China: These are Foreigners we Like
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The list of the 15 most influential foreigners who have contributed to China's development in the past 30 years, includes Nobel winners, agricultural specialists, a world-renown architect and business leaders.
In no special order, China's top foreigners include:
I.M. Pei: Chinese-American architect whose works include the Louvre Pyramid in Paris, the Bank of China building in Hong Kong, and the Chinese embassy in Washington D.C.
Chen Ning Yang and Tsung-dao Lee: Chinese-American Nobel physics laureates in 1957.
Ian Fok Chun-wan: Hong Kong business tycoon and business community leader who passed away in 2006.
Hein Verbruggen: Verbruggen, of the Netherlands, was the chair of the International Olympic Committee Coordination Commission for the 2008 Beijing Games.
Robert A. Mundell: A Canadian Nobel Prize winner who served as a key adviser to the Bank of China.
Henk Bekedam: From the Netherlands, who was the former World Health Organization's chief representative in China during the outbreak of SARS.
Werner Gerich: A German who was the first foreigner to head a Chinese venture (The Wuhan Diesel Engine Plant) since the founding of the People's Republic of China.
John L. Thornton: From the United States. A former President and Co-COO of Goldman Sachs and now a professor and the director of Global Leadership at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
Susan Sabriye Tenberken: From Germany, who created a school for the blind in Tibet.
Morihiko Hiramatsu: Japanese statesman and former consultant to the Government of Shaanxi Province. Hiramatsu also taught at several Chinese universities.
Seiei Toyama and Shoichi Hara: Japanese agriculturists. Toyama, who died in 2004, had led teams of volunteers to plant kudzu vines along the banks of the Yellow River to aid in erosion and introduced modern grape-growing techniques in the Ningxia Autonomous Region. Hara spent his life introducing rice cultivation techniques to China. He died in 2002.
Moris Topaz: Israeli surgeon who volunteered in the Sichuan earthquake earlier this year.
Edwin Charles Maher: New Zealander who was the first Western news anchor on China's state broadcasting system. He currently anchors for China Central Television's English Channel (CCTV-9).
The 15 top foreigners where selected from a panel of 38 judges who narrowed-down the list from 29 finalists. Most of the finalists also won the Friendship Award, the highest honor the Chinese government gives to foreigners who make great contributions to China's development.
Comments
The Chinese government’s practice of calling non-mainland-born people “foreigners” (and thus encouraging all Chinese to do the same) is practiced safety measure, to allow the Chinese CCP gov’t to more readily demonize and de-humanize people who happen disagree with them on such facts as the Chinese gov’ts human rights record, silencing individual and collective free speech & political dissent, the Chinese gov’ts oppression of Tibet, Chinese State-ordered mass executions and other incovenient facts about how the CCP runs China. You are just supporting a fascist policy of separating yourself from the rest of non-mainland-born people, and thereby supporting an unjust, blood-thirsty, fascist regime.