Nation should increase constructive dialogue and strategic cooperation with foreign partners to facilitate modernization.

The next five years will be a "period of important strategic opportunities", although the situation in 2011, the starting year of the country's 12th Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015), remains extremely complicated, Premier Wen Jiabao said in his Government Work Report delivered to the ongoing Fourth Session of the 11th National People's Congress.

As Wen's report highlights, the decades-old international order is expected to undergo some profound adjustments in the post-crisis era, which will cause both opportunities and challenges for the peaceful rise of China.

"We will continue to hold high the banner of peace, development and cooperation," Wen said, stressing that China would seek to "create a more favorable external environment and more beneficial external conditions for China's modernization". He also said that China will continue to embrace an open strategy of mutual benefit and persist in its efforts to build a harmonious world with lasting peace and common prosperity.

China should firmly grasp these emerging strategic opportunities and steadily push forward its peaceful development strategy in a bid to create a more favorable external environment for the smooth implementation of its 12th Five-Year Plan for national economic and social development.

The country's foreign policy should serve its economic and social development, maintain State sovereignty, security and development interests, and create favorable conditions for its modernization drive.

To develop advantageous diplomacy, China should continue to acknowledge its status as a developing nation and only undertake international responsibilities commensurate with its national strength. It should adopt a differentiated diplomatic stance toward different issues based on its own priorities, and on issues that might compromise its core interests it should remain as steadfast and unflinching as it has in the past.

In his report, Wen stressed China's plan to maintain and develop healthy and stable relations with major powers and push forward dialogue and consultations with them. Undoubtedly, Sino-US relations still remain at the top of China's diplomatic agenda. To further advance the relationship, China and the US should take active measures to enhance mutual trust and reduce mistrust, expand areas of mutual cooperation and effectively manage their competition in a bid to build a harmonious bilateral relationship and promote common progress.