THE Hong Kong Youth and Tertiary Students' Association's newly appointed committee pledged to strengthen links among ethnic Chinese undergraduates in the mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau through exchange camps.
Shortly after celebrating the inauguration of the 15-member committee, new student president Lam Lok, of the Chinese University, announced plans to organise a large-scale exchange camp with the mainland this summer.
'Last year, the association organised an exchange camp in Hong Kong and brought in about 80 students from the mainland, Taiwan and Macau to the territory and from this camp we began to know more about their viewpoints about Hong Kong and the 1997 handover,' he said.
Mr Lok said Chinese students mainly held a positive view about the handover, believing there would be better economic and financial opportunities stemming from it and even that Hong Kong would influence the Beijing Government.
'This year, we will organise an exchange camp in the summer, only inviting mainland students.
'We will hold half of the camp in Hong Kong and half in the mainland,' the Beijing-born final-year sociology student said.
Mr Lam said there were at least three issues they would like to discuss with the mainland students - the different campus culture between the students from the two areas, the status of China's economy and Hong Kong-China relations.
