On June 30th, Martin Lee, the former secretary general of the Club of Rome, made a speech in Auditorium of No. 6 Teaching Building in North Campus. The speech was titled "Changes of Economic Growth Pattern: from Material Consumptions to Life-Quality-Oriented". The lecture is the third one of Yunshan Forum of Guangdong Research Institute for International Strategies. The participants include Lu Xiulu, deputy director of Guangdong Provincial Development and Reform Committee, Sui Guangjun, the Party secretary of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, representative of Guangdong Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Department, Development Research Center of Guangdong Government, Reformation and Development Bureau of Foshan, Financial Office of Nanshan in Foshan, representatives of enterprises and teachers and students. The lecture wad hosted by Meng Qingxuan, director of MBA Center of GDUFS.
Martin Lee pointed out that the current development pattern is of high investment and high consumption, which damaged the environment. People would not enjoy the achievements brought by the development. If it continues, the disaster could be inevitable. Therefore, development should take the life quality and ecological conservation into consideration. In theLimits to Growthpublished in 1972, it is predicted that unreasonable economic growth pattern will causes the human society to collapse. He worried that the predictions would become reality one day.
It is urgent to search for a solution. The first and foremost problems that we face now are the climate and energy problems. They could be solved through strict abidance to the Kyoto Protocol and agreements made in Copenhagen Conference. Chinese leaders have realized that the problems, such as energy, population structure and food safety, are impacting the achievements during the three decades. China has to attempt to double the energy production per unit and reduce the energy consumption by 50%-80% to avoid the environmental stress caused by development.
Besides, economic factor could not be ignored. According to Martin Lee, the rapid spread of the global financial crisis in 2008 was cause by the wide acceptance of the premature consumption ideas of westerners and people's over-estimation to the adjustment ability of the market. Moreover, western society always want to weaken the government's management functions, which is entirely different from the method that should be taken to ensure a reasonable and qualified economic growth. The western consortiums sometimes are too selfish and greedy. For example, the year-end bonus of Wall Street in 2008 was equal to the whole income of agriculture in Africa. What's more, the per capita energy consumption level of the developed western countries towers over that of the rest of the world, which threat the sustainable development of economy. This problems call for attention and changes. The development would be stable and sustainable if we take measurements actively.
Later, Martin Lee answered the questions of the representatives of teachers, government, enterprise and students and discussed the concerned issues, which promoted the communication of political, industrial, academic and researching areas. After that, Sui Guangjun awarded the appointment letter of honorary professor to Martin Lee and presented a work of calligraphy as a gift. The four characters, meaning "the essence of Tao is to conform to the law of Nature", indicate the harmonious relationship between human and nature, which correspond to the theme of the lecture.
Before the lecture, Martin was welcomed by Sui Guangjun, the Party secretary of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies and Fang Fanquan, the vice president in the VIP Hall. Sui Guangjun introduced GDUFS in brief including the first-class school environment and hardware facilities. The university is striving to be among the top in research abilities and providing services for regional development, hoping to cooperate with Martin Lee in international strategy studies, international forums and education of MBA students. Martin Lee expressed appreciation to the warm welcome and would like to help as he could. He thought his experiences in former Soviet Union and Latin America could be helpful to the international forums and cooperation. He was willing to discuss on such topics.
After the lecture, Martin Lee visited Nanhai High-tech Zone accompanied by Meng Qingxuan. The government of Nanhai High-tech Zone introduced to him the current development and overall plan of the area and exchanged with him opinions on how to build environmental friendly city. Finance entrepreneurs in Nanhai New Zone invited Martin for a visit. Martin commented the visit as short but abundant. He was impressed by the good momentum of economic and social development in Guangdong.
Ⅰ Introduction of the Roman Club:
Roman Club (Club of Rome) was established in April 1968, with the headquarters in Rome, Italy. The tenet is raising the global awareness of the public, urging the international organizations and departments of the countries to reform social and political systems and take necessary actions through the systematic studies on the global problems, such as population, food, industrialization, pollution, resource, poverty and education, to improve the global management and drive people out of the difficult situation. There are presently more than one hundred members concerning for the human future. Most of them are famous scientists, entrepreneurs, economists, sociologists, educators, senior civil servants and politicians of international organizations. The famous members include Mikhail Gorbachev, the former President of Russia, Alexander, the environmentalists and the initiator of the concept of sustainable development, Kohnstamm, the famous Netherlandish diplomat, Trudeau, former Canadian prime minister and the others.
Ⅱ Introduction of Martin Lee
Martin Lee is from the Great Britain and was the former secretary-general of Roman Club, the President emeritus of United Nations Peace University and the consultant for Chinese government. He has met by China national leaders many times. After several years of doing industrial management, he jointed the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and was responsible for the projects of science and technology cooperation, plan and structural innovation for the government and the design and creation of “World Future Program”. The Program is to coordinate the future of the developed industrial society with that of the developing countries.
Mr. Lee occupied several positions in the United Nations, including the administrative director of the Financial System for Development of Science and Technology and the assistant secretary-general in 1982. During this time, he worked as the executive director to assist the establishment of the Former Country Leaders’ Club constituted by the former States and Government leaders. He is also responsible for several international cooperation projects with China, including a project named “China and the World in the 1990s” for the leaders and the project of establishing the International Cooperation Committee for China's Environment and Development. He had been the committee member for 15 years. Mr. Lee graduated from Cambridge University and majored in mechanical science. He acquired the master degree on European Studies issued by the European University in Brugge Belgium.
