Welcome Speech at the First Technical Group
Meeting of China-US E-Language Project

Vice Minister Zhang Xinsheng
Ministry of Education, P. R. China
September 25, 2002 Beijing

Dr. Sclafani,
Mr. Boam
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning!

First of all, on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of Education, I would like to extend my warm welcome to the members of the US expert group, officials from the US Department of Education, representatives from the US Embassy in Beijing and our own Chinese Experts for attending this important and meaningful meeting.

I am pleased to see that on both the US and Chinese sides, we have made great efforts in the past 2 years, especially since May this year. Planning for the E-Language Project has made great progress. Both sides have selected highly qualified experts for this project, and have worked together very hard for this first expert group meeting. Particularly, my thanks should be given to Dr. Susan Sclafani for her continued efforts and very serious attitudes towards this project. All of these, I believe, have laid a good foundation for a successful Sino-US education project.

Ladies and Gentlemen, you know that since the 1990s, developments in Information Technology have brought about great opportunities in global economic and financial sectors. What people have not anticipated is the enormous opportunity Information technology could bring to the educational cooperation between China and United States government. I am glad to see that this learning revolution led by Information technology is going to benefit students of our two countries in second language learning.

Both the Chinese Ministry of Education and the United States Department of Education have attached much importance to this project, as it will have great significance the present time and far reaching impact on the future. On the Chinese side, this E-Language Project is expected to provide quality English language resources for Chinese teachers and students, especially those in medium- and small-sized cities, as well as rural and remote areas. English language is becoming more and more important as China further implements the Reform and Open Policy in an accelerating globalization process. The expansion of Information technology and its applications also makes the English language a primary second language for our students. I believe the E-Language project will create a premium environment for Chinese students to effectively improve their language skills as well as their culture awareness.

For American schools, I believe that this project provides support for those who want to create a Chinese language program or expand their current ones, so that more students in the United States will have the opportunity to learn Chinese language and learn about modern China, especially what happened in the last 20 year or so, when China implements the Reform and Open-up policy, a long term national strategy.

More importantly, this program will be able to help the youth in our two countries, the future generation of our two countries, understand each other more effectively in the field of society, culture, history, latest development and invention in science and technology through learning the languages. Even more importantly, they will develop a friendship and get to know each other in depth when they are still quite young.

In a fast changing and inter-connected world, people in different countries gradually come to the common understanding that the exchange and cooperation between different cultures is critical to promoting world peace and prosperity. The more globalized the world is, the more cultural diversity we need. As an inter-governmental program between China and the United States to provide young students in our two countries with opportunities to access and learn the other country’s language, this program, in particular, is going to have impact on the long-term healthy and stable development of Sino-US relations.

Today, we are having cooperation in language programs, but the future plan is not limited to language teaching. As Dr. Susan Sclafani and her team discussed with us, together we are exploring new ways of making full use of the resources from each side through cooperation to address the needs for both sides. As a result, the success of this program will most likely lead to wider bilateral cooperation in other areas in the future.

We all know that this E-language Project is one of the largest concrete cooperation between the Chinese Ministry of Education and the US Department of Education since 1979 when our two countries established diplomatic ties. In the next two days you will have chances to exchange ideas and discuss issues concerning the project. I believe that with all of your hands, with your wisdom and hard work, the blueprint will soon be worked out for our younger generations.

While we share a lot in common in promoting this project, there are differences between and among us. There are differences between Chinese and American culture, history and society; there are differences between Chinese learners and American learners in terms of student numbers and learning conditions; there are also differences among Chinese and American experts respectively. For one thing, you can see that the Chinese group have experts from regions of China that are thousands of miles apart and with its own economic development level.

However, we can make good use of the differences. As an ancient Chinese philosopher asserts, “????,????” (he2 shi2 sheng1 wu4, tong2 ze2 bu3 ji4), which means that harmonious diversity enhances productivity, while homogeneity undermines sustainability. So I believe that the differences we have can be an encouraging factor. So long as we work very hard, and in a good cooperative spirit and with a serious and scientific approach towards things, even though we represent two sides, we will work in concert and on equal footing. We will work as one team towards our common goal and we will succeed.

Thank you.