On June 7, the China-US Future Leaders Program jointly hosted by Peking University and the University of Pennsylvania started at PKU. Executive Deputy Director Xia Hongwei of Office of International Relations, Mr. Zhang Houqi, Vice President of China AMC, the sponsor of the program in China, Representative to China of the Graduate School of Education UPenn, and 20 program participants attended the Opening Ceremony.
The China-US Future Leaders Program aims to deepen the youth elite's understanding of the two nations in the aspects of economy, politics, culture and education etc. Program participants are graduate students from Harvard University, John Hopkins University , University of Pennsylvania, Peking University, Renmin University, Fudan University, and East China Normal University. For the following two months in Beijing, Shanghai, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and New York, they will visit high senior governors, famous enterprises, and scholars.
Another important part of the program is specific research. 20 participants would be divided into several groups, and each team would select a certain topic which is related to US-China's communication and cooperation in the field of Economy, Business, politics and Education and the members in the team from both of the countries will conduct the research together. The research production would be policy suggestions, academic papers, or business reports for the government officials or public of two countries.
In his remark, Director Xia mentioned that on May 25, Madam Liu Yandong and Secretary of the State Madam Hilary Clinton together attended the Opening Ceremony of China-US High Level Consultation on People-to-People Initiative and offered a number of proposals to develop the exchanges. This China-US Future Leaders Program is a specific embodiment of the continuous deepening of the People-to-People Initiative. He also mentioned that both UPenn and PKU made great effort to set up this program, he hopes that all the participants could deepen their understanding of the two countries and establish life-long friendship on this high-level platform.
In the speech of Representatives of Programs participants, Li Xiaolin from PKU and Lynette Tannis from Harvard said that they were looking forward of the program, they would cherish this precious opportunity and in the future they would dedicate their effort on building a closer relationship between China and the US.
