布莱尔 从伟大到卓越 演讲稿

PRIME MINISTER:

Thank you, and it is wonderful to be here in Tsinghua University, thank you so much all of you for coming out to say hello to me.

I just wanted to say a couple of things by way of opening and then you can ask me questions, and you must feel free to ask me any questions that you want to ask. It is a dangerous thing for me to say, but nonetheless, you do that. The thing that is amazing today is that the UK is now the number one destination for overseas students from China. We have got double the number of Chinese students as the United States of America. I like that. And that is a measure of how much collaboration there now is between universities like Tsinghua and universities in Britain. And one of the main universities is the London School of Economics, and my wife - who is there - she went to the London School of Economics, she went to the London School of Economics and she got a better degree than I did.

So the thing that has impressed me most from being back in Beijing is just the amount of change in China, and I think for the future the relationship between my country, the UK and China is going to be very important. Because the amazing thing is that in the first six months of this year, even with Sars and the problems that you had here, you had a growth rate of 8%. In the next couple of decades you will become the number one economy in the world - 1.3 billion people. How you develop both economically and politically as a country is going to have a colossal impact on the whole of the world, and we need to make sure that countries like mine in Europe, countries like the United States, and countries like China are working closely together. And one reason why I wanted to come and open the Clean Energy Project is that one of the big challenges we will face will be about climate change, and how we make sure as we grow economically we do so in a sustainable way, in a way that protects the environment, and that collaboration is important too. So we have got so much work that we can do together. And you students here who are the future of China, the decisions you take, and the way that you take them, is going to impact on the whole of the world. You will be the leaders of this country in the years to come, and how you lead, and the values with which you lead, will make a difference even in my own country to the citizens there.

And finally I want to say a special word of thanks to Steven here, because he taught at Durham University, which is just by my constituency in England and it is where my father used to teach, so he comes in a very, very good line of teachers from Durham University. That is all I want to say by way of opening. Let's have your questions.


CHAIRMAN:

Thank you very much Prime Minister. It is my great pleasure on behalf of the Tsinghua staff today to present today's Q and A, and I believe there are students here today already prepared with questions and they are very excited to meet you

, to exchange ideas with the British Prime Minister. And our students today - about 90 - are from a very mixed diverse body, including engineering, law school students, journalism and economics as well. So we are going to do the practice, every 3 questions we will invite answers from the Prime Minister.