The International Media Conference got underway with a welcome to conference participants and members of the Hong Kong press from East-West Center President Charles E. Morrison and University of Hong Kong Journalism and Media Studies Centre Director Ying Chan.
The opening address was given by Dr Roland Chin, Chair of Hong Kong’s Research Grants Council.
Professor Chin emphasized major efforts and investments underway to develop education centres of excellence in Hong Kong, China and Asia as a whole. Hong Kong alone planned a 30 per cent expansion in higher education over the next few years, he said. Hong Kong univerisities planned a major recruitment drive over the next few years.
The first day of the conference was devoted to news issues related to “New Political and Economic Realities in the Asia Pacific.”
China and its future on the world stage was a major the focus of much of the first plenary session – “Shifting Power Relations in Asia and the Pacific.” Much of the discussion centered on China’s future relationship with the U.S., Japan, India and Southeast Asia.
Jin Canrong, a professor at Renmin University in China, said the future is very much in flux. “If you think of China as an adversary or enemy, then China will become an enemy,” he said. “If you think of China as a friend, then it may become a friend.”
Jin said China is looking inward, not outward, and its relationships are not focused on Chinese expansionism, for now. But, he said, it’s very difficult to generalise about China because there so many different points of view in the large and increasingly diverse country.
