Official encourages returned Chinese students to serve nation

BEIJING, Dec. 21 (Chinese media) -- A senior official on

Sunday urged returned Chinese students to display their patriotic tradition by

integrating the knowledge they learned overseas with the needs of the nation and

their individual pursuit with the happiness of the Chinese people.

Chinese students studying overseas should grasp the

great opportunities in China and display their talents in the country's

modernization drive, said Li Yuanchao, a member of the Political Bureau of the

Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, at　Sunday's opening ceremony

of the 2008 Week for Returned Chinese Students, who are innovative and want to

open their own business in China.

Li called on the returned students to come back to

the motherland for innovation or running their own business, so as to "realize

their ideal, ambition and value in a better way."

Returned students are a group of specially needed

talents for China for carrying out the modernization drive. Since the launching

of reform and opening up in 1978, a large number of Chinese students have

studied overseas and some of them have returned and made outstanding

achievements, while some others are making contribution to the nation in other

ways, the official said.

China has entered a crucial stage for its

modernization drive after 30 years of reform and opening up. Now the country is

demanding more talented people, particularly high-level talents, said Li, who is

also head of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee.

He urged Party organizations and governments at

different levels to make and perfect policies and measures that encourage and

support returned students to make innovations and open businesses in the

country, by sparing no efforts to create a sound environment for their work and

life, while protecting their rights and enthusiasm.

The annual event, which began in 2001, is sponsored

by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Youth League, the All-China

Youth Federation, and the Western Returned Students Association.