'Voices of China' heard on youth summit in London

As the Y8 Summit concludes Friday, Lin Yijia, leader of the Chinese delegation said they achieved "more than expected" for being invited to attend the summit. Y8 Summit is a civil society conference that convenes students and young professionals from G8 countries, with delegates having dialogues and discussions over issues faced by the world. However, Y8 Summit this year provided delegates from G20 countries the chance to participate in. That's why Chinese representatives were among the participants in this year's five-day summit. According to Lin, the seven delegates from China were all girls, most of whom from colleges with the youngest one, 18-year-old Wu Kefei, just graduated from Shanghai World Foreign Language Middle School. "During the summit, they played roles like head of the state, ministers in charge of foreign affairs, development, energy and climate change, justice, defense and press," said Lin, who himself is a senior student in the renowned Renmin University. "We talked with the most outstanding young people from around the world here, enhancing our understanding in international affairs as well as other countries," he added. Wu's role was the head of energy and climate change ministry. "We talked about problems like global warming and distribution of resources," she said. "We are the voices of China." She said. She noted that other representatives were interested in Chinese development, and knew better than she thought. "Admittedly they had misunderstandings, but they would like to talk with us. We hope that we could change their perception a little bit, so that they could influence their acquaintances," Wu said. Sometimes foreign delegates could throw tough questions at them. For example, during a meeting of development ministers, Yang Chao was challenged with a question concerning transparency and disclosure of information. Fortunately the senior student from the Communication University of China was well-prepared. She replied that many countries, with a history of more than 100 years, only realized the importance of government transparency in the recent two or three decades. In comparison, China started reform and opening-up only some 30 years ago, but has already been on the course of achieving government transparency. "Development takes time," Yang said. After the session, many delegates approached her to continue the discussion, and Yang made some friends. "The delegates from France and Mexico have already decided to visit China in August to see what the country is like," she was apparently proud of the result. From this summit, she got to know other countries better, and found that "misunderstanding of others was not as we imagined". She told Xinhua that she will share with her schoolmates the experience in London. "Many of them will become journalists in the future," she said.