On the morning of October 25, Singaporean Prime
Minister Lee Hsien Loong gave a speech to about 700 students at the
Party School of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central
Committee, the most recent foreign government head to do so in
recent years.
Sources at the Singaporean Embassy in Beijing said
Lee spoke for about 40 minutes in Chinese before taking questions
in English.
“It was the Singaporean side that selected the
Party School to make the speech,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’
Department of Asian Affairs said.
On October 19, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
also delivered an address at the school, answering questions from
several students and faculty members, and Henry Kissinger, former
US Secretary of State exchanged views with experts and academics
there in November 2003.
It has become usual practice for heads of foreign
governments to give speeches at universities including Peking and Tsinghua in
Beijing, and Fudan in
Shanghai.
“The biggest difference between the Party School
and other universities is its political background,” said Chen
Wentong, professor?at the school’s Economics Department.
The Party School is directly under the CPC Central
Committee, where middle- and high-ranking Party officials receive
training in Marxism, Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought as well as
communist guidelines and policies.
The school’s faculties act as key think-tanks for the CPC's highest
policymaking body, the Standing Committee of the Political
Bureau.
“It was impossible for the Party School to accept
foreign governmental heads of different political views to give
speeches to students in the past,” said Zhao Jie, a Party School
researcher, but it began to open its doors when Hu Jintao was
president of the school (1993-2002).
In December 2002, Zeng
Qinghong, member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Political
Bureau, became the school’s president.
“The world is changing and China's modernization
process is continuing to advance,” he said at the school's spring
semester opening ceremony in March 2003.
With this guiding principal, more heads of foreign
governments with different political backgrounds and beliefs have
been allowed to give speeches to CPC middle- and high-ranking
officials or hold seminars at the school.
Politicians from any parties that have contacts
with the International Liaison Department, an organization for
international friendly contacts, may come to the school to air
their views, Chen said, adding that, in his opinion, the CPC now
has great confidence in foreign exchanges.
CPC now has contacts with over 400 parties in more than 140
countries and regions.
(China.org.cn by Unisumoon November 11, 2005)