By Eric Robert Nilsson

My Trip of Friendship Award

By Eric Robert Nilsson

It was an amazing honor to meet Vice Premier Ma Kai at Zhongnanhai on Sep.29th. We were touched when he gave us our plaques and shook our hands at such a prestigious venue, during perhaps the first time the annual ceremony had been held there.

We were moved when he said: “Foreign experts working in China are close friends of the Chinese people”, and “We have already taken you as part of the big family of China”. We also appreciate his call for us to continue to contribute to China’s innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development.

I hope to celebrate by issuing a message of gratitude to Chinese friends and colleagues, the government, the Party and Chinese people at large, including kind strangers, for the support, encouragement and friendship that have made any of my contributions to China’s development possible.

China’s development is a collective effort we all undertake together through mutual support. We are grateful to work alongside Chinese people toward this vision.

It was such a moving moment, a historic opportunity to meet Premier Li Keqiang on Sep.30th.We all appreciate that Premier Li Keqiang not only met us during the National Day celebrations but also took the time beforehand to learn about our areas of expertise.

After the meeting, it was an honor and delight to dine at the Great Hall.

We were again moved that Premier Li Keqiang’s speech’s greetings included: “I also wish to express heartfelt appreciation to friends from around the world who have given attention and support to China’s modernization drive.”

Indeed, while the award winners may come from different fields, we are united by our shared joy in China’s forward progress, which Premier Li Keqiang outlined well in his speech at the banquet. We are proud of China’s progress every year.

We were also grateful to enjoy the musical performances, as well as a chance to continue exchanging with other foreign experts and Chinese officials over delectable food.

For my wife and I, it was a throwback to when we dined at the Great Hall during the National Day celebrations in 2014.

I was especially moved by the opportunity to visit the Military Museum’s Long March exhibition.

I was very much drawn to the exhibition of statues of soldiers trying to pull their sinking comrade from the muck of swampy grassland. Perhaps the same display – or a very similar one –ran a decade ago, when I wrote about the 70th anniversary’s exhibition in China Daily.

When I saw the grassland display at this year’s exhibition, I remembered meeting then-92-year-old veteran Yan Tailong at the exhibition in 2006.

For him, the grasslands recreated at the Military Museum were no simple exhibition, but a passage back to a time when he himself ate grass and leather belts just to survive another day.

“Today’s country is built upon this part of history.” Yan said, sitting in a wheelchair, as he looked at the displays.

I believe the Long March is a testimony to an epic against-allodds victory propelled by the determination and endurance of Chinese people and the Communist Party. China has since continued on an even longer march toward prosperity and development, claiming victories by determination and endurance. I hope more people outside China can know about period of history 80 years ago that still informs today.

And I hope to continue to do what I can to contribute to China’s longer march toward prosperity and development over a longer term in the future.