On November 26, 1998, Japanese Emperor Akihito held a grand ceremony to welcome the visiting president of the PRC, Jiang Zemin.

China pursues an independent and peaceful foreign policy directed toward peace. The basic objectives of this policy are to safeguard the independence and sovereignty of the country, strive to create a long-standing and favorable international environment for China's reform, opening to the outside world and modernization drive, safeguard world peace and promote common development.

China's independent and peaceful foreign policy has the following major components:

-- Adhering to independence. China decides on its approaches and policies regarding international issues independently. In international affairs, China shall decide its own stand according to the rights and wrongs of an affair, shall never yield to pressure from any big countries, and shall not form alliances with any major power or group of nations.

-- Safeguarding world peace. China shall neither take part in any arms race, nor engage in military expansion. China shall adhere to opposing hegemonism, power politics and aggressive expansion in any form; and adhere to opposing the infringement by any country on other countries' sovereignty and territorial integrity or interfering in other countries' internal affairs on the excuse of ethnic, religious or human rights issues.

-- Establishing friendly and cooperative relations. China is willing to establish and develop friendly and cooperative relations with all countries on the basis of the following five principles: mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. China shall not decide its relations with other countries according to social or ideological systems.

-- Developing good-neighborly relations. China actively develops friendly relations with its surrounding countries, safeguards the peace and stability of the region, and promotes economic cooperation at the regional level. China maintains that the disputes concerning borders, territory and territorial waters left over by history be solved through dialogues and talks so as to seek fair and reasonable solutions. If a dispute cannot be solved right away, it may be put aside for the time being, and common ground be sought while reserving differences. An unsolved dispute should not affect normal relations between the relevant countries.

-- Strengthening unity and cooperation with developing countries. China has always taken it as the basis of its foreign policy to strengthen unity and cooperation with developing countries. China has consistently attached great importance to developing all-round friendly and cooperative relations with the Third World countries, actively seeking mutually complementary economic, trade, scientific and technological cooperative channels, strengthening consultation and cooperation with them on international issues, and jointly safeguarding the rights and interests of developing countries.

-- Opening to the outside world. China opens to developed countries as well as to developing countries. On the basis of equality and mutual benefit, China actively conducts extensive international cooperation to promote common development. As the largest developing country in the world and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China is willing to make unremitting efforts for world peace and development, and the establishment of a new peaceful, stable, fair and reasonable international political and economic order.