Inspiring scenes of people taking the future of their countries into their own hands will ignite greater demands for good governance and political reform elsewhere in the world including in Asia and in Africa.

At the beginning of the new century it is the common aspiration of the peoples of the two countries to deepen mutual understanding enhance trust develop friendship and strengthen cooperation.

China has been committed to the independent foreign policy of peace and has developed friendship and cooperation with all countries on the basis of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.

The three main sources of scepticism are first that not every people desires freedom second that democracy in certain parts of the world would be dangerous and third that there is little the world's democracies can do to advance freedom outside their countries.

All my life Americans have been accustomed to thinking of theirs as 'the richest freest' country in the world. By most measurements it was long a contender for that honor and - among the larger countries if equal weight were given to wealth and indices of freedom - probably did deserve to be so described.

President Bush in his inaugural address talked about bringing freedom to countries that don't have it. He didn't specify how.

Thus the struggle for peace includes the struggle for freedom and justice for the masses of all countries.

We don't have an Official Secrets Act in the United States as other countries do. Under the First Amendment freedom of the press freedom of speech and freedom of association are more important than protecting secrets.

The current total of countries in the world with First Amendments is one. You have guaranteed freedom of speech. Other countries don't have that.

Communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom because the short-term objects of Communism would always correspond with the long-term objects of freedom movements.