The opening ceremony of the 20th Youth Summer Camp organized by the All-China Federation of Taiwan Compatriots was held at Minzu University of China in Beijing on Tuesday to boost mutual understanding and deepen friendship between students on the Chinese mainland and the island of Taiwan.
During the opening ceremony, Zheng Jianmin, the federation’s president, expressed his hope that students from the island of Taiwan would travel to more places on the Chinese mainland, and witness the new changes and achievements that have been made in the economic and social fields during their trip.
“In the last three years, cross-Straits relations have withstood very severe and complicated situations, all of which were caused by the lack of exchanges, which are now more urgent than ever,” Yang Yizhou, vice president of the federation told the Global Times on Tuesday.
This is the first time we have held a large-scale offline exchange activity since the end of the pandemic, which we have been anticipating for so long, he said.
This time, there are a large number of students that has come to the mainland for the first time, accounting for nearly half of the total students, Yang introduced.
There are doctoral, postgraduate, and undergraduate students. “As long as they are willing to come, we will warmly welcome them for a visit,” Yang said.
Huang Jianjia, in his second year of a master’s degree at the Taiwan Hwa Hsia University of Technology, told the Global Times that this was his second time on the mainland. Last time he visited Beijing and Southwest China’s Sichuan Province. “This time I plan to visit Shanghai, an economy hub, which also has a profound cultural heritage and unique architectural style,” he said.
“Compared with learning about the mainland from television and newspapers, I prefer this in-person experience,” he said.
Sun Qiaoxuan, a postgraduate student from the Chinese Culture University in Taiwan, said that through this activity, she hopes to have more exchanges with students on the mainland. She said that after the summer camp, she would bring along some desserts for her family from the mainland.
In July and August, related summer camp activities will be held in 28 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities on the mainland, as well as the Hong Kong, Macao special administrative regions and overseas regions, attracting about 1,000 youth from the Chinese mainland and the island of Taiwan.
Since 2004, more than 20,000 youth from Taiwan have participated in the activity, making it one of the key projects in cross-Straits youth exchanges.
(Global Times)
