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When China fails to live up to its obligations, we push back - sort of. We accept arguments from Chinese leaders that they are a developing country that needs time to reform.

Now, I know it's a widespread assumption in the West that as countries modernize, they also westernize. This is an illusion. It's an assumption that modernity is a product simply of competition, markets and technology. It is not. It is also shaped equally by history and culture. China is not like the West, and it will not become like the West.

I believe I and all the Chinese people have such a conviction that China will make continuous progress and the people's wishes for and needs for democracy and freedom are irresistible.

I think the rise of China is inevitable, because China has moved from a low-cost producer, at low levels of technology, to higher levels of technology, and because it's very competitive, even in some high-tech products they offer at very competitive rates - much lower than their competitors.

China's history is marked by thousands of years of world-changing innovations: from the compass and gunpowder to acupuncture and the printing press. No one should be surprised that China has re-emerged as an economic superpower.

China is, indeed, in so many ways, not like the West. It is not even primarily a nation state but a civilisation state. Whereas the West has primarily been shaped by its experience of nation, China has been moulded by its sense of civilisation.

Because of the economic crisis, China and the United States are bound together. This is a totally new phenomenon, and nobody will fight for ideology anymore. It's all about business.

So if you look back over the long history of China, they've never tried to take over the world, but they've been quite aggressive in their own neighborhood... in carrying out their own purposes and interests in their sphere of the world.

China is still a developing country with a myriad of tasks and challenges.