President Jiang Zemin said Tuesday, December 12, that the majority of countries and peoples worldwide anticipated the upcoming new century to be a peaceful, stable and prosperous hundred years.

Jiang made the remark while meeting with German Vice Chancellor and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, who is paying an official visit to China at the invitation of Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan earlier.

Jiang described the current international situation as undergoing profound changes and the world is moving towards detente. "There will be no world war," Jiang said, even though there are "still quite a few regional conflicts."

The trend of multi-polarization is not to reverse according to personal will, the Chinese president said. "China has always believed that the world should be a colorful one."

On China-Germany relations, Jiang said that China attaches importance to the growth of ties with Germany, its biggest cooperative partner in Europe, and hopes to further such friendly cooperation with the country in various areas.

Sino-German ties have seen sound progress and the two countries have witnessed rapid growth of two-way trade and kept frequent contacts, Jiang noted, citing his meetings with other key German statesmen this year as examples.

Fischer agreed with Jiang's evaluation on the international situation, noting that Germany also advocates that the world is diversified and multi-polar.

Germany acknowledges China's important role in maintaining world and regional peace and stability and is willing to strengthen cooperation with China in international affairs, he noted.

(People's Daily 12/12/2000)