Jennifer Zimdahl Galt, Consul General at the Consulate General of the United States of America, Guangzhou, applauded UIC students’ excellence and stressed the importance of exchange, during her visit at UIC on 19 March.

Jennifer Zimdahl Galt (second from left) visits UIC, accompanied by UIC's Dean of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences Prof Mei-Hwa Sung, Project Manager of the Four Point Education Coordination Office (FPECO) Mr Giff Searls, Dean of the Division of Science and Technology Prof Stephen Chung and Acting Director of FPECO Ms Jennifer Lin

‘Exchanges are important’

In the afternoon, the US Consul General Jennifer Zimdahl Galt, together with Vice Consul Sean Zohar Keith, discussed with a group of UIC students at a roundtable about what the Sino-US young people are concerned with.

She briefed US diplomatic history and policy toward China, before learning UIC students’ thoughts on some important issues such as environment and media.

US Consul General Jennifer Zimdahl Galt and Vice Consul Sean Zohar Keith discuss with UIC students

Ms Galt said UIC students showed unique insights into many issues and a broad horizon of knowledge, and applauded their potential of becoming great leaders. She added, “Exchanges between Chinese and American are very important to increase mutual understanding.”

US business experience

Late in the evening Jennifer Zimdahl Galt spoke of the US business experience to a UIC audience at the High Table Dinner.

She said China-US relation began over two hundred years ago when a US merchant ship set sail from New York harbour bound for South China. “As it is today, trade is the foundation of our bilateral relationship.”

Guangzhou was one of the earliest cities in China which were enormously influenced by the trading relation. “As our economic ties grew stronger, the people to people ties between this region (Guangzhou) and the United States grew deeper.” Ms Galt said.

Jennifer Zimdahl Galt speaks of the US business experience to a UIC audience at the High Table Dinner

She stressed that, powered by world-class research and development, the US makes innovation a top priority. “The transparent and just legal system ensures innovative ideas are safe from theft and exploitation,” she explained why the US remains the top of a global ranking that measures the easiness of doing business.

She continued, “Once you graduate from UIC, many of you will enter to the world of business and become economic leaders of tomorrow, or perhaps you will become academics and train the economic leaders of the next generation.

“The American business experience provides some examples of what has worked well for the United States, and perhaps you might choose to incorporate some of these ideas into your own business experience.”

The audience at the High Table Dinner

The first important factor she highlighted was culture experimentation.

“In the United States we value experimentation, essentially learning by doing. This allows our businesses to push the boundaries of innovation with tremendous results as the failures of some of our most successful and famous entrepreneurs will attest,” Ms Galt said, with the examples of Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Sheryl Sandberg to explain.

The second aspect she mentioned was the legal environment in which US businesses operate.

The legal environment protects entrepreneurs’ intellectual property rights to engage trade among various parties and enhance their research enthusiasm.

It protects not only businesses, but also university researches, according to Ms Galt. The partnership between companies and universities is the third aspect of the US business experience.

Research and imparting knowledge in universities can boost the progress of companies, and meanwhile, the companies can also be motivated by development of technologies and marketing.

Students raise questions to the US Consul General

Continue ‘bilateral and multilateral dialogues’

She was pleased to see US professors at UIC for the on-going partnership between UIC and universities in Minnesota, which “helps bring dynamic, innovative American academic culture one step closer to Chinese students and scholars”.

In addition, Ms Galt emphasised the impact of immigrants on the US businesses.

Ms Galt said both the US and China understand the need for “consistent and sustained high level engagement to build trust, to expand practical cooperation and to manage differences effectively”, and thus they continue the “bilateral and multilateral dialogues on a range of topics including trading economic issues”.

UIC Vice President Prof Zee Sze-Yong presents a souvenir to Ms Galt

“I hope you [UIC students] remember that your generation is uniquely prepared to make the most of the opportunities before us. I urge each of you to learn from the lessons of the past and work to improve the future,” she concluded.

Visitors from the Consulate General of the United States of America, Guangzhou, and some UIC students and staff members

Reporter: Zhang Jiadi

Photographers: Cai Yixuan and Irene Yu

Editor: Deen He

(from MPRO, with special thanks to the ELC)