China needs a favorable exterior situation at a time when it is going all out to build a well-off society in an all-round way, delegates said when discussing Jiang's Zemin's report to the congress over the past several days.

Jiang's report outlined the main tasks for China's diplomacy in the years to come, stressing that the purpose of the nation's foreign policy is to maintain world peace and promote common development.

CPC delegates believed that the tasks are practical, realistic and in accordance with both international and domestic situations.

It is possible to maintain peaceful international and favorable neighboring conditions for a relatively long period of time to come as the trends toward multipolarization and economic globalization have provided opportunities for world peace and development, they added.

"We must make the most of strategic opportunities facing us in the first two decades of the new century and open wider to and increase exchanges with the outside world," said Zhou Fuyuan, a delegate from east China's Jiangsu Province.

Increasing economic exchanges are conducive to promoting political relations between China and other countries, said Yu Xiaosong.

Yang Renzheng, a delegate from Zhejiang Province, said that diplomacy is expected to play a bigger role in helping accelerate domestic economic development as economic globalization picks up pace.

(Xinhua News Agency November 14, 2002)