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China At War

Friends, it gives me great pleasure to be here today and to meet with so distinguished a gathering. 

In the last seven and half years, my country has been engaged in a momentous struggle and my people have suffered great miseries. But in all these long years, we Chinese have been greatly heartened by American sympathy at first and substantially supported by American arms later; for all these it is my privilege to thank you the women of America.

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I am not going to burden you with Chinese history, but you may like to know a few of those backgrounds which may help us to better understand the present. Different in many things as are the American and Chinese ways of life, past history, and material circumstances, we find a basic similarity in our attitudes towards life, government, war and peace. Our political theory and social life are based on democracy and we, like you, never had an aristocracy or a ruling class, or hereditary class privileges. Socially we have always been democratic, even in the days of the Emperors a poor peasant's son could rise to be the highest official of the state if he passed civil service examinations. Throughout the centuries, we have been taught by our elders and teachers that the people are of first importance, the state comes next, and the person of the ruler is of least importance. The fundamental principles of government were summed up in the time-honored phrase, "The Emperor hears what the people hear, he sees what the people see" [[/strikethrough}}

And China, like America, has always been a peace loving nation. Our traditions and the fundamental teachings of our philosophers and religious leaders have always been for peace and for the pursuit of happiness without fear. Warlike activities are condemned in unmistaken terms with the result that the Chinese people had never been prepared in war. This deep love of peace has of course very unfortunate consequences whenever some warlike neighbour should make unprovoked attacks on China. But after suffering setbacks and humiliations at first from the invaders, the Chinese had always managed to emerge victorious, thus proving to the world that peace will always prevail over war and that in the long run peace always pays. 

Transcription Notes:
Are the 3rd & 4th paragraphs crossed out??