Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said that he hopes to learn from the Irish development experience as Ireland turned out to be an advanced country only in a period of over 20 years.

Premier Wen made the remarks during an interview in Beijing Wednesday with Assistant Editor Miriam Donohoe of the Irish Times before his visit to five European nations including Germany, Belgium, Italy, Britain and Ireland and the headquarters of the European Union scheduled for May 2 and 12.

Ireland, current the rotating EU president, has played an important role in pushing forward Sino-EU friendship and cooperation, said Wen, voicing the hope that his visit to the country will help promote the development of Sino-EU relations and Ireland will play a more active role in this regard.

He said he hopes to clarify Sino-Irish cooperative spheres, among which the most important thing is high-tech and education cooperation, and he also hopes to strengthen bilateral consultations on major international and regional issues.

He went on to say that Ireland attaches importance to its relations with Asia, with China in particular, and the Asia Strategy it had set forth recently indicated its heed to China and Asia.

Similarly, China also takes Ireland as an important cooperative partner in Europe, which can be shown by two visits by Chinese premiers to the country within three years, said Wen.

Wen pointed to the development of Ireland in terms of education, science and technology, and said there are about 60,000 Chinese residing in Ireland and he hopes they would observe the Irish laws and regulations.

Concerning the Taiwan issue, Wen said Taiwan is part of the Chinese territory, and the Taiwan issue is in fact the one left by China's civil war in history. He underscored that there is only one China in the world, and both the mainland and Taiwan belong to China, and China's sovereignty and territorial integrity are inseparable.

He reiterated that China's policy on Taiwan is to adhere to "peaceful reunification", and "one country, two systems", and China will exert its utmost to realize a peaceful reunification of the motherland and at the same time it will never tolerate Taiwan's separation from it.

Pertaining to China's political system, Wen said while going in for economic reform, China is carrying out its political structural reform, that is, to develop socialist democracy and improve socialist legal system.

The priority for China's democracy is to guarantee the subsistence rights and development rights for its population of 1.3 billion, he acknowledged, which is no easy thing, saying that China has helped 250 million people shake off poverty since its adoption of the reform and opening-up policy more than 20 years ago.

While developing the economy, Wen said, China has begun to attach importance to balance the development between urban and rural areas, between different regions, between economic and social development, between domestic development and opening itself to the outside world, and between the humanity and the nature.

The premier cited the first thing for China to do as development and the second thing as coordinated development. He underscored that China should pay particular attention to social fairness and justice.

China has continuously promoted socialist democracy, especially the democracy at the grassroots levels by resorting to democratic election, democratic management, and exercising decision-making and supervision in a democratic way.

He further noted that China has a huge population with a vast territory, and its development is imbalanced, and it can only introduce the direct election at the grassroots village level that is expected to be a great practice for villagers to improve their capability. This so far constitutes China's democratic development process.

Currently, Wen noted, conditions for the direct election at higher levels are not available.

Meanwhile, he said China has defined its general plan of administering the country according to law and building a socialist legal country under the rule of law, and keeps improving its socialist legal system. He hopes the Irish friends could see the progress China had scored in the process of democratic development.

The biggest challenge for China at present is how to build itself up and accomplish an all-round, coordinated and sustained development, so as to enable the ordinary people to live a still better life, especially to help those in dire need, including a large number of farmers, laid-off workers and some disadvantageous groups of people.

The premier shoulders great accountability for the country, society and people, said Wen, adding that the responsibility has originated from his personal deep understanding of and affection for his country and people.

"The more I understand the people, the deeper I love them and my responsibility is turning increasingly heavier," said the Chinese premier.

(Xinhua News Agency April 30, 2004)