College students have been waiting expectantly for the Communist Party's 16th National Congress, which opens today, to find out how it will affect the future of China and their own lives.
"No one with knowledge and brains will be indifferent to major State affairs," said Kang Jin from the computer department of Tsinghua University.
Despite the mid-term examinations, most students have been trying to keep abreast of news of the congress through newspapers, television and the Internet. Message boards on campuses are pasted with notices about speeches and lectures on the national situation and analysis of reform.
"No one can deny that the Communist Party of China has achieved great successes," said Zhang Yaoquan from the finance department of Peking University. The junior student from rural Fujian Province in East China entered college three years ago with a scholarship.
Most college students believe that the congress will play an important role in resolving pressing issues facing Chinese society. In the eyes of college students, the future of individuals is closely linked to the Party's fate.
Xu Hui, who is graduating from the Economic Management Institute of Peking University, has had a job interview at giant multinational Procter & Gamble Co. Several years ago, he said, many people chose to study abroad and then stay there. But now many of his schoolmates have returned after studying abroad.
The new generation of students takes a more rational attitude towards politics.
Twenty-year-old Wang Feiyi from the Department of International Politics in Shanghai-based Fudan University said: "It's natural to see problems in the course of reform and development. You cannot expect all issues to be resolved overnight."
Many grassroots Party members believe the congress will frame a new outline for China's development in the 21st century.
On the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau more than 3,000 kilometers from Beijing, local people have been eager to learn news of the congress via television and newspapers.
Lobsang, secretary of a neighborhood Party committee in Lhasa, capital of Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, said the congress will exert a far-reaching and favorable influence on the country's economic and social development.
(China Daily November 8, 2002)
