China is the future of the world, therefore Chinese students and
the study of China is indispensable to any international school,
commented a US university president in Beijing Saturday.
Lee C. Bollinger, president of Columbia University of the United
States, told Xinhua that "as young people from the United States
and other countries have shown a stronger interest in China,
Columbia University also hoped to expand cooperation with the
Chinese counterparts."
To celebrate the 250th founding anniversary of the university,
he said, he specially chose China as an important stop of his East
Asia tour.
He said this year, Columbia University will join hands with
Beijing Foreign Language Study University to launch a Business
Chinese Program in Shanghai, which is aimed to help US students to
have a business internship in Chinese companies.
Columbia University started the study of East Asia and Asia one
century ago, becoming the first US university setting up courses of
Asian study. Bollinger said his university has the largest library
for East Asian study outside Asia, which keeps 750,000 volumes of
books and 5,500 journals on Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages,
etc.
Incomplete statistics show that currently about 40 percent of
the international students and visiting scholars in Columbia
University are from East Asia and Southeast Asia, among?whom
600 to 1,000 are from China.
Bollinger said Columbia University attracts the most excellent
brain in Asia, and also benefited from its close contact with its
alumni all over Asia.
Bollinger said he has been amazed at the profound changes of
China and the energy of the big cities like Beijing and Shanghai.
And this time, he once again found out that Chinese universities,
holding an urgent need of building themselves into first-class
universities, are actively seeking cooperation with foreign
counterparts.
According to him, with the help of the governmental funds, US
universities are good at turning scientific research results into
practical use. Columbia University, now ranking the first for its
scientific research programs among the US higher educational
institutes, got 400 million US dollars of governmental funds
annually.
"As far as I know, the Chinese government also encouraged
universities to carry out scientific and technological innovation.
Columbia is looking forward to new cooperation with Chinese
universities in this field," said Bollinger.
(Xinhua News Agency April 11, 2004)