‘Stranded’ South African students in China an embarrassment

RECENT media reports about the 51 South Africans “stranded” in China compel one, living in China, to respond and certainly apologise to the Chinese for the great embarrassment caused by these South Africans.

The People’s Republic of China and the Republic of South Africa celebrate 20 years of diplomatic relations this year. In the last two decades our relationship has deepened enormously, with South Africa being one of the countries which enjoys a “comprehensive strategic partnership” with China as well as being one of only a few countries that enjoys “people to people” relations.

There is no doubt that this incident has been used by some to cause maximum embarrassment to this special and deep relationship South Africa enjoys with China. As we prepare for the BRICS Summit, the timing could not be worse.

One cannot understand how people with no qualifications and who applied for a student visa can expect to teach English in another country. Even if they were told they would obtain training, it makes no sense that one is able to teach after so little training, for this is not even possible in South Africa.

Even more so, should one make the proper enquiries, one would soon discover that no country allows you to apply for a visa, especially changing the nature of the visa, once in that country. You will have to go back to the country of your passport to apply for the correct visa.

It is also opportune to take this opportunity to thank the great people of China for awarding myself and thousands of other South Africans and Africans the opportunity to pursue studies in China.

Be assured that for many of us, the experience is an exhilarating as well as exciting one. You can easily understand why China is achieving as much as it is simply because of the warmth of its people, their resolve to tackle and solve any challenge and their ability to be open to the world.

No doubt, law and order, for the sake of social cohesion, plays an integral part of Chinese development.

As someone living in Beijing as a stu dent, I had to accept in the first few days that I could either expect to live like a South African in China or immerse myself completely into the Chinese experience. If I were to have insisted that I live like a South African in China, my learning experience here would be extremely limited and I would be immensely unhappy.

However, as the last 40 years has taught us, China must be doing some things right in order for it to have progressed as much as it did.

For example, just last year at the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary and President Xi Jinping reported that within a five-year period (2013-2018), China was able to lift 50 million people out of poverty/

This is almost the entire population of South Africa where half of our population lives in poverty. We have much to learn from China. It was the great Deng Xiaoping who said: “Reform is for China to be open to the world and for the world to be open to China!”

Indeed, China has been opened up to us and we accept China in the same gracious spirit.