China Fellowship Blog

Another frantic day in Shanghai

Last night there was an aftershock in Yingxia in the Sichuan province killing two, injuring a further 359 and causing the demolition of 270,000 houses. This was on top of official figures released yesterday of 62,664 deaths, 23,775 missing (presumed dead) and 350,000 injured. Given that the whole area has been destroyed, I had to assume that this meant the IT system had gone down too and with it, all the local stats. such that I wondered how reliable these figures were. It looks to me as if there has been some local party corruption in Sichuan, especially with regard to the building of all of the schools as they have all been destroyed, yet the Party's buildings largely survived. If this is the case, life might become a little uncomfortable for local party officials as the inquiry into what has happened gets underway.

I woke this morning with the great news that Lewis Hamilton had won the Monaco Grand Prix, the first Brit since Graham Hill back in 1969. Then, I heard that Monty Panesar's 6 wicket haul had given England a chance of victory against the Kiwis. Not such good news was that the MP Anne Moffat from East Lothian had been mugged by a group of teenagers whilst out jogging and had lost consciousness but though bruised, has recovered.

Over breakfast we caught up with one another's activities yesterday. Peter Luff went to a circus, David Amess made some room in his wardrobe for Mr Armani and Graham Allen and others took an evening boat trip.

Monday may be a Bank Holiday at home but for us it was back to work as usual as we had another hectic schedule.

It started with a meeting at Dulwich College, Shanghai with Alison Beale of the British Council, Fraser White the executive founder of the local Dulwich College, Sabrina Young of the Sino-British College and Professor Peter Buttery and Sue Bishop of the Nottingham University-Ningbo University complex, south of Shanghai by a couple of hours.

Alison told us that the British Council has four offices in China plus Hong Kong (which I visited last July) and that at every level competition is fierce for school and university places. In 1998, 3,000 Chinese students undertook to study in a UK university but today that figure is 60,000. At the 15-18 age group here, there were 10.1 million applications for the German version of a "Gymnasium" yet there were only 5.7 million places. The UK Government has an annual Education summit with its Chinese counterparts (introduced in 2000) and John Denham attended the last one in October 2007 but there has not yet developed an equivalent of a "UKIERI" joint venture which Tony Blair put in place with Indian HE institutions in New Delhi in September 2005.

Dulwich College, Shanghai was one of those great entrepreneurial stories of an ex-pat - Fraser White - wanting to find a local solution for his three children and ended up with him securing the franchise from Dulwich College, in SE London to develop schools first in China and then across the world. As in all these examples, the school was built in record time, to budget and ahead of schedule. It opened to 18 kindergarten children in August 2003; it now has 1,100 fee-paying non Chinese students which will rise to 1,300 soon, but it is already the top school in Shanghai.

Sabrina Young told us about the joint venture between nine northern based universities in England including Bradford, John Moores (Liverpool), Leeds and Sheffield Hallam with the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology which started taking students in September 2006 and has a compliment of just under one thousand already! There is a pent up demand for the British system of higher education here.

Finally, Professor Peter Buttery told us the story about the joint venture between Nottingham University and Ningbo University which started in 2004 and already has 2,777 students in many disciplines. We were all suitably impressed but noted that Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial had not yet ventured here or had decided it was not yet appropriate; soon it will be too late.

I then went to see the British Council in Shanghai whilst the rest stayed for a tour of the College and lunch. After lunch at Zen with Alison Beale I met up with the others - minus Bill Olner who was absent visiting Rolls Royce. Larry Liu, Michael Johnson and Tony SH Lau from the insurance brokers, Marsh gave us an Idiot's Guide to the risk assessment market here in China which, given the earthquake, was prescient.

We had a wash up with our Consulate before hosting our "Thank you" party to everyone for making this such an exciting visit. It was then back to our hotel to pack as we would be off early in the morning for Heathrow.

____________________________________________________

Saturday 24 May 2008

A lot of surprises outside of Shanghai

On Saturday we ventured forth to Suzhou which is, as the crow flies, about 80km (50 miles) west of Shanghai. The journey was uninspiring and made most of us wonder why we were bothering.

As usual though, our breath was taken away when we arrived in a new part of the province called Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP). The park is large, even by Chinese standards and was set up in 1994 following a visit by Deng Xiaoping, then President of China, to better understand what Lee Kuan Yew had done in Singapore. In essence, it is a new city which is simply staggering in size and ambition and which already houses 10 million people...but because the Chinese Government owned the land and because there were no planning issues, the Park could be built in record time (www.sipac.gov.cn). Its focus was initially on manufacturing so the UK's presence was slight but now it is branching out into science, media and IP, so there is a better chance of us being present. As it stands in China per se we are the second largest inward investor.

Everything about SIP, including a 3D space module designed presentation suite where we were strapped in to our seats and virtually flown over the whole area (two special effects included being snowed on and having bubbles land on us), was impressive and made all of us question why we were bothering with such schemes as the Thames Gateway which seemed so second rate by comparison. We are in danger as a nation of settling for second best there. The local party congress members gave us a formal banquet for lunch - nothing exceptional - just eleven courses and two toasts!

In the afternoon, we stopped by to see the new Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (Nottingham University also has a major presence here). This is another imaginative initiative between our two countries and gives Chinese students a chance to study in English and to experience the English tutorial system. This is brand new for local students and it takes them 3-6 months to acclimatise to the idea that they should contribute to the subject being taught: (www.xjtlu.edu.cn). The Chinese here are experimenting with three different models of higher education to see which is the most appropriate for the 21st century.

Almost as an afterthought we were then taken to the Humble Administrator's Garden in old Suzhou; the city was famous for lace and Marco Polo dubbed it the "Venice of the East" when he visited in the 13th century. The city has many canals though the majority have also been built over. Next door to this Unesco site was the new Suzhou Museum (www.szmuseum.com) which opened last October and you could be forgiven for wondering why I am bothering to mention it...it's because it was designed by the 91 year old Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei who also built the pyramid over the Louvre, the JFK Presidential Library, and the soon to be opened, Islamic Musuem in Doha (which I visited last month) and much more besides. Being a bit of an I.M. Pei groupie, it was wonderful to meet his niece at the museum and to talk about his work and to again marvel at the simplicity of the structure he has designed here. Pei was born in Guangzhou and his family had an estate called the Lion Forest Garden in Suzhou.

In the evening some of us ventured out to here the Peace Hotel's jazz band but as the hotel itself is undergoing renovation (Shanghai has EXpo in 2010) we couldn't relish in its own surroundings and had to make do with another glitzy hotel building which frankly didn't suit the jazz. The band though was something else, playing 30s and 40s big band sounds in a way - how can I put this kindly - which reminded me of another era. Still, we persevered, chatted to them, asked them to play some favourites and then we were off in search of a Thai restaurant for dinner.

Sunday was a free day and so the group went its own way. A few us managed a little light shopping - nothing too adventurous - watches, jewellery, silk ties, jackets - that sort of thing...readying ourselves for our last day here tomorrow. It has been a very exciting and stimulating visit.