WE ARE FAMILY: AN ESSAY FOR THE 59TH NATIONAL DAY OF CHINA

Zhang Ming

The People’s Republic of China will celebrate its 59th birthday on October, 1st this year. The occasion of national day always reminds us of our linkages with our motherlands and strengthens our feelings of proud, belonging, loyalty, obligation, duty, and love.

So a question arises here: considering the fact that we tend to believe that our own motherland is the most beautiful place under the sun, that our own culture is the most splendid in the history, that our own lifestyle is the most suitable one in a world which is far from perfection, that our own ideology is the most reasonable one to explain the complex reality and that our dreams and missions are the solemnest on the earth, can we peoples from different countries but the same planet co-exist harmoniously?

YES, NOT ONLY WE CAN BUT ALSO WE MUST. Let me give an example about the change of views towards the peoples inside China and outside China in this special year of 2008.

For peoples outside China, in a severe snowstorm and icy weather that hit the vast area of southern China in January, they have seen an unknown Chinese engineer dedicated his life to repairing a broken transmission tower just for a simple, humble dream that the lights in the city’s windows should be kept on. In a devastating earthquake that cost tens of thousands of lives and changed the future of millions of families in May, they have seen a Chinese premier arriving from the Capital which is over 2000 kilometers away in just 4 hours. They have seen him working together with his people round the clock despite of the dangerous aftershocks and when he was injured, he refused to be attended because there were many others still in need. In the Beijing Olympics and the Paralympics games, they have seen 500,000 volunteers smiling and working ceaselessly during the whole games just to express a feeling as the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius put in one short, simple sentence: “Friends coming afar, how happy we are”. During the successful launch of the Shenzhou 7 Manned Spaceship, they had also seen a Chinese citizen, walking romantically with the stars in the sky. In short, they have seen 1.3 billion human beings the same as themselves living in a more diverse, dynamic, open, determined China than the world had ever imagined.

People around the globe keep asking: where is this “strange but new” China from and where is it heading for? The answer lies in a policy that also celebrates its 30th birthday this year: the reform and opening up policy. This is the policy that had guided us here and will guide us into the future. Let me be clear. I am not saying that this policy solves all the problems in China, and we are still facing countless more: poverty, pollution, fake milk powder, etc. But it is fair to say that, today, a Chinese surveyor can proudly announce an annual economic growth rate of double digit for two or three decades; a Chinese writer, be him a traditional newspaper editor, or a post-modernism critic, can write, speak, and publish a book in a quite free atmosphere; a herdsman in the Mongolian grassland can dream to have his own house and vehicle in the CBD of Shanghai through honest earning; a Buddhist in Tibet can practice his religion conveniently and freely; millions of affected families in the severe disaster such as the earthquake in this May can be well attended by their government so timely and considerately; a girl from the remote village of Lamu can travel to China to pursuit her university education; a patient in Zanzibar island can be attended by a Chinese doctor.

In short, never before did the Chinese people enjoy such a huge improvement in human rights; never before are the Chinese people so confident and consolidated; never before is China so dedicated to a peaceful and independent foreign policy toward a harmonious and favorable international environment because never before are China’s destiny and hope tied together with the destinies and hopes of other parts of the world so closely.

For the Chinese people, we have also seen a lot in this special year. Facing the disasters, we have seen foreign volunteers traveling thousands of miles from abroad to look after our mothers as their own and ordinary Kenyans donating their savings of several years to the people in China who they had never met or even heard about. We have seen the synchronized swimming team of America carrying a signboard spelling “China, Thank you” in one of the most important marches in their lives. We have seen all of the governments and peoples including the Kenyan who firmly supported the Beijing Olympic Games because they believed that the international community should not let the Chinese people down. In all, in this special year, the Chinese people have seen a world encouraging them to express their minds more openly, confidently and responsibly.

This sense of linkage became even stronger in the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games when I saw Samuel Wanjiru, Men’s Marathon gold medal winner from an African country called Kenya, watching his national flag rising inside the Bird’s Nest in front of the world. Tears submerged my eyes, as well as yours, because we knew how many miles himself and his motherland had traveled to reach this moment of glory, especially after the post-election crisis in this special year. I realize that this not-big-in-size but great-in-heart African nation deserves the respect and friendship of the Chinese people including myself who have been persistently standing by their Kenyan brothers and sisters for more than 600 years through out the darkest and the most uncertain times.

So let me get back to my question from the beginning to conclude: “can people from different backgrounds co-exist harmoniously?” Yes, not only we can, but also we must. Because though we are different, we face the same challenges of poverty, diseases, climate change, terrorism, and so on, we have the same dreams for love, freedom, and prosperity; we share most of the common shining characters as human beings such as courage, dignity, mutual respect, friendship, and resilience. And more importantly, in our bones we all believe in one belief that is written in the theme song of the Beijing Olympic Games: “You and me, from one world, we are family!”

(The writer is the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the Republic of Kenya)