and Macao. Under the guideline of the "one country, two systems," the two SARs benefit from enhanced reciprocal cooperation with the inland areas, which help promote economic development in both sides.
The guideline also has helped break the deadlocked state across the Taiwan Straits and brought about a thawing relationship.
Taiwan has become the fifth largest trade partner of the Chinese mainland, and a new wave of investment in the Chinese mainland by Taiwan businessmen is on the upsurge.
"Seeing the one-year development in the Macao SAR since it returned to the motherland last December, I experienced great success with the 'one country, two systems' policy, which is not only geared to history and the status quo of the Macao SAR, but also in accord with the interests of the Chinese nation as well as the world tide," said Ma Man Kei, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), prior to the one-year anniversary of Macao's return to China.
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