Congratulations to Team SACU! SACU Treasurer Yuan Gao and SACU Council member Cai Chen teamed with friends She Zhou, Yunxi Xu and Amally Ding to run the Music Fun Run on Saturday 21 April 2018, raising £60 for the George Hogg Education Fund. The SACU team ended in 27th position out of 48 teams in the Team Relay with a total team time of 50.35 minutes.
CUKRUN is a not-for-profit Chinese community running club in London which generously offered to help SACU’s fundraising at this running event by donating the team’s registration costs to the George Hogg Education Fund.
The George Hogg Education Fundhas been launched by the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU) to support a programme of vocational training of people to work in co-operatives in rural North West China: https://sacu.org/george-hogg-fund/
Well done to all – and on the hottest day of the year so far!
SACU members, long-standing and new, had a chance to get together at the SACU Spring Social, held on Tuesday 17th April 2018 at the Strand Campus of King’s College London. This was the first of this year’s SACU ChinaCafés, members-only events with informal discussions and refreshments. Anyone interested in SACU is welcome to come along to a SACU ChinaCafé and join on the evening and we were delighted to welcome several new members at this event.
The theme for the evening was “SACU’s early days”. Zoe Reed, our Chair, gave an introduction to SACU and its early days for the benefit of newer members. SACU was established in 1965 by Dr Joseph Needham, eminent Cambridge academic, and others, as a cultural bridge between the UK and China. The society had thousands of members and was the main route to China in the 1970s. Throughout the country’s era of international isolation, SACU maintained strong links with China.
Zoe outlined SACU’s current activities and new projects including the George Hogg Education Fund which has been launched to raise funds for CO-OP ADOPT, a training programme to support people setting up co-operatives in rural north west China.Chang LIU, PhD student at KCL and SACU member, spoke about SACU’s Archive Project which is being overseen by our Vice President Frances Wood and aims to put together a full history of the society. The evening gave Chang the opportunity to meet and arrange interviews with several long-standing members to collect data.
Zoe also spoke of her own connections with Joseph Needham as she is the daughter of one of the engineering students that Needham brought over to England in the late 1940s.
Sally Greenhill then showed photographs that she and husband Richard had taken in the 1970s while visiting China with SACU groups. In 1971 Sally and Richard were members of the first large group to go to China from the UK as the Cultural Revolution began to wind down. Their journey started at the southern border crossing of Shenzhen, and in their fortnight’s visit travelled to Shanghai, Peking (Beijing), Wuhan, Xian, Nanking (Nanjing) and Yenan.
1971 SACU Tour group
The border at Shenzhen
Family in Yenan 1971
Until this visit in 1971 China had been almost totally closed to the west since the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. The images taken by the Greenhills were some of the first to give the west an insight into modern China. They recorded life in China’s cities and countryside, schools, PLA (People’s Liberation Army), factories (run by Revolutionary committees of workers, peasants and soldiers), barefoot doctors (peasant paramedics) and the famous commune of Tachai (Dazhai).
School children during the Cultural Revolution 1971Yenan 1971Factory interior
SACU members, both longstanding and newer, all appreciated the presentation which prompted many memories and discussions. Several long-standing members added their own experiences on SACU tours in China in 1970s and early 1980s. A SACU tours brochure from 1982, which SACU member Dave Clare brought along, offered 17 different tours! Conversation continued over a few drinks in The Philosophers Bar and so concluded a very enjoyable evening for SACU members.
SACU held a hugely successful event in Manchester – China’s Belt and RoadInitiative: ConnectingtheWorld: SACU Panel Discussion – on Friday 20 April 2018, 3.00-6.00pm at the Samuel Alexander Lecture Theatre, University of Manchester.
The event consisted of short presentations by four expert speakers followed by a panel discussion of the scope and impact of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on the countries directly involved and the world in general.
The panel was composed of:
Professor Michael Wood of the University of Manchester (historian, writer, broadcaster and presenter of the BBC four-part series, ‘The Story of China’).
Shao Zheng, Counsellor for Policy Analysis and Strategic Planning at the Chinese Embassy in London.
Hon. Alderman Mushtaq Lasharie CBE, Former Councillor and Deputy Mayor of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Chairman of Third World Solidarity.
Dr Jenny Clegg, SACU Vice-president (standing in for Keith Bennett, Vice-Chairman of the 48 Group, who was unable to come).
Afzal Khan CBE, MP for Manchester Gorton opened the proceedings and welcomed everybody to the forum which was chaired by SACU Chair, Zoe Reed.
Afzal Khan CBE, MP for Manchester Gorton with the panel
Zoe added her welcome to everybody to this major SACU event in Manchester. The vast majority of attendees were in fact not members of SACU so Zoe explained the origins of SACU, its mission and emphasised the benefits of joining. One of the objectives of the event was to raise the profile of SACU in Manchester.
Zoe Reed, SACU Chair
Each of the four speakers was requested to limit their contribution to 10 minutes to allow more time for question and answer and networking in the limited time available.
Jenny Clegg outlined the scope and nature of the BRI. This is a change from Deng Xiaoping’s advice to China many years ago, to keep a low profile and bide its time. The BRI will connect all the countries along the overland route and the sea road for economic, cultural and trade co-operation. The BRI will benefit all involved with ‘win-win’ partnerships.
It will link countries together and foster creativity and innovation through people-to-people contact. It has already started to a certain extent with China’s ‘go west’ strategies to develop the in-land and western areas of China. The freight train service from China to Europe is another example.
Shao Zheng provided data and details of the scale and dimensions of the BRI. There is potential development of $4 trillion worth of trade along the New Silk Roads. Over 130 countries have expressed interest and already 80 have signed documents with China. In addition, 734 pairs of cities in 53 countries have ‘twinned’. The BRI does not extend only to countries along the Silk Routes, Latin American countries such as Mexico want to be involved.
Shao Zheng
Mushtaq Lasharie was especially enthusiastic. He described the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is only one component of the BRI, as a ‘game changer’ for Pakistan. He had just returned from a business tour of Pakistan.
Baluchistan, which is in the poorest region of Pakistan stands to gain considerably. Gwadar, a small port on the coast with a current population of 100,000 is scheduled for massive development as the terminal for the main trade route from Xinjiang in China to the coast in Pakistan. Gwadar is a deep-water port and is expected to expand to house a population of two million. Investment in this area will reach a huge $62 billion. Mushtaq pointed out that whilst Pakistan needs China to invest, China also needs CPEC to be a success story for the credentials of the BRI. He warned that those who choose not to be included, will regret it – probably a comment directed at India!
Hon. Alderman Mushtaq Lasharie CBE
In a lively presentation, Michael Wood provided the historical background on China’s relation with the outside world. Contrary to common belief China has always ‘connected’ with the world and always has been a maritime nation, especially south China, around Guangzhou. China had always looked outward, especially during the Tang Dynasty. It is little recognised that as a result of these connections, Chinese society is in fact very diverse. Michael recalled visiting a number of mosques in western China with female imams. These outward-looking experiences and traditions established will assist in the development of the BRI.
Professor Michael Wood
The question was asked: ‘How will Britain benefit?’ The answer is that Britain will gain in various ways but especially from its expertise in banking, insurance and other financial services. In addition, Britain has experience and specialist knowledge of the legal aspects which will be necessary with such a complex exercise such as the BRI involving so many different countries.
Rhys Whalley of the Manchester China Forum provided some encouraging and positive closing comments. His organisation has contributed to the provision of direct air links from Manchester to China, which has already resulted in significant increases in trade with China and the North-west of England.
Overall, the forum was judged to a resounding success, especially as it was the first major SACU event in Manchester for some years. Altogether over 70 people attended; the majority of them attending a SACU event for the first time. Full credit must be given to Jenny Clegg, SACU Vice President, who both arranged and participated in the event and to Ros Wong, SACU Council member, who handled the administration and registering of delegates.
We acknowledge the support of the Chinese Economics Association, the Confucius Institute at Manchester University and especially that of Third World Solidarity who sponsored the refreshments.
SACU Panel Discussion at the Samuel Alexander Lecture Theatre, University of Manchester
Our Chair, Zoë Reed, attended a charity auction organised by the Sino-British Cultural Exchange Society on Sunday 11th March 2018 in favour of the Ensuring We Remember Campaign to erect a memorial to the 96,000 Chinese Labour Corps involved in WW1.
She was invited to speak at the opening and said she was delighted to bring greetings from SACU to such an important Campaign chaired by Steve Lau. The event was conducted in Chinese to a Chinese audience and so our Chair made a special mention of SACU’s aim now to particularly invite Chinese people into membership. She explained that SACU had been building friendship and understanding between the peoples of China and UK for over 50 years. The need for SACU to continue its mission was just as great now and so it was growing its membership.
Minister Counsellor & Consul General Fei Mingxing gave his speech in Chinese but made a special welcome to our Chair and SACU in English.
