Jiang defended China's human rights record and touted the country's appeal to international business at the Shanghai forum

September 27, 1999
Web posted at: 11:36 p.m. HKT (1536 GMT)

From staff and wire reports

SHANGHAI, China (CNN) -- Chinese President Jiang Zemin said on Monday that China wanted "peaceful unification" with Taiwan, but added that it would not back down from threats to use force, if necessary, to bring the island back under Chinese control.

"We will not undertake to renounce the use of force precisely for the purpose of bringing about a peaceful resolution of the Taiwan question," he said. "The Chinese people have both the determination and ability to achieve the complete reunification of their motherland."

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Jiang was speaking to some 800 international business leaders gathered in Shanghai for the opening of the Fortune Global Forum. In a speech he also used to tout China's appeal to international business, the president warned other countries not to interfere with China's internal issues.

"No country will allow its own territory to be split off, nor will it allow any foreign force to create or support such a split," he said.

Taiwan, led by Nationalist politicians, has been estranged from the mainland since the communist takeover in 1949. While China regards the island as a renegade Chinese territory, Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui recently called for "special state-to-state" relations between the two.

Jiang offered condolences to those in Taiwan who were affected by a recent devastating earthquake and aftershocks. The tremors have killed more than 2,000 people.

The Fortune forum opened a week of activities to mark 50 years of communist rule in China. Shanghai, China's financial center, prepared for the world's leading capitalists by building a $100 million convention center and a $1.5 billion airport.

Despite slumping economic growth, declining international investment, continuing tension with the United States and uncertainty about its bid to join the World Trade Organization, Jiang said China was "filled with confidence" for the 21st century.

"The Chinese people will firmly and unswervingly follow the paths of reform and opening up," said Jiang, a former Shanghai mayor. "Our goal is to realize modernization by the middle of the coming century, to make our country a wealthy, strong, democratic, and a civilized, modern socialistic country and to achieve the great revival of the Chinese nation."

Defending his country's human rights record, long criticized by the United States, Jiang said that a nation must first secure its own people's "rights to survival and development" before looking to other issues.

"The fact China has assured the rights to survival and development of over 1.2 billion (Chinese people) is a major contribution to the course of the progress of human rights across the world," the president said. "This is the road we must take for the course of promoting human rights in light of China's national conditions."

Hong Kong Bureau Chief Mike Chinoy and Reuters contributed to this report.

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