Hon. Laura McLeod, Deputy Secretary General of the SWAPO Party and Governor of Khomas Region,

Hon. Miao Ruilin, Mayor of Nanjing City of China and your delegation members,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good evening!

First of all, please allow me, on behalf of the Chinese Embassy in Namibia, to warmly welcome you all to the Evening of Nanjing Cultural Performance presented by the Little Red Flower Art Troupe. This is one of the series of celebrations on the 25th anniversary of China-Namibia diplomatic relations. At the end of March, a photo exhibition opened in the Independence Memorial Museum. In May, the first-ever Chinese Film Festival will go on at the Sky Theatre in Maerua Mall and bring the best Chinese movies in recent years. Hope you could enjoy all these events and share with us your experience.

As we all know, the traditional friendship between China and Namibia came into being in the struggle of the Namibian people for national liberation and independence. Since 1960s our two peoples support each other, help each other and strive side by side. On 22 March 1990, the day after Namibia got independent, China established formal diplomatic relations with Namibia. Hence, no matter how the international situation changes, China and Namibia are always good friends, good brothers and good partners. In the past 25 years, the mutual political trust has been constantly deepened, economic cooperation enhanced and cultural exchanges enlarged. “Amity between people holds the key to sound relations between states”, we firmly believe that the people-to-people exchange and mutual understanding of respective culture are the foundation and future of our friendship.

The key elements of the performance tonight are “Youth” and “Culture”. The Little Red Flower was founded in 1957 and has very high reputation in China for its feature in children art education. The school not only deliver top quality art education, but also offer the kids global vision, providing as many opportunities as possible for them to experience different cultures. As far as I know, The Little Red Flower has staged special performances for at least 40 head of states and governments in the world, go abroad over 60 times and visited over 30 counties including the US, UK, France, Germany, Turkey, South Africa, Botswana, South Korea and Japan. The ages of the kids performing tonight range from 9 to 12. Let’s welcome them again with warm applause for their visit from far. Yesterday morning, they visited Eros Primary School and had great fun with the local kids. Tonight, we invited the teachers and students from Windhoek International School as our special audience. I really hope that the performance would arouse the passion for art among the kids and someday in the future, the Namibian children could perform the Namibian culture in China as well.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Diplomatic speeches are usually lengthy, sometimes very boring. So I’d like to keep mine short, giving more time to the lovely performers. Last but not the least, I would like to thank the Namibian Government, especially the Ministry of Education, Art and Culture, the Ministry of International Relations and Cooperation and the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration. Your support and assistance makes the close contact and exchange of our children come true. I wish a great success of the Evening of Nanjing!

Thank you!