Ｂｅｌｇｉｕｍ－Ｃｈｉｎａ Ａｓｓｏｃｉａｔｉｏｎ Ｐｒｅｓｉｄｅｎｔ Ｖａｎ Ｄｕｙｓｅｎ Ｈａｎｓ Ｖｉｓｉｔｓ Ｃｈｉｎａ

Van Duysen Hans， president of the Belgium-China Association (BCA)， and his wife Huang Wenfang paid a friendly visit to Beijing and Lhasa， Jiangzi， Xigaze and Zedang of Tibet from July 25 to August 2， 2005 at the invitation of the CPAFFC.

In Beijing， Mr. and Mrs. Hans had a warm and amiable meeting with CPAFFC President Chen Haosu. The two sides reviewed the friendly and cooperative relations between the two organizations over the years and talked about the broad prospects for mutual exchanges full of confidence. CPAFFC Vice President Liu Zhiming hosted a banquet in their honour. They recalled the good relations between the vice president and the Belgium-China Association when he worked as minister-counsellor with the Chinese Embassy in Belgium and discussed the tentative plans for friendly cooperation and exchanges between the two organizations in the future. In Lhasa， Ju Jianhua， deputy director general of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Tibet Autonomous Region and vice president of the Tibet Autonomous Regional People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries， entertained Mr. and Mrs. Hans. Before the banquet， the host and the guests had a discussion， at which Ju Jianhua gave a detailed account of the earth-shaking changes that have taken place in the Autonomous Region.

In 2002， together with the Foreign Affairs Office of the Tibet Autonomous Region and the Chinese Embassy in Belgium， the BCA held the Tibetan Culture Week in Brussels. Hans said， they have a few specialists on Tibet in the BCA. As BCA president， he is often asked to answer questions on Tibet. As he had never been to Tibet before， he sometimes found it difficult to answer all the questions. This time he could come to visit Tibet， saw the changes here and got a full picture of its past， he felt more capable to answer questions about Tibet. He would let more people know what Tibet is really like upon returning home.

Founded in 1957， the BCA is one of the first friendship-with-China organizations in the world and has done a great deal of work to promote friendship between the people of Belgium and China. The BCA has set up several departments to carry out friendship activities with China. They are the China Academy， the library， the periodical China Today (in Dutch)， the Business Services Department， the Data Bank including audio and visual documentation， China studies groups and the recently founded Confucius Institute Brussels. Among them the China Academy has made prominent progress. The Academy mainly provides Chinese language and culture courses. The number of people registered to take the courses increased by 30% last year and 50% this year. The students enrolled in the past were mainly Chinese descendants. It is planned to enroll 6 to 12-year-old Belgian children in the future. In view of the great enthusiasm for learning the Chinese language， the BCA has signed a cooperation agreement with the Chinese Ministry of Education. According to the agreement， the Beijing Foreign Studies University will send teachers of Chinese language to Belgium regularly to help with the Chinese language teaching there. The China Today has made unremitting efforts to publicize China over the years. Recently， it has started to publish the French edition of China Today， which has achieved wide-ranging social results.