Your comments are welcome!
Please feel free to contact us with your personal stories, or vivid pictures! Address: 24 Baiwanzhuang St., Xicheng Dist., Beijing, 100037
I am the manager of the Sheffield City Council’s Chinese project. This time I came to attend the business matching activities of the 2019 China Industrial and Commercial Enterprises Cross-border Investment and Trade event. I read the February issue of China Today with the special report on the 13th Confucius Institute Conference. Professor Sir Keith Burnett – former president and vice chancellor of the University of Sheffield – is our old friend. We agree with his views in the article “The Bridge between China and the U.K.” As he said, besides cooperation with schools that offer Chinese courses, the institute is striving to promote mutual understanding between engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs in the two countries, and to further deepen the friendship among business partners. That is what the Sheffield City Council has done and would like to push further ahead. China is a hugely important trading partner for the U.K.’s north. We have many longstanding cultural and commercial relationships. We now have direct flights between China and the north of England for the first time, and have seen great increases in trade, tourism, and student
exchanges. Meanwhile, the north of England is home to a quarter of the U.K.’s population. We have world leading manufactures, a reputation for innovation, and are strong in design, creativity, science, and education. The Confucius Institute at the University of Sheffield has cooperated with the City Council to convene a forum on China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the U.K.’s Northern Powerhouse. The stories reported in your magazine are happening not just in Sheffield but also in other parts of the north of England, which is a true powerhouse of the U.K. economy.
Ben Hui
U.K.
I am a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. I read the April issue of China Today and was impressed by two stories. One is “The Road Continues South: China’s Expansion of the Belt and Road Investment in Latin America,” and another is “Clarifying Misunderstandings, Conveying the Essence.” I very much value President Xi’s opinion on free trade as the best way of building prosperity for all countries
and on better logistics as the main way of achieving it. While the Trump administration’s “America First” policy has been raising tariff and non-tariff barriers and promoting protectionism, China has come to be the leading torch-bearer of globalization and also as a leader in global climate change mitigation that Trump had denounced as a hoax. All this has made the Chinaled BRI a subject of global anticipation in the 2nd Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing and the relevant activities held for think tanks in Xiamen. We discussed how to promote co-existence by bridging the gap between societies that are facing an accelerated pace of intermingling thanks to improved transport and communications, especially through social media. In a world confronted by a myriad of challenges including populist politics, technological competition, and mounting nontraditional threats such as cyber-security, we need to consider President Xi’s proposal of building a community with a shared future for mankind.
Swaran Singh
India