This trend has been particularly strong in Asia, which has been at the heart of a new economic resurgence. Whether viewed from the perspective of resources, endeavours or challenges, it is, therefore, no longer realistic to confine our thinking within the earlier box. Doing so would either mean we are being deliberately outdated; or that we have chosen to make only selective exceptions. Neither, of course, suits India, or indeed much of the international community. Denying Indo-Pacific is tantamount to refuting globalization.
Who owns the Indo-Pacific as a concept is a debate in itself. There is as much history there, as a diversity of opinions. The fact is that pretty much everyone who recognizes how important the understanding of Indo-Pacific has become to their lives has a point of view. In that sense, it is a truly pluralistic exercise on the importance of a theatre with the resulting ideas about its future. This active debate should be treated as a recognition of reality and statement of priority.
How does it now unfold? Given that this region is primarily a maritime space, countries are naturally focused on building practical cooperation in that domain. A safe, secure and stable maritime space is a necessary condition for peace, security and prosperity. Conversely, threats there imperil human security in all its dimensions, whether by disrupting commerce, disturbing the ecology, or creating disputes over ownership and rights. In our inter-dependent world, the complexity of such challenges has become too large for any one nation to address by itself.
Indeed, the very vastness of this arena brings out why the need for collaborative action has now become so pressing. Naturally, the individual interests of countries are at stake; but so too is their collective benefit in ensuring that the global commons is better secured.
It is the challenge of harmonizing these pulls and pressures that the Indo-Pacific policy of all players needs to address. Most of us at this Summit would intuitively appreciate why India needs to give the Indo-Pacific its fullest attention. They would also remember that in due course, this paved the way to a more intensive engagement with East Asia and Oceania. To the change of direction was added additional facets of cooperation, ranging from connectivity to security.
The Look East, thereby, became Act East. And it kept growing. Our engagement with the Pacific Islands has become serious. So, far from it being an arcane issue of international relations, the Indo-Pacific is actually a bread-and-butter expression of our political, economic, connectivity, travel and societal interests. And it relies heavily on ensuring the safety and security of the maritime domain. The IPOI is aimed at furthering practical cooperation as an open, non-treaty-based global initiative.
It has seven pillars that address different aspects of the challenges that the international community faces. The IPOI is an inclusive and open initiative, seeking to better manage, conserve, sustain and secure the maritime domain. Think of it as a lowest common denominator approach to shared problems that we all know require urgent and coordinated solutions.
While India will be the driving force behind all areas identified under the IPOI, we are also exploring partnerships with like-minded countries.
It has been a regular effort, sometimes to more than one country annually. We have a Tsunami Early Warning System in the Indian Ocean through which are currently providing information to countries in the region.
It aims to promote disaster-resilient infrastructure through research and knowledge sharing in the fields of infrastructure risk management, standards, financing, and recovery mechanisms. The 4th such conference was held in Chennai in February this year in partnership with Australia and Indonesia. We have maintained deployment of ships for maritime security and anti-piracy operations in Western Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden since and Gulf of Oman since Twenty oil and gas fields are under development.
With an offshore oil and natural gas industry in place, in China's offshore oil output exceeded China has worked out a policy of utilizing its deep-sea waters and coastal resources in a rational way. According to the policy, priority shall be given to the construction of harbors in deepwater coastal areas, and vigorous efforts will be made to develop marine transportation. Significant achievements have been attained in marine transportation development since the founding of New China, especially since the implementation of reform and opening to the outside world.
By the end of , merchant ships had increased to , with a total deadweight tonnage of close to 50 million, of which more than 23 million were of the fleets in foreign trade transportation. Harbor construction and marine transportation in China are based on the planning concept of constructing major waterways, harbor hubs and water transport support system. China will put special efforts into the construction of specialized berths for bulk goods such as containers, coal, oil, ore and grain, set up collection and distribution channels in the rear, speed up the establishment of a modern loading-unloading-hauling system, and construct a container transport system with advanced freight-handling technologies and featuring a combination of trunk lines with branch lines while strengthening the technical transformation of old harbors to improve their handling capacity and efficiency.
At present, China has 15 harbors each with an annual handling capacity of more than 10 million tons. In the volume of freight handled by the country's major coastal harbors totaled million tons. In recent years China's coastal shipbuilding industry has shown a trend of rapid development, and in China's shipbuilding tonnage ranked third in the world. China's marine tourism development policy features relying on the coastal cities, stressing marine characteristics, and developing it region by region and sector by sector.
In recent years, the coastal areas have created more than marine and island tourism and recreational zones, with a variety of marine features. Marine tourism is now a burgeoning industry. In this sector received more than 10 million overseas tourists. China was one of the world's pioneers in making salt from seawater. Some of China's new industries are associated with this aspect of marine resources development and exploitation: salt, salt chemicals, direct seawater utilization and seawater desalination.
With an area of , ha, China's salt pans produced The major salt chemical products are potassium chloride, bromide, anhydrous nitre and magnesium chloride. The annual output of potassium chloride and bromide each exceeds , tons. In addition, Tianjin, Dalian, Qingdao, Yantai, Qinhuangdao and other coastal cities are now making efforts to use more seawater directly as industrial chilled water and non-potable water, which is of great significance for alleviating China's serious shortage of freshwater resources.
The Chinese government has listed the exploration and exploitation of the mineral resources of the Pacific Ocean as a long-term development project for which it intends to offer special investment.
Meanwhile, it has established a special institution in charge of coordinating and administering China's exploratory and exploitative activities in the international seabed region. China is the fifth-largest investor in international efforts for seabed development, and has obtained an exclusive exploration and development area of 75, sq km.
In the future, China will continue to actively participate in the administration and development of international seabed areas, and develop new exploration and exploitation technologies to make its due contribution to the peaceful utilization of international seabed resources for the benefit of the whole of mankind. The Protection and Preservation of the Marine Environment China attaches great importance to the protection of the marine environment.
Organs and laws aimed at marine environmental protection have been gradually established, and the people's consciousness of the importance of protecting the marine environment and abiding by the laws have been further strengthened, both of which have speeded up the work of marine environmental protection.
As a result, the momentum of serious marine pollution has been slowed; the environmental quality of some of the country's sea areas has been improved; and most offshore waters are of good quality, despite the drastic increase in the amounts of pollutants brought about by the booming economy of the coastal areas. In the Marine Environmental Protection Law of the People's Republic of China, a basic law of the country to protect the marine environment, was approved by the NPC Standing Committee to prevent damage to the marine environment resulting from coastal construction projects, offshore oil exploration and exploitation, navigation of ships, wastes dumping, and discharge of land-sourced pollutants.
In addition, a dozen rules and standards were enacted concerning marine environmental protection by government departments. All of these laws, regulations and rules have formed a legal framework for marine environmental protection. Besides, programs and plans for marine environmental protection, professional plans for the protection of wetlands and biological diversity, an overall marine monitoring network and a nearshore environmental monitoring network have also been put in place by related state organizations.
This coordinated network plays an important role in the implementation of the related laws and the efficient protection of the marine environment. China carries out the policy of putting prevention first and combining prevention with control in managing existing marine pollution.
While endeavoring to make a success in the protection of marine biological resources and the prevention and control of marine pollution, China makes the prevention and control of land-sourced pollution the focal point of its marine environmental protection work.
A series of regulations have been drawn up to check land-sourced pollutant emission, and enhance the monitoring, surveillance and control of the main pollutant-emission outlets. Large and medium-sized cities have paid constant attention to readjusting the distribution of industries, improving technical transformation, and recovering waste gas, waste water and industrial residue the "three wastes" for multipurpose use.
Enterprises creating serious pollution are required to take effective measures to control it within a definite period of time; otherwise they have to close down, suspend operations, merge with other plants, change their products or move to other places. Besides, a number of sewage treatment plants have been built to control new pollution sources and reduce the amount of land-sourced pollutants dumped into the sea.
To prevent marine pollution resulting from ship and port discharge, in addition to the formulation of the Crash Program to Combat Ships' Oil Pollution, oil-water separators have been installed aboard ships of all types in accordance with relevant stipulations, and oil-polluted water treatment equipment, including emergency treatment equipment, has been installed at all sea ports. This equipment can help dispose of 3.
Similarly, to prevent marine environment pollution resulting from offshore oil exploitation, besides the formulation by offshore oilfields of the Crash Program to Combat Oil Spills During Offshore Oil Exploration and Exploitation, oil-polluted water treatment equipment has been installed on all drilling platforms, engine-room oil-water separators have also been installed aboard all drilling ships, and oil barriers, chemical de-oiling agents and spill recovery ships provided in all China's offshore oilfields.
As one of the contracting parties to the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matters signed in in London, China attaches great importance to the fulfillment of the provisions under the convention and is steadily improving its control of the dumping of wastes into the sea.
So far, China has designated 34 dumping areas for dredged materials of the third category and four areas for midair oil discharge. It has issued about 2, dumping permits and tightened up the monitoring of the environmental quality of dumping areas. Besides, it has strictly prohibited the disposal of any radioactive substance and incineration of toxic waste at sea, and plans to gradually stop the dumping of industrial waste into the sea.
To protect the ecological environment of fishing grounds, the Water Quality Standards of Fishing Grounds have been drawn up by the Chinese government and the Regulations on the Supervision and Control of the Environmental Sanitation of Shellfish-Raising Areas and other regulations have been drawn up by departments concerned. In addition, a sequence of measures have been taken to further strengthen the eco-environmental protection of spawning grounds of saltwater fish and shrimps, feeding grounds, wintering grounds, migration channels and aquatic farms.
A multilevel setup for the protection of the fisheries environment has been established by the state and coastal region authorities, including 15 monitoring stations at and above the provincial level around the country and a number of marine life protected areas in major fishing grounds. In the department concerned worked out the Procedures for the Administration of Marine Reserves, based on the guiding principle of ''conservation first, appropriate exploitation and sustainable development,'' and divided each marine nature reserve into core, buffer and experimental zones, in order to improve the building and management of the marine nature reserves.
At present 59 marine protected areas, covering gulfs, islands, estuaries, coasts, coral reefs, mangrove swamps, coastal lagoons, marine natural history sites, seaweed beds and wetlands, have been built, covering a total area of 12, sq km. China is one of the countries which are most vulnerable to marine calamities. The economic losses suffered by the coastal areas from storms, tidal waves, ice floes, seaquakes, coastal erosion, typhoons, fog and red tides account for about 10 percent of the total of all natural disasters afflicting China.
After making unremitting efforts for decades, China has installed a basic marine environment and disaster observation network and forecast-alarm system, covering both offshore areas and distant waters, with the cooperation of several departments.
This network engages in analysis, forecast and grading of major marine calamities, and runs maritime rescue centers and coastal emergency stations. As a result, a marine disaster alleviation framework has been put in place. The rapid economic growth and steady population increase in the coastal areas, coupled with the constant expansion of marine exploitation, mean that China continues to face problems of marine environmental protection and disaster alleviation.
To cope with this situation, China has adopted the Ninth Five-Year Plan and Long-Term Program to the Year for National Marine Environmental Protection, which further advances the three major policies of ''putting prevention first, combining prevention with control,'' ''making the causer of pollution responsible for treating it'' and ''improving the control of the environment.
The Development of Oceanographic Science, Technology and Education In recent years China has made further efforts to promote the investigation and exploration of marine resources and the marine environment, search actively for new exploitable resources, study new techniques and methods of marine resources exploitation and protection, train technical personnel in marine development and protection, and spread oceanographic knowledge among the general public in order to rouse the whole nation to protect the marine environment.
On the basis of a multidisciplinary oceanographic research setup, which consists of research institutes and 13,some research personnel, China has many achievements to its credit in oceanographic survey and research, studies in basic oceanographic science, development and protection of ocean resources, marine monitoring technologies and manufacturing of oceanographic technical equipment.
Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in a large amount of work has been done in the field of oceanographic surveys and research, which started in offshore areas with surface observation of the sea and later expanded to deep-sea regions by means of aerospace remote sensing and underwater detection, as well as surface observation.
As early as in the period a national comprehensive survey of China's offshore waters was made; later, from to , a comprehensive survey of coastal zones and shoals resources was conducted nationwide, along with the launching of a number of pilot projects on the comprehensive development and utilization of coastal zones; and from to a general investigation of the country's island resources and an experiment on their comprehensive development were carried out.
China signed the Antarctic Treaty in and began to make surveys of the Antarctic and the surrounding sea areas in By the country had completed 14 programs of scientific investigation in this region, using the Great Wall and Zhongshan survey stations as bases. Thus, China has made positive contributions to the world's peaceful exploitation of the Antarctic. Under the direction of the oceanographic development strategy and the support programs and plans for the development of oceanography drawn up by relevant state departments, marked progress has been made in recent years in physical oceanography, biological oceanography, marine geology and marine chemistry.
These achievements have provided scientific directions and references for the promotion of offshore fishing and oil and gas exploitation, protection of the marine environment, and reduction and prevention of marine disasters. China makes vigorous efforts for the development of oceanographic technologies, building up an oceanographic technology system focusing mainly on the marine environment, exploration and exploitation of marine resources, and general marine engineering, and covering more than 20 technological fields.
The country has now turned its attention to implementing a marine high-tech program, a program for tackling key problems in marine science and technology and one for marine development by reliance on science and technology. In its marine high-tech research China gives priority to technologies covering marine monitoring, marine exploration and resources exploitation, deep-sea exploration and marine biology.
Just imagine, what a complicated, gigantic and daunting challenge it must be to meet even the basic needs of the over million disadvantaged people and enable them to live a decent life. For these reasons, there is still a long way to go before China can truly become prosperous and strong. So far, we have only completed the first few steps in this long march.
China's development has brought opportunities for prosperity, development and cooperation to all countries, including the United States, and China is an important stabilizing force for gradual and orderly changes in the international system. By proceeding from our own conditions while keeping pace with the changing times over the past 30 years, we have found a development path that not only fits China but also benefits people of the whole world.
Our 5,year civilization has given us the will and wisdom to pursue harmony, amity and peaceful development. China is a country that has goodwill toward the world, acts in a responsible manner, respects others but never allows itself to be bullied. China has been promoting socialist democracy in light of its national conditions and values, respects and protects human rights. Despite numerous challenges ahead, China will remain open to new ideas and committed to reform and opening up.
We are eager to learn from others and seek to live in equality and harmony with other countries with a view to achieving mutual benefit and common development. We pursue peaceful development and treat others with an open heart. Countries across the world can develop relations with us with ease and confidence. Of course, we are not perfect. We welcome all well-intentioned criticisms and suggestions.
We are confident in reaching our goal despite all difficulties. We have come to realize through our experience over the past 30 years that time has changed and all countries can achieve win-win progress through international cooperation. Gone are the days when one could use wars to transform the international system and order.
The Cold War mentality and zero-sum logic should be regarded as irrelevant and outdated. It is not right to believe that "if you live, I will die; if you win, I will lose; if you rise, I will fall and if you are safe, I am in danger. Let me say that we will achieve development through continuous reform and improvement of our institutions, through hard work, creativity and initiative of the Chinese people, and through scientific development.
In the meantime, we will work to build durable friendship and carry out equal and mutually-beneficial cooperation with the United States and the rest of the world. Through these measures, we will enable the Chinese people, who make up over one-fifth of the world's population, to eradicate poverty and lead a comfortable life.
The Chinese people will then live and work in contentment and harmony and China will enjoy balanced progress in the political, economic and social fields and harmony between man and nature. By highlighting our focus on development, I do not mean to say that China will shy away from its international obligations and responsibilities. In fact, making a prosperous life possible for the 1. In the meantime, China is taking up more and more international responsibilities and obligations commensurate with its strength and status.
In a world of growing interdependence, China's future and destiny are increasingly tied to those of the world. We should all live in harmony, share benefits and responsibilities and work for win-win progress.
This is in the best interest of everyone. Being selfish and showing no regard for others will feed resentment and harm oneself as well as others. The world today is undergoing major transformation and adjustment. As globalization and the application of information technology gain momentum and science and technology advance by leaps and bounds, the world is getting smaller and smaller and becoming a "global village".
However, our common interests are getting bigger and bigger and the need for mutually-beneficial cooperation is getting stronger and stronger. No country can tackle all the challenges and problems alone. The interdependence and the interconnection of interests among countries are unprecedented, gradually forming what some have called "a community of destiny" in which nobody can live without others. This has been borne out once again by the once-in-a-century financial crisis that we are going through.
To sum up, the profound changes in the world call for a more open mind and major reform in various areas. It's no longer workable to think about or handle the problems of the 21st century with the Cold War mentality of the 20th century. Harmony, coordination and cooperation, mutual benefit and common progress should and must be the common choice of all countries.
A foreign diplomat once said that today, as a result of globalization, we no longer travel in different ships. Rather we are all traveling in the same ship, which we call the "Earth Spaceship," and our destiny hinges upon the inherent power of the ship. I believe that, as we are in the same ship, we rise and fall together. It does not make any sense not to pull together. Nor does it make any sense to stick to those concepts, policies and practices that can only lead to conflict, confrontation and even war.
China is the largest developing country and the United States is the largest developed country. It is all the more important for us to see each other as partners rather than rivals. It is all the more important for us to strengthen dialogue, coordination and cooperation. And it is all the more important for us to work sincerely together with all other countries and people to overcome the difficulties and challenges we face and create a better future for humanity.
China-US relations are now at a new historical point. We have every reason and responsibility to jointly promote greater and better growth of the relationship in the next 30 years and beyond. This way, we will bring more and bigger benefits to the people of our two countries and the entire humanity. To realize greater growth of China-U. We look forward to working with the incoming US administration to keep to this direction of our relations and constantly move them forward.
This is in the interest of not only the Chinese and American people, but also people across the world. We must ensure that it gets off to a good and smooth start and continues to forge ahead from the new starting point. Taiwan and Tibet-related issues concern China's core interests. The Chinese people have an unshakable determination to defend our core interests.
We should encourage more and more people to devote themselves to China-US friendship so that our friendly ties will be carried forward from generation to generation and enjoy solid public support. Reviewing the past and looking ahead to the future, we feel indebted to the courageous and hard-working ice-breakers who opened China-U.
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