CHINA-US: School Chums Cement Sino-American Relations

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Nie Xiaoyang

NANJING, China, Oct 26 1997 (IPS) - While Chinese President Jiang Zemin and his U.S. counterpart Bill Clinton talk politics and business during their summit meeting in Washington this week, Sino-American relations could not be better in this port city on the Yangtze River.

In the afternoons by a low, green building in the campus of Nanjing University, locals can see and hear the dozens of American and Chinese students gathered in small groups amid the greenery of their school.

Discussions range over a wide area of political questions among students of the Hopkins-Nanjing Centre for Chinese and American Studies. Students believe human rights will play a key role in the talks between Clinton and Jiang – who is making the first U.S. visit by a Chinese leader since Deng Xiaoping went there in 1979.

Conversations here are peppered with political concerns; “Do you believe that MFN (most-favoured-nation status for China) should be linked to its human rights record?” one student asked, “Have you read the ‘China Threat’ book?” asked another.

Later on comes an entirely different question. “Can you teach me the lyrics of that Whitney Houston song?” asked yet another student.

Little is taboo in the Hopkins-Nanking centre, which was set up by the John Hopkins University and China’s Nanjing University in 1986. At presen.