Beijing
(china Daily/ANN)- Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa vowed on Monday to
provide more opportunities for LA-area high school students from underserved
communities to study in China.
"This
program will create life-changing opportunities for our young people to travel
to a new country, learn about a new culture and meet new friends," he said
at a news briefing in Beijing.
Most
of them have never studied overseas nor even "been in an airplane
before".
Leading
a delegation of 21, Villaraigosa started his Asian trip on Sunday in Beijing.
The delegation will also visit Chongqing and Shanghai during the coming week.
Villaraigosa
announced a recently established partnership between LA and charitable foundations
dedicated to promoting educational exchanges between China and the US at the
news briefing.
Los
Angeles is the latest city to throw its support behind the "100,000 Strong
Initiative", a program launched by the US Department of State to increase
the number of US students studying in China over the next four years.
Citing
the strategic importance of the US-China relationship, President Barack Obama
announced the "100,000 Strong Initiative" in November 2009. The
national effort is meant to increase the number and diversify the composition
of US students studying in China. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton launched
the initiative in May 2010 in Beijing.
The
initiative aims to prepare a next generation of US experts on China who will be
charged with managing the growing political, economic and cultural ties between
the two nations, according to the US Department of State. It also strives to
develop opportunities and funding sources for underrepresented students to
study in China.
The
initiative is a public-private partnership, and private corporate and
foundation donors have pledged more than $11 million toward it. The Chinese
government has offered 20,000 scholarships for US students.
The
Los Angeles mayor's office will cooperate with two nonprofit organizations -
Americans Promoting Study Abroad (APSA) and the Jackie Chan Charitable
Foundation Beijing - to promote the program.
"We
believe strongly that young people from China and the US will be highly
influential in the 21st century. Our two great nations have the opportunities
now to work together to build a brighter future, and understanding and
friendship between us will be crucial to making that dream a reality,"
Villaraigosa said.
Ted
Dean, APSA co-founder, told China Daily on Monday that APSA has helped more
than 100 US high school students to study in China in the past four years.
As
for the new program, "students will be chosen from applicants who had
studied Chinese in high school for one or two years", he said.
He
noted that APSA runs full-scholarship programs for US high school students from
underserved communities to study in Beijing, focusing on languages acquisition,
cultural understanding, leadership development and exposure to international
careers.
The
Ministry of Education said this year that the country plans to use cooperative
educational programs to draw 500,000 foreign students to China by 2020.
Chen
Jia in Beijing/China Daily | ANN
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