Beijing Going International
Written by JDPGlobal | Tuesday, 17 January 2006
Official figures say that there are sixty five thousand expats in China’s Capital City. The Foreign Affairs Department of the City has said that capital has been projecting an “international“ image and this is a mere result of that image. The city houses the diplomatic representations of a hundred and forty seven nations. It also holds bases for eighteen world organisations. It is a news centre of sorts- in it are 251 extraneous news agencies along with fourteen others, which are based in Hong Kong and Macao. All together there are bases for about four hundred foreign newsmen and fifty-three newsmen from neighbouring Hong Kong and Macao.
The city is being pushed at projecting an international image. It has four thousand one hundred non-Chinese experts working out of the city. International students too have gone up by eleven per cent from last year to 19,000. In its efforts to be more receptive, they have started teaching locals other languages in order for the foreigners to have comfortable communication protocol. About a third of the people in the city are speaking another language apart from Chinese or they speak two “non-china” languages. The target that the city's authorities have set is five million bilingual people by ’08.
