Tsinghua President Gu Binglin attended the 8th Association of Pacific Rim Universities Annual Presidents’ Meeting from June 23 to 26 in Chile and made a speech titled “Chinese Universities: Present and Future.”

The Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU) was founded in 1997, with the members including 36 high level research oriented universities in the Pacific Rim. The conference of 2004 was focused on the issues such as the chances and challenges facing the countries and regions in their higher education reformation, internationalization of the universities, the cooperation between APRU and AAU (Association of American Universities), etc. During the meeting, President Gu Binglin, together with other delegates, met with Mr. Ricardo Lagos, President of Chile. President Gu also met with the university presidents attending the meeting, such as Dr. Takeshi Sasaki, President of the University of Tokyo, Dr. Katsuhiko Shirai, President of Waseda University, Dr. Un-chan Chung, President of Seoul National University, Dr. Larry N. Vanderhoef, Chancellor of UC Davis, Dr. Herry Yang, Chancellor of UC Santa Barbara, Dr. Steven B. Sample, President of University of Southern California, Dr. Gavin Brown, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sydney, Dr. Ian Chubb, Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University, Dr. Choon Fong, President of National University of Singapore, etc. They discussed the possibility of enhancing mutual cooperation in the areas of education, scientific collaboration, visit exchange, and so on.

Invited by the Australia-China Council, President Gu visited Australia before the meeting. He met with Australian Minister of Education, visited AVCC (Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee) and the universities which had established long-term cooperation with Tsinghua University, such as the University of Sydney, the Australian National University, the University of Melbourne, the University of New South Wales, etc. He also visited CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) and looked about the current reformation of Australia in the field of higher education and science and technology. President Gu also visited Argentina under the arrangement of the Ministry of Education P.R.C. after the meeting. When visiting Argentina, he paid a visit to Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, which was the earliest university founded in South America.

From Tsinghua News Center Translated by Li Han