Source: www.chinanews.com 2013-10-24
Written by: Yang Wei
Edited by: Wang Dongmei

GUANGZHOU, Oct. 24 (China News Service) — Canadian Governor General David Johnston said that Canada and China have set as a goal to have at least 100,000 students gaining and sharing knowledge in one another’s country within five years when he attended the Forum on Innovation in Life Sciences at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou on October 24.

An important part of Governor General David Johnston’s state visit to China is to promote innovation in educational and cultural exchanges between the two countries. He has visited universities in Shanghai, Nanjing and Sichuan and talked with local teachers and students.

"Our devotion to the quest for truth, knowledge, innovation and peace that flows naturally from higher education demands of us a special role in making stronger the relationship between China and Canada." Governor General David Johnston thinks that this special role should be practised by all citizens in the two countries and he calls it the “diplomacy of knowledge”. The new knowledge is across academic disciplines, national borders and geographic boundaries.

Governor General David Johnston said that the Chinese have practised the “diplomacy of knowledge” for centuries and he took the voyages of Zheng He as an example. He stressed that as official ambassadors of the Ming emperor, Zheng He led his vast fleets and carried the Yongle Dadian to share Chinese knowledge and ideas, and expanded the horizons of the people they met more than half a century before Magellan circumnavigated the globe.

According to Governor General David Johnston, about 84,000 Chinese students are studying in Canada, which accounts for one-third of Canada’s entire population of international students, and approximately 3,400 Canadian students are studying in China. He encouraged young Canadians to come to Chinese universities “to gain international experience and a genuine understanding of China—attributes that can have far-reaching influences on their futures and the future of our relationship as two great countries.” He hoped that students in Canada and China who come from poor families or rural areas can have the opportunities to access high-quality education and study abroad.

On the same day, Governor General David Johnston and SYSU President Xu Ningsheng unveiled the plaque of the SYSU-Alberta Joint Laboratory for Biodiversity Conservation.