Investment

Patten seeking further cooperation

By Mark Hughes (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-20 07:45

BEIJING - In an exclusive newspaper interview with China Daily, Oxford University Chancellor Lord Patten said he believed the historic educational establishment had a strong relationship with China, "but it is our strong motivation to make it much stronger still".

He said: "Fifteen years ago, we had fewer than 100 Chinese students at Oxford. Today we have more than 730 and the number has been growing by more than 20 percent a year.

We also have 140 Chinese nationals as academics. We have established a China center that we hope will rapidly demonstrate that Oxford is the foremost place in Europe for the study of China.

We are, we hope, doing a great deal of research collaboration with China, principally but not exclusively in the field of biomedicine, chronic disease and epidemiological study, bigger than any study in the world. We do quite a bit on training in the financial and economic sector.

I hope we can do a great deal more and in particular develop our relationship with Chinese think tanks and universities so we can work with Chinese policy makers and researchers on problems which aren't exclusively Chinese but affect China, for instance, social inclusion, sustainable development, using tax and public spending to ensure the proceeds of growth go to the poorest sections of the community."

Lord Patten, who was the last governor of Hong Kong before it returned to China in 1997, has been known to jokily refer to himself as the "last colonial oppressor".

He said his visit was to promote the existence of the Said Business School at Oxford University, the James Martin 21st Century School, also at the university since 2005, and the official announcement later this month of the establishment of a school of government and public policy.

"This will focus not on the UK, Europe or Transatlantic community but throughout the world, with a particular emphasis on emerging economies," he said.

"This for me has been an important feature at play in the developing relationship which is greatly in the interests of Oxford and Chinese institutions who are our partners."

Lord Patten said there were would-be students queuing up to matriculate at Oxford. "There are three times as many alpha class students applying than we can actually take," he said.

"The issue is not one of money but the quality of students. If you are a world class university you want to scour the world to attract world class students."

Lord Patten described modern China as "spectacular" but added: "I think Chinese officials sometimes have to remind us there are other areas of the country than just Shanghai and Beijing. China's aggregate GDP (gross domestic product) is the second largest in the world but its per capita GDP is, I think, 99th, and that is a reminder that it has a lot of social and economic problems."

Oxford University is consistently in the top 10 universities in the world. In UK league tables it is ranked in the world's top five and first in the UK. It has educated 30 international leaders and 26 British prime ministers.

Prominent Chinese Oxonians include Yu Yongding, president of the China Society of World Economics, Guo Shuqing, chairman of the China Construction Bank, and literary scholars Qian Zhongshu and Yang Xianyi. Oxonians have won 47 Nobel prizes, including nine for economics, five for physics, 10 for chemistry and 13 for medicine and physiology.

China Daily