Transcript: NPR's Interview With China's Ambassador To The U.S.

In a wide-ranging interview with Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep, Cui Tiankai, China's ambassador to the U.S., discusses 70 years of Communist Party rule, President Xi Jinping's move to do away with presidential term limits and the Hong Kong protests.

Steve Inskeep: In what way has Communist rule in China the past 70 years been a success?

Cui Tiankai: I think you have to look at the Chinese history. Of course we have a much longer history than the United States. You have to look at 5,000 years of Chinese civilization. But that is the, I think, of the cultural DNA of today's China. You have to have some understanding of this in order to understand today's China.

Ancient civilization was powerful for many, many, many millennia.

You see all the teachings of values by Confucius or by other very wise men in the past that they are in the DNA of the Chinese nation. You have to understand this. But of course you should also have a close look at what happened in the last two centuries also since the Opium War in 1840. You see a very proud ancient civilization was invaded, exploited, oppressed by foreign powers. This has left a very deep impact on the mindset of the Chinese nation. So for over 100 years, generation after generation of the Chinese try their best to modernize the country, to revitalize, rejuvenate an ancient civilization. Try to have an ancient civilization modernize while still keeping some of its essential elements, keeping its own tradition. I think of the, the founding of the Communist Party was just against this background and throughout — you see, in about two years' time it will be commemorating the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party.

This party was born in China. It grew out of the Chinese soil. Of course we learn a lot of things. We sort of imported Marxism, but we always say we are doing something with Chinese characteristics. It means the Chinese culture, Chinese tradition is always there. So the Communist Party in China is very different from the Communist Party of the former Soviet Union or maybe in some other countries. It is very Chinese. Of course it is a Communist Party. But I think in the history of mankind people are always striving for better life, equality, freedom or these good things, and people may follow a different path, may have different ways of achieving the goals, and maybe some people believe in this ideology or philosophy. Others believe in others. I think that people could try. People of all countries in the world could try to cut, explore their own ways of running their country, achieving modernization, economic development, freedom for the people and build their country strong, prosperous.

Unfortunately, some of the countries have not succeeded. Others