（12th.Nov,2019, Zagreb Convention & Exhibition Center）
Madame Dubravka Duric Nemic, Direct of Croatia ministry of culture,
Ms .Anita Šikić, Chief editor University of Croatia Press,
Ms. Song Junhua, China people’s Publishing House,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Good Afternoon,
It is my honor and pleasure to be part of this great event, the launching ceremony of Croatian version of Xi Jinping Tells Stories at Zagreb Convention & Exhibition Center. At this special occasion, I would like to extend, on behalf of the Chinese Embassy in Croatia, my warmest welcome to all the friends present here today and my sincere appreciation to Croatia Ministry of Culture for your support, as well as to University of Croatia Press and other Croatia friends for their efforts and contribution to translating and publishing this great book. My special thank also goes to China Peoples Publishing House ,University of Croatia Press, Zagreb Convention & Exhibition Center and other Croatian friends for their hard work to make today’s great event possible. I also want to congratulate University of Croatia Press, and China people’s Publishing House for the success for your cooperation.
This book Xi Jinping Tells Stories captures and elaborates on the skill of storytelling as one of the distinct and outstanding leadership features of Mr. Xi Jinping, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and the President of the People’s Republic of China. It gathers the stories included in Xi’s speeches on various occasions, where they conveyed the essence of China’s history and culture, its reform and development, and the principles of China’s participating in global governance and cooperating with other countries to build a community with shared future for mankind. The respective stories not only convey abstract and profound concepts of governance in comparatively straightforward language, but also create an immediate emotional connection between the narrator and the listener.
The book includes 109 stories, divided into internal and external volumes. The internal volume covers clean governance, character and morals, self-improvement and governance, etc. The external volume focuses on people's friendship, national association, cultural integration and communication, historical emotion and so on. On top of referring to original text, each story is equipped with 'extended reading' to enrich the story details, restore the story context, and allow readers to better understand the reform and development idea, the principles of major country diplomacy and self-cultivation behind the stories.President Xi Jingping has put China’s development path into the stories, which is simple but profound, enlightening, and spreading the broad and deep “Chinese wisdom”.I
This book Xi Jinping Tells Stories has been translated into many languages since it was first published in 2017 and become very popular in the world. Just after the completion of the translation of the Croatia version this September, 200 copies of the books were wanted at my reception in celebration of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in Zagreb. Many guests expressed their high compliment to this book and said that it helped them understand better the one Belt and one road initiative based on mutual consultation, mutual contribution and shared development and building a community with shared future for mankind put forward by President Xi Jingping through the book.
Today’s event takes place at a very significant time for both China and China and Croatia bilateral relationship. This year marks the 70th Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China and 27th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relations between China and Croatia.In April, Premier Li Keqiang visited Croatia and attended the 8th Summit of China and Central and Eastern European Countries, which upgraded our bilateral relationship into “Diamond”development stage. In this year of historic significance, the publication and distribution of Croatian version of Xi Jinping Tells Stories is at the right time, and offers a precious present to our bilateral relationship. Through this book, people from Croatia can spell over the leader of China’s great feeling for the people and responsibility for the world, and perceive China’s past and present. By recommending this book, we look forward to further promoting mutual study,mutual understanding and joint development between our two countries, and bringing more benefits to people of our two countries and people of the whole world.
At last，I wish the book launch of Croatian version of Xi Jinping Tells Stories achieve a complete success!
Thank you！