Home Meetings & Statements Events & Activities China & UN Documents About China 中文
  Home > Events & Activities
Remarks by Ambassador Zhang Jun at the Virtual Celebration of Spring Festival and Opening of Beijing Olympic Winter Games

2022-01-28 21:00

Your Excellencies,

Distinguished Guests,

Dear Colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Friends,

In three days, we will celebrate the Spring Festival and welcome the Chinese New Year. This is the most important traditional festival for us Chinese. It is the time for family members and friends to reunite and send holiday greetings to each other.

The Spring Festival this year is very special, because during the holiday season we will also have the opening of the Beijing Olympic Winter Games. While Chinese people will be celebrating the new year, countries around the world will gather for the grand event of the Olympics. It’s just like the saying goes, good things come in pairs. The pandemic may have stopped us from meeting in-person, but it cannot stop us from sharing joy, consolidating friendship and sending best wishes.

On this special occasion, on behalf of my colleagues, I wish to thank all of you, our dear friends, old and new, for your strong support in the past year, and wish everyone a peaceful, healthy and auspicious new year.

We are bidding farewell to the Year of the Ox. Ox represents diligence and harvest. Last year means a lot for China. We celebrated the centenary of the Communist Party of China, and embarked on a new journey toward fully building a modern socialist country. We have completed the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, brought a historic solution to absolute poverty, and are now striving for high-quality development. We also commemorated the 50th anniversary of the restoration of the lawful seat of the PRC in the UN, reaffirming strong support to true multilateralism at this new starting point for China-UN cooperation.

In a few days, we will say hello to the Year of the Tiger. Tiger represents courage and strength. As we speak, we are still facing the continued pandemic, the widening immunity and development gaps, and the flare-ups of hotspot issues. The world finds itself in a new period of turbulence and transformation. Faced with so many challenges, we must work together with the courage and strength of a tiger to tide over the trying time.

The United Nations is the central platform for addressing global challenges. China’s support for the UN has been consistent, enduring and reliable. We will continue to offer China’s wisdom, solution and strength for world peace and development.

We will continue to work with all parties to fight the pandemic. On top of the over two billion doses of vaccines already sent abroad, China will provide another one billion doses to African countries and 150 million doses to ASEAN countries.

We will continue our work to put development high on the UN agenda. Last week, the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative was officially launched. All countries are welcome to join the Group to implement the 2030 Agenda together, bring the world economy out of crisis, advance post-pandemic recovery and build a better future.

The motto of the Beijing Winter Olympics is “Together for a Shared Future”. It embodies the Olympic spirit of “together” and people’s keen aspiration for a better future. Two months ago, UNGA adopted by consensus the Olympic Truce resolution for the Beijing Winter Olympics, which was co-sponsored by 173 countries. For the first time, the UN released the stamps for Winter Olympics under the theme of “sport for peace”. Today is the first day of the Olympic Truce. We call on all parties to take this grand event of winter sport as an opportunity to thaw differences with dialogue, replace confrontation with cooperation, and safeguard world peace and development.

In one week, the Olympic flame will be reignited in Beijing, the only city to host both the summer and winter Olympics. The preparation has entered the final sprint. We are confident to present a simple, safe and splendid Olympics, and bring to the world more courage and strength in the Year of the Tiger.

Taking this opportunity, I also wish to send my best wishes in Chinese to my country and my fellow Chinese:

值此虎年新春之际,我代表常驻联合国代表团给全国人民拜年!牛辞胜岁,虎跃新程,祝福伟大的祖国在新的一年如虎添翼、繁荣昌盛!祝福全国人民幸福安康、虎年吉祥!祝福冬奥健儿们生龙活虎、勇创佳绩!

谢谢大家!

(On the occasion of the Chinese New Year of the Tiger, on behalf of the Permanent Mission of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations, I wish everybody in China a happy new year. As we bid farewell to the Year of the Ox and welcome the new Year of the Tiger, we wish our great nation vitality and prosperity, wish our people a peaceful, healthy and auspicious new year, and wish our athletes all the best at the Beijing Winter Olympics!

Thank you.)


Suggest to a friend
  Print