President Fredrick F. Chien of the Control Yuan left for the Philippines from July 19 to 23, 2002 to attend the ceremony for establishing the Global Alliance for Democracy and Peace, Branch in the Philippines. Chien, in that event, made a speech entitled “To Create Cross-Strait Relations with a New-Era Vision by Combining the Strengths of Democracy with Freedom,” pointing out that Mainland China has devoted herself to economic development since 1979, which is gradually making no difference in economy between the two sides. Chien deemed it a good trend for if people of the two sides can share the same value of democracy and freedom, new era of the cross-strait relations will be certainly near in the future.