MUTUAL WARTIME SUPPORT
The Chinese and Russian people supported and fought alongside each other and forged friendship with blood and lives in the war against Fascism and militarism, the Chinese leader said.
In the toughest moment of the Great Patriotic War, many death-defying Chinese devoted themselves to aiding China's neighboring ally.
Mao Anying, son of the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong, served as an artillery officer of the First Belarusian Front under the Soviet Union Red Army. He helped fight Nazi Germany and capture Berlin, while Chinese pilot Tang Duo joined the Soviet Air Force and achieved great feats in the aerial combat against Fascist troops.
During wartime, Ivanovo International Orphanage, a boarding school for children of revolutionaries around the world located 250 km northeast of Moscow, sheltered many offspring of Chinese martyrs.
Despite their tender age, those children volunteered to dig trenches, make clothes, prepare food and other supplies. Some even donated blood monthly to front-line soldiers.
During the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Soviet Union provided valuable political and humanitarian support to China as well as large quantities of supplies and equipment for the Chinese people, Xi noted.
To help combat the Japanese invaders, more than 2,000 Soviet pilots in volunteer squadrons came and defended China's airspace, while the Soviet Red Army fought shoulder by shoulder with Chinese troops in Northeast China at the war's final stage.
The Chinese people will always remember those Russian soldiers and the people who died supporting the independence and liberation of the Chinese nation, Xi said.
REMEMBER HISTORY, PURSUE WIN-WIN COOPERATION
"If we lost the memory of our past, our mind and soul would be lost in the darkness," Xi quoted Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky.
This year, China and Russia will hold a series of celebrations to demonstrate their resolve in safeguarding the WWII victory and international justice while calling for people around the world to cherish hard-won peace.
"To forget the past means to betray," Xi said. "The two peoples of China and Russia will stand together with all peace-loving nations and people firmly against any attempt or action to deny, distort or tamper with WWII history."
The bitter lessons drawn from WWII, Xi said, teach that the Law of the Jungle, the strong preying on the weak, or warlike or hegemonic policies, or winner-take-all or zero-sum mindsets will not benefit coexistence, peace and development for all mankind.
"Peace not war, cooperation not confrontation, and win-win not zero-sum are what drive peace, progress and development of human society," Xi said.
Xi urged all nations to adopt win-win cooperation as a basic policy orientation in dealing with international affairs.
"We are strong if united but weak if isolated," Xi said, adding that the conditions today are more favorable than ever to achieve peace and development.
Calling for efforts to build a new type of international relations with win-win and cooperation at its core, Xi urged all nations to combine their interests with those of others and expand the convergence of common interests. Also, Xi said all nations should embrace new concepts and join hands to work on the growing number of global challenges.
"Decades ago, the Chinese and Russian nations shared weal and woe and forged an unbreakable war friendship with fresh blood," Xi said. "Today, the two peoples will jointly move forward, safeguarding peace and promoting development, and continue to contribute to enduring global peace and the common progress of mankind."
