Global Lessons

Keen to learn from international expertise as well as domestic specialists, students are given the opportunity to visit other countries, specifically Japan, South Korea and Singapore, and learn firsthand about successful and unsuccessful policies. In Singapore, for example, students watch how candidates win the support of voters and learn about the country's anti-corruption mechanism, public housing system and its experience in environmental protection. "The hosts take our visits seriously, and do their best to make sure our students learn as much as possible during their stay. We can always learn from the merits in social and administrative management of a country of a different ideology and social system," Xie said from experience.

The Party School has also established partnerships with think-tanks and universities in more than 30 countries around the world. In 2010 alone it received more than 80 visiting delegations, and an impressive array of foreign dignitaries have given speeches at the school, including then German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Henry Rumsfeld, and former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.  Such international attention reflects the growing international exchanges that China is a part of and is an acknowledgement not only of the importance that the Party School holds in China itself, but also of the importance it holds globally as China's position in the world strengthens.