The Australia-China relationship is now, as some of you have heard, thirty years old，and thirty years ago it is probably fair to say there were no official Chinese residents with appropriate visas studying in Australia. Today, that number exceeds 25,000 and is projected to exceed 100, 000 in ten years time. Education is the eighth largest export earner for Australia and to give you some idea of what that means, there are 38 universities in Australia. //My university, the University of New South Wales, has been active in the region, but last year overseas students brought in 128 million dollars to one university. Our local fee paying students brought in 34 million dollars. Those of you who don't know Australia might think that's strange, but of course the vast majority of our local students study in a government subsidized manner but also making some contribution themselves later on in life when they start to earn money. //
I wouldn't like you to think for one moment that I think education is about earning money, and I merely talked about the money education brings to Australia to reinforce what a big program it is and how important it is for Australia. and for Australian finances and there seems little doubt that governments really are obsessed by export dollars. I'm not saying that's wrong I'm just making a comment, but governments are obsessed by export dollars and therefore education is important. //
When I went to school, and I went to a government funded public school, there were about 750 boys at that school, and there were two Chinese students one of whom was me. Last year I spoke at a speech day. It is now a co-educational school, but 70 percent of the students were of Asian heritage, and of that 70 percent, about three quarters of them were Chinese. It's a selective school and therefore reflects, I think, the Chinese and the Vietnamese families' determination that education is important if they want their children to succeed. //I think that's great, but if any of you have visited the campus of my university you would notice one thing and that is it looks very Asian. At the present time, the University of NSW has about 34,000 students, 27 percent of whom are overseas students and the majority of those are ethnic Chinese but if you look at the campus you would think about 55 to 60 percent look Asian because the other quarter are like me, Asians who are Australians. And that's an interesting reflection of what's happened to Australia. //
(Excerpts from the speech delivered by Dr. John Yu, Chairman of the Australia-China Council, on the Australia-China Oration Series 2002, November 6, Beijing)