On June 14th, 2004, Chinese President Hu Jintao, who was paying a state visit to Romania, delivered an important speech at the Parliament of Romania, which is titled Consolidating Traditional Friendship and Expanding Mutually Beneficial Cooperation. In the speech, President Hu reviewed the traditional friendship and friendly exchanges between China and Romania, put forward the proposals of comprehensively boosting relations between China and Mid-Eastern European countries and realizing the goal of having different peoples live in peace and amity, and stated China's domestic and foreign policies.

On the morning of June 14, the second-floor Parliament Hall of the magnificent Parliament Building of Romania was brilliantly illuminated and packed with people. At 9:45, accompanied by President of Romanian Senate Nicolae Văcăroiu and President of Romanian Chamber of Deputies Valer Dorneanu, President Hu Jintao entered the hall. All that were present greeted the president with a standing ovation to express their warm welcome. Following the short welcome remarks by President of Romanian Senate Nicolae Văcăroiu, President Hu delivered the speech.

President Hu first extended sincere greetings and kind regards to the friendly Romania people on behalf of the Chinese government and people. He said that this year marks the 55th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Romania. Over the past five and a half decades, despite the twists and turns in international situations and the changed domestic situations in the two countries, the deep friendship between the two countries and peoples has not been changed, neither have the strong mutual political trust nor the innermost feelings of helping each other when the other is in need. During this visit, the two sides have reached consensus on developing comprehensive friendly partnership of cooperation, which will inject new and strong impetus to the traditional friendship between the two countries.

President Hu said that the Mid-Eastern European region holds an important strategic position and houses a variety of nationalities, civilizations and religions. Crossing the threshold of the new century, the region is now standing at a new starting point of history. The Chinese people and the peoples of the region have enjoyed long-standing traditional friendship. China stands ready to continue to boost comprehensively its relations with Mid-Eastern European countries under the spirit of mutual respect, mutual trust and pragmatic cooperation.

President Hu made four proposals with regard to developing China's relations with Mid-Eastern European countries.

First, to enhance friendly exchanges, boost mutual political trust, deepen mutual understanding, expand consensus and support each other, especially the major political concerns of each other, so as to further develop their bilateral relations under the principles of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit and non-interference in each other's internal affairs.

Second, to expand economic and trade cooperation and promote common development, adhere to the principles of mutual benefit and reciprocity and try to increase the investment and technological content of their economic cooperation in order to become each other's stable economic and trade partner through sharing complementarity.

Third, to expand cultural exchanges and consolidate traditional friendship, enhance exchanges in the fields of culture, sports, science and technology, tourism, health and journalism so as to constantly enrich the content of their cooperation.

Fourth, to strengthen international cooperation and jointly cope with relevant challenges, enhance strategic dialogue and cooperation on counter-terrorism, non-proliferation, combating cross-border crimes and giving play to the role of the United Nations, and remain committed to safeguarding world peace and stability.

President Hu stressed that peace and development remain the themes of our times. To maintain world peace and promote common development is the common aspiration of all the people in the world. At the same time, the world is far from tranquil and uncertainties that affect peace and development are on the rise. Therefore, the human race is facing new opportunities and challenges with regard to maintaining world peace and promoting common development.

He said that to grasp the opportunities, cope with the challenges, promote the lofty cause of boosting world peace and development and realize the goal of having different peoples live in peace and amity, people of different countries should make unremitting efforts in the following aspects:

----to adhere to the principles of mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and cooperation, and realize common security for all countries. They should transcend the concept of unilateral security, give up unilateralism and the practice of depending solely on force, respect and safeguard the international multilateral mechanism with the United Nations at the core, enhance international and regional multilateral cooperation of all forms, resolve disputes through dialogue and consultation, and jointly maintain international and regional security and stability.

----to adhere to the guideline of having comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development and realize common prosperity for all countries. They should strengthen mutual coordination and cooperation between countries and regions and place a priority on helping developing countries to boost their economic and social development.

----to respect the diversity of culture and realize common progress for different civilizations. They should respect the path and pattern of development chosen by different countries in light of their specific national contexts, respect the colorful civilizations and ways of life created by people of different countries in the process of making history and promote different civilizations to learn from and share complementarity with each other so as to boost world diversity and the comprehensive progress of the human society.

The delivery of the speech has been dotted with a lot of long and warm ovations. When the speech was concluded, the audience stood up and gave another long and warm applause.

Nearly 600 people, including MPs of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies of Romania, Romanian government officials, representatives of young students as well as friendly personages from all walks of life, listened to the speech by President Hu.

Prior to making the speech, President Hu met with President of Romanian Senate Nicolae Văcăroiu and President of Romanian Chamber of Deputies Valer Dorneanu. He highly complimented the positive role that they have played in boosting the friendship between the two peoples and promoting the mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries. President Hu indicated that the legislatures of the two countries are both facing the task of strengthening enforcement. Therefore, the two sides can deepen exchanges of experience to learn from each other. China will continue as always to promote enhanced exchanges between legislative bodies of the two countries, support exchanges between the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the Romanian side, and join forces of Romania to boost the development of the comprehensive friendly partnership of cooperation.

Nicolae Văcăroiu and Valer Dorneanu spoke highly of the visit by President Hu, saying that the visit has strongly boosted the friendship and cooperation between Romania and China. They indicated that both Romania and China are in an important stage of development. Therefore, to strengthen comprehensively their cooperation and develop the partnership is of great significance. The Senate and the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of Romania will make active efforts to that end.