Statement of President Manuel Roxas on the Occasion of the 35th Anniversary of the Republic of China

Statement of President Manuel Roxas:
On the occasion of the 35th Anniversary of the Republic of China

[Released on October 10, 1946]

In behalf of the Filipino people, I wish to extend felicitous greetings to the great Republic of China on this its 35th anniversary. The struggles of the Chinese people for national unity and democratic progress have not been easy nor without heart-breaking trials. Indeed, since the founding of the Chinese Republic under the far-seeing statesmanship of Sun Yat Sen, in 1910, China has been subjected to a series of assaults upon its territory and other tensions which have tested the great soul of that nation. That the Chinese people have survived all the crises of the bitter years of the past three decades and has come out of the eight years of Japanese occupation and brigandage bruised, but unbeaten and victorious, attests to the vitality and virility of the Chinese people.

Today China is one of the five Great Powers of the postwar world. In Asia she is the largest power. It is with deep satisfaction that we of the young Republic of the Philippines count on the friendship and goodwill of the Chinese people. Sino-Philippine friendship, being both natural and historic, will surely grow with the years by its own momentum as well as by the compulsion of common needs and common aspirations.