China pursues a foreign policy dedicated to promoting international cooperation and peace. Its fundamental goals are to preserve China's independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, to create a favorable international environment for China's reform, opening up and modernization, to further common development and to maintain world peace. Objectives include:

— Seeking to work with the rest of the world for stability of the international society; encouraging economic globalization for the common prosperity of all, especially developing countries.

— Encouraging international political and economic order based on mutual respect, with countries trusting each other in terms of security, solving conflicts through dialogue and cooperation instead of the use or threat of force.

— Safeguarding world diversity, recognizing that every country's internal affairs should be decided by its own people and the world's affairs negotiated equitably by all countries.

— Opposing all forms of terrorism through strengthening international cooperation, guarding against its signs and root causes, and seeking to eliminate sources of terrorism.

— Improving relations with developed countries by putting a priority on all people's interest and putting aside differences in social systems and ideologies, expanding the common interests and solving the disputes.

— Strengthening good-neighborly relations with surrounding countries, taking them as partners and friends to foster regional cooperation.

— Strengthening unity and cooperation with developing countries; encouraging mutual understanding, trust and support; widening areas of cooperation.

— Participating in an active way in multi-lateral international affairs, playing a role in the UN and other international and regional organizations and supporting the efforts to safeguard the legal rights of developing countries.

With the inauguration of the PRC on October 1, 1949, the Chinese government declared:

"This government is the sole legal government representing the people of the People's Republic of China. It is ready to establish diplomatic relations with all foreign governments willing to observe the principles of equality, mutual benefit and respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty."

That is to say, basic to China's establishment of relations with any country is the acknowledgement that there is only one China in the world and that Taiwan Province is an integral part of the territory of the People's Republic of China, which strives to implement the basic principle of "peaceful reunification, and one country, two systems" and the eight-point proposal for the settlement of the Taiwan question; and which looks for an early resumption of dialogue and negotiation between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits on the basis of the one-China principle. Accordingly, China has established diplomatic relations with over 160 countries, the latest Ñ on March 23, 2004 — with the Commonwealth of Dominica.