Fellow Deputies,

 China is a unified country of many ethnic groups. Working to enhance and develop socialist ethnic relations featuring equality, unity, mutual assistance, and harmony is the joint responsibility and in the fundamental interests of everyone.

We will uphold and improve the system of regional ethnic autonomy, increase support for underdeveloped areas with concentrations of ethnic minorities, and aid the growth of ethnic minorities with smaller populations. We will work to boost development in border regions and improve living standards there. We will see to it that the fine traditional culture of our ethnic minorities and distinctively ethnic villages and towns are preserved and developed, and promote interaction, communication, and integration between ethnic groups.

We will work to successfully mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region and the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. With people of all our ethnic groups living together as one, sharing in a common cause, and developing together in harmony, the big family of the Chinese nation will enjoy greater prosperity, peace, and happiness.

We will fully implement the Party’s basic policy on religion, promote harmonious relations between religions, protect the legitimate rights and interests of the religious community, and ensure that religious leaders and believers play a positive role in promoting economic and social development.

We need to ensure that overseas Chinese nationals, overseas Chinese nationals who have returned to China, and the relatives of overseas Chinese nationals who themselves live in China can all perform better the unique role they have to play in modernizing China, advancing its peaceful reunification, and promoting exchange and cooperation between China and other countries. We need to strengthen the bonds of attachment and affection of all Chinese, whether at home or overseas, to our motherland.