"The reason China is able to change the world is basically because China changes herself first," said Li Cheng, a senior fellow at the US think tank, the Brookings Institution, during a recent interview with Xinhua.

Since China's reform and open-up policy was carried out about 30 years ago, great changes, including changes in China's economy, politics, culture, society and even ideology, have taken place, Li said.

A major characteristic of the reform and open-up policy is to practise market economy domestically and open up to the outside world, he added.

Through the wisdom of old-generation Chinese leaders and through the so-called "Ping-Pong diplomacy," China established diplomatic relations with the United States and thus helped end the Cold War, Li said.

Moreover, the new-generation Chinese leaders, while paying attention to diplomacy with big powers, also focus on multilateral diplomacy, he said, noting China has successfully improved relations with countries in Southeast Asia as well as Japan.

The slogans put forward by the Chinese government, such as "peaceful development" and "harmonious society," are good and right and have been responded by the West favorably, Li said. And the just-concluded Beijing Olympics also helped promote such ideas and slogans, he added.

According to Li, China and the United States are not enemies, and they are facing the same challenges.

It is important for China to continue to show to the world that China, as a rising power, will adhere to the road of peaceful development and will not involve in conflicts with existing world powers or engage in a new Cold War, he said.

(Xinhua News Agency October 7, 2008)