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China on the move? (This is long)
I found this on another forum and found it interesting... to say the least.
China to Boost Educational Ties with Africa
China will grant scholarships to more African students to study in China, especially to those pursuing postgraduate degrees, said Chinese Vice-Minister of Education Wei Yu at a seminar on cooperation in education, science and technology and health, part of the three-day China-Africa Cooperation Forum that opened Tuesday.
Wei said China will expand educational cooperation with African countries in the new century.
China will send more teachers to Africa to help its local institutions of higher learning to develop key disciplinary areas and establish laboratories, and it will provide African countries necessary teaching equipment and stationery, Wei said.
China will also encourage Chinese universities to forge closer ties with their African counterparts, said Wei, adding that this will promote mutual understanding and common development.
Distance education will also be a way of upgrading cooperation with African countries, said Wei.
So far, Chinese Ministry of Education has initiated 36 projects in cooperation with Africa, 23 of which have been completed.
In addition, over 10 Chinese universities have established relations with 20 institutions of higher learning in 16 African countries.
At present, the number of African students studying in China totals 1,384, who account for 21.8 percent of all students granted Chinese governmental scholarships.
Education is essential to sustainable social and economic development for both China and Africa, Wei said, stressing that the potential for cooperation in the field remains tremendous due to their common needs and mutually-complementary advantages.
Jiang kills two birds with one tour
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - One of the last diplomatic tours of Chinese Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin before he steps down this fall underscores two fundamentals that will shape China's foreign policy in the coming years, even as a new generation of leaders takes over.
Beijing's criticism of the US policy of hegemony and the Chinese rush to satiate the country's growing oil and energy needs underpin a whirlwind two-week tour that took Jiang to Libya, Nigeria and Tunisia and will end this weekend at Iran's capital, Tehran.
With highly publicized diplomatic appearances in Libya and Iran this week - two countries that the United States regards as "rogue nations" - the Chinese president also wants to send a message that despite its pledge to support the US "war against terrorism", Beijing disagrees with Washington's "axis of evil" foreign policy.
"Jiang's visit to these countries shows that China will carry on with its own diplomacy and strengthen its traditionally good relations with the developing world," said Professor Guo Xianggang, a researcher at the China International Affairs Research Institute. "We don't agree with the Americans on the 'rogue nation' concept."
But leaving its own diplomatic mark is only one side of Beijing's charm offensive with the countries in Africa and the Middle East. What underpins Beijing's statements of friendship signed in capitals from Tripoli to Tehran is China's insatiable thirst for oil. A net importer since 1996, China has been eyeing oil exploration in Nigeria, Tunisia and Libya while relying on the Middle East for over half its current oil imports.
When in Tripoli, Jiang attended the signing of an oil pact between China National Petroleum Corp, one of China's state-owned oil giants, and Libyan National Oil Co, which opened Libya's oilfields to China's exploration.
Visiting Nigeria - Africa's largest oil producer - this week, Jiang promised that a Chinese trade mission comprising "thousands of Chinese businessmen" will soon visit Nigeria to "enhance co-operation" further. Already the sixth-largest oil producer in the world, Nigeria has plans to increase oil production by 50 percent in coming years and wants to sell more of its oil directly to China.
Although Jiang's visits were arranged some time ago and carefully scripted, they are significant as they occur amid renewed tensions in the Middle East. Violence between Israel and Palestine and its impact on international oil markets has highlighted China's growing reliance on imported oil. Despite inflated oil prices in the Middle East, last year China had to import 70 million tonnes of oil compared with 36 million tonnes in 1999. With an economy growing by 7 percent annually, China's imports are projected to rise to 100 million tonnes by 2010, nearly a third of its projected total oil demand of 320 million tonnes.
Last week, Chinese oil officials called for more diversified oil supplies to offset the country's vulnerability to fuel-cost fluctuations. "In the wake of rising oil prices in the Middle East, we will have to enhance our oil supply from our neighboring Southeast Asian countries," Li Yizhong, chairman of Sinopec, China's largest oil firm, told participants at the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan province. Although safer than oil supplies in the Middle East, imports from Southeast Asia are also regarded as inferior in quality to Middle East oil. And industry watchers believe that China has to look for less explored territories, where Western oil companies have not established themselves firmly.
Jiang appears to have taken that mission personally. During his visit to Libya, Nigeria and Tunisia, he secured Beijing's access to these nations' rich oil resources by pledging investment and presenting China as a powerful ally to the Muslim world. The first Chinese leader ever to visit Libya, Jiang visited the palace where the daughter of Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi and some 3,000 other people were killed during a US bombing raid in 1986. "America managed to destroy houses but it will not succeed in destroying Libyan values and principles," Jiang told Gadaffi. He spoke strongly in support of the isolated Arab nation, which Washington has labeled a "rogue nation" and placed on its list of state sponsors of terrorism. "China is against the practice that links the terrorism with a certain nationality or religion," he said.
Jiang's pointed remarks are seen as aimed to distance Beijing from Washington's commitment to fight the "axis of evil" - Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Oft-fragile relations between China and the United States have entered another difficult period because of Washington's increasingly public show of support for Taiwan. Communist mainland China regards the island of democratic Taiwan as a rebel province, which split from the motherland after the civil war in 1949. Reuniting with Taiwan, by force if necessary, has become one of the primary goals for the Chinese leadership in the new century.
...Read the next post also...
I found this on another forum and found it interesting... to say the least.
China to Boost Educational Ties with Africa
China will grant scholarships to more African students to study in China, especially to those pursuing postgraduate degrees, said Chinese Vice-Minister of Education Wei Yu at a seminar on cooperation in education, science and technology and health, part of the three-day China-Africa Cooperation Forum that opened Tuesday.
Wei said China will expand educational cooperation with African countries in the new century.
China will send more teachers to Africa to help its local institutions of higher learning to develop key disciplinary areas and establish laboratories, and it will provide African countries necessary teaching equipment and stationery, Wei said.
China will also encourage Chinese universities to forge closer ties with their African counterparts, said Wei, adding that this will promote mutual understanding and common development.
Distance education will also be a way of upgrading cooperation with African countries, said Wei.
So far, Chinese Ministry of Education has initiated 36 projects in cooperation with Africa, 23 of which have been completed.
In addition, over 10 Chinese universities have established relations with 20 institutions of higher learning in 16 African countries.
At present, the number of African students studying in China totals 1,384, who account for 21.8 percent of all students granted Chinese governmental scholarships.
Education is essential to sustainable social and economic development for both China and Africa, Wei said, stressing that the potential for cooperation in the field remains tremendous due to their common needs and mutually-complementary advantages.
Jiang kills two birds with one tour
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - One of the last diplomatic tours of Chinese Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin before he steps down this fall underscores two fundamentals that will shape China's foreign policy in the coming years, even as a new generation of leaders takes over.
Beijing's criticism of the US policy of hegemony and the Chinese rush to satiate the country's growing oil and energy needs underpin a whirlwind two-week tour that took Jiang to Libya, Nigeria and Tunisia and will end this weekend at Iran's capital, Tehran.
With highly publicized diplomatic appearances in Libya and Iran this week - two countries that the United States regards as "rogue nations" - the Chinese president also wants to send a message that despite its pledge to support the US "war against terrorism", Beijing disagrees with Washington's "axis of evil" foreign policy.
"Jiang's visit to these countries shows that China will carry on with its own diplomacy and strengthen its traditionally good relations with the developing world," said Professor Guo Xianggang, a researcher at the China International Affairs Research Institute. "We don't agree with the Americans on the 'rogue nation' concept."
But leaving its own diplomatic mark is only one side of Beijing's charm offensive with the countries in Africa and the Middle East. What underpins Beijing's statements of friendship signed in capitals from Tripoli to Tehran is China's insatiable thirst for oil. A net importer since 1996, China has been eyeing oil exploration in Nigeria, Tunisia and Libya while relying on the Middle East for over half its current oil imports.
When in Tripoli, Jiang attended the signing of an oil pact between China National Petroleum Corp, one of China's state-owned oil giants, and Libyan National Oil Co, which opened Libya's oilfields to China's exploration.
Visiting Nigeria - Africa's largest oil producer - this week, Jiang promised that a Chinese trade mission comprising "thousands of Chinese businessmen" will soon visit Nigeria to "enhance co-operation" further. Already the sixth-largest oil producer in the world, Nigeria has plans to increase oil production by 50 percent in coming years and wants to sell more of its oil directly to China.
Although Jiang's visits were arranged some time ago and carefully scripted, they are significant as they occur amid renewed tensions in the Middle East. Violence between Israel and Palestine and its impact on international oil markets has highlighted China's growing reliance on imported oil. Despite inflated oil prices in the Middle East, last year China had to import 70 million tonnes of oil compared with 36 million tonnes in 1999. With an economy growing by 7 percent annually, China's imports are projected to rise to 100 million tonnes by 2010, nearly a third of its projected total oil demand of 320 million tonnes.
Last week, Chinese oil officials called for more diversified oil supplies to offset the country's vulnerability to fuel-cost fluctuations. "In the wake of rising oil prices in the Middle East, we will have to enhance our oil supply from our neighboring Southeast Asian countries," Li Yizhong, chairman of Sinopec, China's largest oil firm, told participants at the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan province. Although safer than oil supplies in the Middle East, imports from Southeast Asia are also regarded as inferior in quality to Middle East oil. And industry watchers believe that China has to look for less explored territories, where Western oil companies have not established themselves firmly.
Jiang appears to have taken that mission personally. During his visit to Libya, Nigeria and Tunisia, he secured Beijing's access to these nations' rich oil resources by pledging investment and presenting China as a powerful ally to the Muslim world. The first Chinese leader ever to visit Libya, Jiang visited the palace where the daughter of Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi and some 3,000 other people were killed during a US bombing raid in 1986. "America managed to destroy houses but it will not succeed in destroying Libyan values and principles," Jiang told Gadaffi. He spoke strongly in support of the isolated Arab nation, which Washington has labeled a "rogue nation" and placed on its list of state sponsors of terrorism. "China is against the practice that links the terrorism with a certain nationality or religion," he said.
Jiang's pointed remarks are seen as aimed to distance Beijing from Washington's commitment to fight the "axis of evil" - Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Oft-fragile relations between China and the United States have entered another difficult period because of Washington's increasingly public show of support for Taiwan. Communist mainland China regards the island of democratic Taiwan as a rebel province, which split from the motherland after the civil war in 1949. Reuniting with Taiwan, by force if necessary, has become one of the primary goals for the Chinese leadership in the new century.
...Read the next post also...
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