During his remarks, Ambassador Zhou will address globalization, China's development and related policies, and relations between China and the United States.
Zhou was named to his present position in 2005.
His keynote address is particularly relevant given the many ties the University of Delaware has to China, with more than 330 Chinese undergraduate and graduate students and formal agreements with Beijing Normal University, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Xiamen University and Nanjing University.
The University's East Asian Studies Program has a growing enrollment and nearly 300 students are enrolled in Chinese language courses. In the past two years, about 150 UD students have traveled to China as part of Study Abroad.
UD President Patrick Harker, who will deliver an address on the University's “path to prominence” at the Forum at 3:45 p.m. in the Bob Carpenter Center, is a strong proponent of engagement with China. He is planning to return to China in June with a University delegation.
Zhou joined the Beijing Diplomats Service Bureau in 1970, where he worked until 1973, when he went to the United Kingdom for advanced studies at the University of Bath and London School of Economics.
Upon his return to China in 1975, Zhou was employed in the Foreign Ministry's Translation Office. Three years later, he was transferred to the Chinese Embassy in the United States, where he worked until 1983.
After a stint as head of the Translation Office, he returned to the U.S. in 1987 as vice consul general in San Francisco.
In 1990, Zhou was named ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Barbados and concurrently to Antigua & Barbuda, positions he held until 1993 when he went back to China to serve as vice director of the Foreign Ministry's Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs.
Zhou returned to California in 1994 to take over as consul general in Los Angeles, and from 1995 to 1998 served as China's envoy to the U.S.
He was appointed ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Australia in 1998.
Zhou served as assistant minister of foreign affairs from 2001-2003 and as vice minister of foreign affairs from 2003 until accepting the ambassadorship.
For updates and more information on the University Forum, visit the web site [www.udel.edu/forum], where guests can register online. For questions or to register by phone, call (302) 831-2214.