Students from the Muscatine High School of the United States who ended a study tour in China earlier this month said they "fought for" the opportunity as the school set up a special committee to select the delegation members based on criteria such as Chinese language learning and attendance.
A total of 32 students and eight teachers from Muscatine High School, in the U.S. state of Iowa, attended a study tour to China's Beijing, Hebei and Shanghai from April 17 to 24.
The Muscatine High School delegation was part of a China-initiated program that will invite 50,000 American youths to China within five years for exchanges and study. The delegation was the second batch from the school.
"They denied me at first and then I fought for this spot, because I just always wanted to go to China. It's like on my bucket list. They look for the people with the best grades and the people that have probably worked hardest. It's kind of difficult," said a student during the study tour.
The students said their school's courses on Mandarin are very popular among them, and many students are choosing to learn the Chinese language.
"So now, it's just like all these students fighting to get into the middle school class, so they can get a jump start on learning Chinese," said Joseph Mckneely, another member of the Muscatine High School delegation.
US high school students fight for opportunities of China tour
China has invested nearly 900 billion yuan (about 124.43 billion U.S. dollars) to strengthen the protection of key national ecological functional areas, involving 810 counties, covering 4.84 million square kilometers, and accounting for 50.4 percent of China's territorial area.
National-level ecological functional areas serve as important ecological security barriers that support soil and water conservation, wind prevention and sand fixation and biodiversity conservation.
Since 2008, the central government of China has introduced a transfer payment policy for funding key national ecological functional areas.
In a bid to make better use of the funds, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the Ministry of Finance issued more than 20 measures, covering the monitoring and evaluation of environmental quality, organizational efficiency and implementation of projects.
The Ministry of Ecology and Environment established an integrated ecological environment monitoring network to improve the accuracy of monitoring and evaluation.
For instance, for forests, grassland, waters, and wetlands, experts use high-resolution satellite remote sensing technology to capture images that can forecast ecological trends, while for areas facing immediate threat, experts can use drone systems to investigate.
As high as 85.8 percent of the counties located in China's key ecological functional areas have excellent ecological quality, 22.9 percentage points higher than the national average.
China invests nearly 900 bln yuan to protect key ecological functional areas
