opinion

1:My experience is that one should be alwaysopen-minded anid ready to adopt new perspec-tives when looking at things, and never at any stage in your life take everything for granted.Realizing and understanding differences is the starting point of learning about the real world. I hope you will be as prepared to embrace a dif-ferent and colorful world. 2:My 20-year-plus diplomatic experience teells me that China now is playing a significant role in the economic, political and security affairs of the world. 3:For another, the outside world knows little about China' s changes and development.Language is a big barrier and many cultural products that reflect our reform and opening up are yet to go beyond our borders. To make things worse, some Chinese expatriates, driven by personal displeasure or ambition, have taken advantage of their physical presence in the West by publishing loads of biased articles and books abroad, which unfortunately, have be-come a major source of information about Chi-na foor many foreigners. 4:Before finishing, let me also mention some of the difficulties we have in our relations, espe-cially the less-than-friendly atmosphere since the recent Lhasa rioting. I think the media in the West has not Helped. 5:Today 18,000 Chinese students come to Britain every year and 15,000 are returning to China. At the beginning of this year, our two governments launched a two-year youth ex-change programme, under which 400 young people from China and the UK will visit each other's country. Friendly exchanges like these are an important means co increase mutual un-derstanding andtust and bridge the gap in knowledge.