Professor SHI Anbin

(Associate Dean of International Development and Professor of Media and Cultural Studies, School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University)

July 10, 2015

On behalf of the School and in the name of Dean LIU, Binjie（柳斌杰）, first of all, I should convey my heartfelt congratulations to the Class of 2015 of the MA program in Global Business Journalism (GBJ), with the School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University (TSJC). Today is your day; you are all the shining super stars!

I should also thank all faculty, staff, sponsors, parents and friends to make these young ladies and gentlemen to fulfill their Chinese dream in the “Tsinghua Garden”, one of the most beautiful campuses around the globe recognized by Forbes. Among others, I would make a special mention of wonderful work done by the GBJ co-directors, Professors HANG, Min and Rick Durham, and last but the least, our hard-working and customer-friendly GBJ officers, Ms. Rose Li and Ms. Olivia Zhou.

In particular, I want to acknowledge the persistent support from International Center for Journalists（ICFJ）, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the Knight Foundation, and Bloomberg, to make this program happen and sustain for the past eight years. We are happily and confidently approaching GBJ’s 10th anniversary in 2017.

On this special occasion, I want to convey Dean Liu’s best wishes and goodwill for Class 2015. Upon his retirement from the position as the Minister of State Administration of Press and Publication in Spring 2013, he became the School’s second dean while chairing the Committee of Education, Science, Culture and Public Health under the National People’s Congress, China’s top legislative branch. As always, I want to pay a special tribute to the founders of GBJ program, the School’s founding Dean, Professor FAN Jingyi（范敬宜）, and to our former executive dean, Professor LI Xiguang（李希光），for their foresight of internationalizing journalism education in China.

During the two-year stay in Tsinghua, the Class of 2015 has the privilege of witnessing China’s dramatic transformation, which culminated in overtaking the U.S. as the world’s No. 1 economy and Japan as the second largest stock market by the end of 2014. Among the top ten biggest global internet companies, China’s four newbies, nicknamed BAT360, would claim the equal impact on par with the US’s six oldies, the so-called GAFA camp. This would be claimed as a major remapping and reorganization of geopolitical and media arena since the US surpassed the U.K. in the 1870s. The coming of “China century” in lieu of “American century” is no longer an urban legend. On the other hand, the US-UK media duopoly will be also challenged by the rise of the Rest, representing by amplified voices from CCTV, Russian Today, The Time of India and Al Jazeera, among others.

In the meantime, we are also witnessing the soaring impact of China’s leadership heralded by President Xi Jinping, who is also a Tsinghua alum, or “Daddy Xi,” as social media users put it, and his notion of “Chinese Dream”, and Premier Li Keqiang‘s “Likonomics”. Recently Daddy Xi has blueprinted his strategy of “One Belt, One Road,” reviving the historical legacies of ancient silk road on the land and by the sea, and ensuring the world that the Chi-globalization, in the wake of Anglobalization and Americanization, would bring forth peace and prosperity under the Confucian aegis of “harmony” and “benevolence”.

However, the world still holds an ambivalent attitude toward China, with half positive and another half negative toward China, according a Pew Center survey released in June. Thus, China’s charm campaign to better her national image and enhance her soft power becomes a timely urgency. As future journalists and communicators, the GBJ graduates have therefore been empowered to analyze the China and global interactions with a more multicultural and diverse perspectives in this globalized environ of TSJC, the most internationalized journalism school in China. One case in point is Mr. Park Jin-bum, class of 2010, who is serving as producer for Korea Broadcasting Corporation (KBS) and presented the widely acclaimed documentary “Super China” in February 2015. We commend this production not merely because of its appraisal for China’s achievement in the past decade, but more importantly for his unbiased, in-depth outlook of China’s complexities and challenges.

Since its launching in September, 2007, the GBJ program, as the first all-English-taught MA program in journalism in Chinese mainland, have successfully incorporated the various media philosophies and praxis from both China and the rest of the world, and created an integrative teaching and learning environment with the participation of nearly 30 faculty members and over 200 students from China and over 50 different countries, constituting a growing United Nations of Media in a journalism school.

In Class 2015, we have recognized the first GBJ graduate from countries like Ukraine (Ielyzaveta Gevoian丽莎), Jamaica (Claudine Alicia Housen艾丽丝) , Kazakhstan（Anna Abutalipova安娜） and Nepal （Bhoj Raj Poudel李伟）, extending our alumni to the greater outreach of the globe. At this moment, we want to extend our condolence for the victims and goodwill for the survivals in the recent Nepal earthquake, and show our respect for and confidence in Korean government and people to combat the MERS crisis, as did China against SARS in 2003. As Chairman Mao aptly envisioned in his oft-quoted verse, “In a peaceful world, the entire globe share alike your warmth and cold.”

On this occasion, I also want to make a special acknowledgment of the distuiguished GBJ graduates in Class 2015, Mr. Matthew Haldane（马修） who won the University’s Graduate Award with magna cum laude; Mr. Louis Barety （路易）who won the School’s top M.A. thesis award; Mr. Caleb Sungeun Lee （李圣恩）who also won the School’s top M.A. thesis award. Among Chinese students, Mr. Zhang Weijie (张伟杰) won the Beijing Municipality Graduate Award with summa cum laude and the University’s thesis Award; Mr. Deng Xianlai（邓仙来）won both the University's Graduate Award with magna cum laude and the M.A. thesis award; Mr. Meng Xiangfu（孟祥夫）won the School’s Graduate Award with cum laude; Miss Sun Xiaoxiao（孙潇潇）and Miss Meng Dongxue（孟冬雪） won the School's MA thesis award.

In the next decade of TSJC’s development, the GBJ program still remains the core of our school’s long-term goal of interdisciplinary integration and academic globalization. I hope you all cherish this Tsinghua motto of “self-discipline and social commitment” and make your own contributions to shaping a more sustainable world and a more peaceful global community for the next decades and centuries.

One of the emergent global issues is the economic disparities and social injustice, not merely seen in China, but also adequately showcased in the recent racial riots in Ferguson and Baltimore, USA, by the “Euro Debt” crisis in Greece. On the other hand, we are also happy to hear the US Supreme Court’s ruling of legalizing the same sex marriage, echoed by one Chinese lesbian Wang Qing’s endeavor one week ago: her coming out of the closet in the commencement in Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, and later receiving a big hug from Professor Luo Jun, the University’s President.

It is in this light that the Chinese Dream is bearing global potency and relevance. As our “Daddy Xi” succinctly put it, Chinese Dream is people’s dream which provides adequate chances for every “small potato” to shine on their own stage and to make their life meaningful and valuable. Thus, as business journalists or media professionals, you must always keep in your mind that whenever and wherever you are making news coverage: to lend a helping hand to the downtrodden, to give voice and stage for the small potato to shine up, and ultimately to achieve the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.

In her speech delivered to Tsinghua students in March 2015, Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust addressed the importance of facing the challenges of climate change by way of the collaboration of global universities, particularly the leading institutions like Harvard and Tsinghua. According to her, the university’s primary task, is “how to think different about we inhabit the Earth…Where better to meet this challenge than in Beijing and Boston?”

To follow President Faust’s self-flattering yet more duty-laden words, I believe that all the GBJ degree holders are not merely showing off your Tsinghua diploma, but have truly gained the consciousness and responsibility of thinking “different” in Tsinghua during the past two or three years. I hope your Tsinghua way of thinking different for humankind will sustain in your entire life.

In conclusion, I am proud of you all and wish you the greatest success in your future career development and lifelong pursuit of freedom, equality and happiness for mankind. Wherever you are booming or roaming, please bear in mind that we are always waiting for you right here, in Tsinghua, your eternal sweet home and haven. Whenever you encounter ups and downs, ebb and flows, trials and tribulations, there is always a telepathic melody that all the GBJ faculty and students will sing along: Tsinghua, you raise me up! GBJ, you raise me up!