Officials from the People’s Republic of China stopped at
UCLA on Friday during a week of diplomacy between China and the
United States that was capped by a summit between President George
W. Bush and Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
The visit ended a week of diplomacy between the two countries,
launched Monday with an agreement signed by education leaders and
closed Friday by Bush and Jiang’s meeting.
Vice Minister of Education Zhou Ji led a delegation that toured
the UCLA Medical Center to learn more about medical education in
the United States. The visit, organized by the UCLA International
Visitors Bureau, followed trips to medical schools at UC Berkeley
and Stanford University.
China is in the process of transforming its medical education
programs. Previously, the nation followed a model inspired by the
Soviet Union which kept medical schools separate from universities.
Now, China is switching to a system more similar to schools in the
United States that merges medical schools with comprehensive
universities.
Medical schools are more efficient in Western countries, said
Fang Jun, first secretary of the Ministry of Education.
Zhou and others in the delegation were interested in many
aspects of UCLA’s medical programs, he said, but the primary
purpose of their visit was to learn more about administration at
UCLA.
Zhou’s activities in California were preceded by his
signing a memorandum of understanding with Education Secretary Rod
Paige in Washington, D.C.
The agreement will establish a joint effort on an E-language
project that would use Internet technology to aid Chinese language
instruction in the United States and to help teach English in
China, as well as to immigrant students in the United States.
Chinese officials plan wide implementation for the program,
which will assist educators without charging any fees.
“We hope every school will use it,” said Zhang
Xiuqin, deputy director-general of the Ministry of Education, who
is slated to administer the project for China.
Two hundred million Chinese students study English, Zhou
said.
Zhou’s visit came as the United States and China seek to
improve relations. Richard Baum, director of the UCLA Center for
Chinese Studies, noted that since UCLA became the first university
in the United States to sign an exchange agreement with China in
1979, academic ties have continued to strengthen.
“We’ve come a long way in 23 years,” he
said.
Though exchanges between educators can help international
cooperation, they do not tip the diplomatic balance, he said.
Bush and Jiang’s meeting Friday at Bush’s ranch in
Crawford, Texas was dominated by concerns over North Korea’s
recent announcement of its nuclear weapons program and the possible
U.S.-led war against Iraq, though it was originally scheduled as a
farewell for Jiang, who plans to step down from the presidency and
assume a lower position in government.
Bush and Jiang discussed more crucial issues in Texas. They
agreed peaceful means should be employed to convince North Korea to
abandon its nuclear efforts but did not work on any specific
plans.
The leaders disagreed on Iraq ““ aides said Bush was not
given any assurances China would back a U.S.-sponsored resolution
in the United Nations to use force against Iraq if Saddam Hussein
refuses to disarm any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and
provide unconditional access to U.N. weapons inspectors.
China, like France and Russia, has expressed unwillingness to
approve a measure threatening war. As permanent members of the U.N.
Security Council, they have the power to veto the U.S. proposal.
Bush has said the United States may launch strikes against Iraq
without U.N. approval.