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Related documents: Position paper on Sister State and
Sister City Relations Between Australia and China Chamber letter to Sister City News Information about cities
and provinces in China. |
MAKING SISTER CITY RELATIONS WORK FOR THE ECONOMIC 12 March 2002 Sponsoring organisations: Local Government and
Shires Associations NSW (LGSA) Australian Sister
Cities Association (ASCA) Australia China
Chamber of Commerce and Industry of New South Wales (ACCCI) |
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First of all, good morning, my
name’s Jim Reid and I’m the Mayor of Mosman, and I’d like to thank you all
for the opportunity of being here this morning. It’s a unique thing, a Friendship
Agreement and we have a number of them with European cities - but they are
traditional agreements and they’re historical agreements. We have a number of them with Australian
cities as well, one in particular with the city (or the town) of Glen Innes where
we assisted them by raising money during the big drought recently, and we
supported them. But the friendship with China I
think is something that is quite unique because we have what I consider to be
the awakening giant of the Pacific.
We have China that has been behind the “bamboo curtain” for many years
and isolated from the rest of the world and all of a sudden it’s awakening
and it’s looking forward to where it’s going to go in world affairs. It is one of the oldest cultures
in the world and we of course are probably one of the youngest, so we have a
lot to gain and a lot to give. We can
benefit from the experience and the knowledge and the culture of China, but
we have a lot that we can give in the way of our government, and I think
that’s probably the biggest advantage that we, as Australians, have, and it’s
that we have a lot to gain from going forward in partnership with China. I might hasten to say that far
from being a junket, on every trip that I have taken to China I have paid my
own way, and I think that’s an important principle. We chose to do our Friendship
Agreement with a city which was outside of the norm. There are a lot of relationships with
cities in the south of China where it is more “touristy”, well trust me –
Mudanjiang is not “touristy”. It’s a little city which was
developed in fact by the Japanese, or started by the Japanese, when they
occupied what we used to know as the area of Manchuria, many years ago. It’s north of Vladivostok, so that will give
you an idea of how far up it is. It’s
near a city called Harbin which the Trans-Siberian Railway used to pass
through, and in the winter time it reaches –40o, so it gets very
cold! Mudanjiang – Mosman Relationship It has brought forth some very positive
experiences in a short time - we established this relationship in 1998. You talk about experiences, well I’ll
relate some of my travel experiences a little later on. We have developed a very strong
cultural relationship. From the point
of view of dollars and cents I would say that its dollar value to Mosman is
probably pretty close to zero, but the cultural and the friendship
relationships are mind blowing. We’ve established a number of
educational opportunities in association with Rotary; the Crows Nest Rotary
Club has rebuilt a number of schools further west in China, and we have
established a thing in Mudanjiang called “Educate the Girl Child” in
association with Rotary. One of the disadvantages we
found there was that some girls who have invalided parents, or what have you,
were drawn out of school early so that they could help support the
family. Well, we’ve established a
program where we have 25 girls attending school and finishing their education
and we are supporting the families while that happens, and I think it’s an
important thing because an educated girl is an educated family, and that’s
the principle that we have adopted. We are also looking at
rebuilding a school where they have three rather decrepit schools - and when
it reaches –40o outside
kids have got to be warm while they are studying – and we’re looking at
rebuilding and combining those three schools into one so that we can improve
the educations opportunities for the children in that area. Probably one of the most important
things that we have been able to facilitate has been a Chair at the Sydney
University that is studying traditional Chinese herbal medicine, and that has
been going on now for a number of years and it is extremely successful. They have been able to establish
that there are many traditional Chinese medicines that have huge benefits and
our whole community will benefit from that – not just Mosman of course. It’s the greater community benefit I see
that is the most positive aspect of the Friendship Agreement that we
have. I think Friendship Agreements are
important because, as China developed, as Mr Du Wi explained before, the
State managed the Chinese economy and managed their social services. This is beginning to change and it brings
out the main difference between us. In Australia, the State has very
little to do with what goes on at a local level, so the Chinese can learn
from our example of the way we manage our local government and I think as
they move forward into the 21st century they will be able to benefit from
some of our experience as their community opens up It is the hope that our system
of government will in some way influence their system of government, although
I think it is going to be a long road to do it because they have got a huge
population to deal with and huge problems in managing their economy, but
together we move forward and we can benefit from each other’s experiences. If I can relate to you some of
the experiences I had when I visited China – it was in 1998 during the time
of the big floods at Harbin, and we arrived in the city and they took us out
and we stood on the bridge across the river.
You wouldn’t believe the water that was coming through, and the
community had built a sandbag levee right around the outside of the city of
Harbin. The night that we were there
they were expecting that the peak of the flood was going to come down the
river in 6 or 7 hours and the water at that time was lapping at the top of
the sandbags. Now, I’m a member of the
bushfire brigade and I know the way that the community comes together during
bushfire periods – and you wouldn’t believe the effort that went into that
[levee] – they had many men from the Chinese army there and they worked like
Trojans – overnight they raised the top of the levee by one metre in height,
and they had people, mothers, running out feeding the boys with drinks and
sandwiches and so on and so forth. You would have sworn blind that
you were in Australia because it was exactly the same sort of community
involvement and it was quite inspiring to see. So anyhow, we originally arrived
in Harbin and as we approached to land at the airport there were all these
soldiers standing along the side of the runway and the General Manager said
to me, “Look, they’re really giving you the treatment, you know, you’re being
given the royal treatment”. So we got off the plane, rushed
through the airport, out into this convoy of cars and whatever have you, with
the blue lights, and away we go off into Harbin and all the streets were
blocked off and there were soldiers at each intersection and he said, “Boy,
you are really being given the special treatment”. What I found out later on was
the President of China Jiang Zemin was 15 minutes behind me – he was coming
to inspect the floods at Harbin! So
that deflated my ego entirely! Whenever we went anywhere – and
the traffic in northern China is just diabolical – we would just go down the
road with all the sirens flashing and if the traffic was blocked on that side
they would go across to the other side of the road, and the traffic would
part in front of us then close in behind us – a unique experience I might
add. So, that has been our experience
in dealing with China. I don’t look
at it as being of economic value, I see it as being a true friendship agreement because we have a lot to
learn from each other and a lot of benefit to be gained from working together
as we move into the 21st century. Thank you. Following the presentation of the speech a number of questions
were asked. The
most significant was related to the extent of our cultural activities, to
which I replied that we have been successful in attracting a number of
Chinese artists to our Art Gallery and recently hosted a group of some 12
major artists from China. The
art works presented were of the highest calibre and were well received by the
art community of Sydney. Later
this year we will host an artist in residence who will spend some time with
the art students from the schools in the area with the hope that the students
will broaden their knowledge of techniques used by traditional Chinese
artists. We
see this as a very positive example of how cultural exchange will benefit our
rising young artists. |
