Transport, Highways and Mass Media Minister Dr. Bandula Gunawardhana and China’s Ambassador to Sri Lanka Qi Zhenhong recently attended a discussion on the newly translated (into Sinhala) book Xi Jinping: The Governance of China (Volume 1) by China’s Foreign Language Publishing Institute through Sarasavi Publishers in Sri Lanka.
The discussion was held at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute in Colombo.
The first copy of the book was presented to Minister Dr. Gunawardhana by the Chairman of Sarasavi Publishers.
The Minister speaking on the occasion said, “On behalf of the Government and as a friend of China, I offer my greetings and thanks to all those who contributed to translate a book like this about the governance of Chinese President Xi Jinping as a special mission to the people who speak and write in the Sinhala language in our country and distribute it throughout the country through Sarasavi Publishers.”
“The People’s Republic of China was a regime that boldly introduced many radical changes to the world in order to better serve the people. The Xi Jinping governance is teaching a very big lesson to Sri Lankan society, which we continue to consider as one with socialist principles but do not allow any changes to be made. China has taught many new lessons to the world to create immeasurable changes in macroeconomic variables such as a country’s output, income, employment, price level, balance of payments, savings and investment, etc. I have an educated understanding of it.”
“I have a subjective understanding of it as someone who submitted a three-year research thesis to the China University of Foreign Studies and obtained a PhD under a scholarship on the economic, social and political situation between the two countries after the China-Ceylon Rubber-Rice Pact in 1952.”
“Many revolutionary changes in social attitudes, values, etc., have taken place during the Xi Jinping governance to create an economy where the majority of people live happily without poverty and unemployment.”
“In the year 2023 alone, I had the opportunity to represent the Government of Sri Lanka in about four different conferences and summits held in China after the Covid-19 pandemic. They have introduced to the world a lot of great experimental changes in digitalization, including artificial intelligence. There, the private sector has been provided with very wide space in the economy both domestically and internationally.”
“China has opened up to America, England, France, Germany, Japan and any other country for economic purposes. Socialist China has developed an amazing ability to generously embrace massive foreign investors. All those who have contributed to this have done a special service for our country due to the ample space available in this book to study various lessons related to that,” the Minister said.
The programme was hosted by the China International Communication Group and the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka and was organized by the Chinese Foreign Language Institute and Sarasavi Publishers.
