Source: China Daily

12-14-2008 15:06

By Diao Ying (China Daily)

The old US embassy in Beijing, located by the bustling Silk Market, was famous for long queues with impatient crowds waiting for over half a day to get their visas. But 53-year-old Wang Boming remembers that he was treated like an honored guest when he applied for his visa back in 1980.

Students and parents in front of booths of education agencies introducing Chinese students to overseas study programs in an expo in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.[China Daily]

"At that time few people went to the US from the Chinese mainland," Wang, now chairman of the Stock Exchange Media Council (SEEC), and one of the designers of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, said in an interview with Southern People Weekly. "The consul led me to the embassy - as if they were asking me for a favor," he was quoted as saying.

Wang is not exaggerating. While China and the US are major trading partners today, the two countries established a diplomatic relationship in 1979 - just one year before Wang landed in New York.

In 1978, China's Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping, who studied in France in the 1920s, said China needed to send more students abroad to study. That year, China and the US agreed to send students and visiting fellows to each other's universities.

China almost stopped sending students overseas during the "cultural revolution (1966-1976)". And before this, the government only sent students to the former Soviet Union and other socialist countries in Eastern Europe. As a result, those who moved abroad from 1978 to the early 1980s and returned to China are known as the first generation of returnees after China's reform and opening up.