Irish President: China dynamic, confident nation

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, October 12, 2003

Irish President: China dynamic, confident nation

The excitement of teachers and students from prestigious Beijing University who were waiting for Irish President Mary McAleese was not lessened by the showers and gray sky.

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The excitement of teachers and students from prestigious Beijing University who were waiting for Irish President Mary McAleese was not lessened by the showers and gray sky.

When the female president, with golden hair and clad in red, stepped out of the car, there was a stir among the crowd of people who have come to greet her.

President McAleese came to this top Chinese university Friday to deliver a speech, during which she said, "I shall take back with me to Ireland the impression of a dynamic and confident nation."

"Even more striking and tremendously heartening is the vibrant confidence in their own future and the future of China that I sense in everybody I talk to," said the president.

McAleese talked more from a viewpoint of Ireland's role in international affairs and expanding the relationship with China in the framework of the European Union.

She said China overtook Japan last year as the EU's third largest trading partner and as Ireland will take the presidency of EU next year, she hoped more exchanges and cooperation can be carried out.

"I know that we are only still scraping the surface of the potential of quality cooperation between Ireland and China in the field of education," she said.

Female students were more interested in President McAleese's female status. The first student who asked her a question was a girl and the question was about how McAleese stands in the male-dominated political circle.

McAleese, who was once a lawyer, journalist, radio broadcaster and vice-president of a noted university, said that when she was a college freshman, the first book that the university told her to read was "Why should women want to be lawyers? They know nothing".

"But the world that your generation lives in is quite different from that of mine," she said, adding that women can release their potential and "be all the things they want to."

In response to a question about how a nation can preserve its unique culture in the face of globalization, McAleese, employing the history of Ireland, demonstrated that economic development can help to preserve the culture.

When Ireland was colonized, the Irish people thought that their culture would wither away. "But thirty years has elapsed and the opposite happened," she recalled.

"There are many in the EU who are curious about us" and the Irish people therefore gained "cultural confidence", said McAleese, who said she was proud to come from "the land of Yeats, Joyce, Beckett and Bernard Shaw".

"As China opens up, more and more people will become curious about Chinese culture and you," said President McAleese.

"Can any country claim to have rich culture? Your culture will flourish before the world's curiosity," she said.

Li Mingbo, a postgraduate in the journalism department, said he had listened to numerous speeches made by male statesmen. He came to McAleese's speech in order to judge whether there are any differences in female and male leaders.

"Pretty charming!" Li was still lost in her speech with an air of admiration in his smiling face after the Irish leader finished speaking. "She's not only kind and amiable, but also firm and good at communication."

Not only Li was impressed, but also Vice-President Hao Ping of Beijing University, who said Irish President McAleese possesses the vision, knowledge, and wisdom of a statesperson and scholar, as well as the charm as a lovely lady.

With such a president attaching great importance to science and technology, culture and education, the country is sure to make great achievements, said Hao.

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