Jiang calls for peace and prosperity

Jiang delivers his key-note address

HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- Chinese President Jiang Zemin has delivered a message of peace and prosperity to around 850 delegates and dignitaries at a global business forum in Hong Kong.

In his first address to the business community since the U.S. spy plane standoff Jiang urged for world peace.

"I hope that all of us here today will join hands with all other peace-loving people and work for a lasting world peace and common development and prosperity of all nations and regions," he said Tuesday.

"There are still in this world a few interest groups which always want to seek gains by creating tensions here and there. This is against the will of the majority of the people and against the trends of the times."

Pomp, pageantry and protests greeted Jiang in Hong Kong when he arrived Tuesday amid tight security.

Protesters from a range of groups plan to disrupt Jiang's two-day visit. More than 100 Falun Gong practitioners staged a demonstration ahead of his arrival.

The Hong Kong Special Administration Region's Chief Executive, Tung Chee Hwa, greeted Jiang on the tarmac amid a sea of waving red flags.

A number of groups, including the Falun Gong, announced plans to use the visit as an occasion to air grievances over China's human rights record and what they say is growing pressure on the Hong Kong government to toe Beijing's line.

Hong Kong security officials have deployed some 3,000 police in and around the territory's convention center, the venue for the three-day forum.

That compares with just 2,000 officers assigned to cover events surrounding the handover from British colonial rule in mid-1997.

At least 100 overseas Falun Gong practitioners have been barred from entering Hong Kong over the last few days, the group has said.

Those detained "were treated as criminals, being forced into detention centers and deprived of their basic rights and freedoms," it said in a statement.

China willing to enter WTO

In his opening address, Jiang emphasized the strength of Asia and China's willingness to enter the World Trade Organization.

"Opening up- to the outside world is a major decision China has made to advance its modernization drive and also its long term basic state policy," he said.

China was the developing world's largest recipient of foreign investment last year, with inflows of about $50 billion.

Much of that investment goes into export-orientated manufacturing plants, reflecting the fact that while China's focus remains its huge domestic economy, it has also become a massive exporter -- particularly to the United States and Japan.

Unchanged policy on HK

China's economy is expected to grow at between 7.5 and 8.0 percent this year. But that figure masks the vast discrepancy between growth rates in the eastern provinces' economic hot zones, and the much poorer western provinces.

Jiang and his premier Zhu Rongji know that if China is to have a real chance of keeping the country together while the painful process of state enterprise reform unfolds, then stronger economic growth in the west will be crucial.

Jiang is unlikely to make too much of last month's spy plane incident in his pitch to foreign investors . On Hong Kong, Jiang said "I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate that it is the long term basic state policy of the Chinese government to implement the principles of 'one country, two systems' -- Hong Kong people administrating Hong Kong' and a high degree of autonomy. The Chinese Government will never waver in or change this policy," he said.

The Fortune Global Forum is organised by Fortune magazine, a unit of AOL Time Warner. CNN is also a division of AOL Time Warner.

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