these books,” he explains, “we mobilised twenty Chinese and Dutch authors, each of them good researchers and experts in their fields. That led to more cooperation between all these people, even beyond just China and the Netherlands. So yes, our project is quite successful.” Challenge Their joint project, which is funded by the China Exchange Programme, focuses on the challenges both China and the European Union face in ensuring energy security. As Professor Yang explains, “Both Europe and China are oil importers that face permanently high prices. We need to secure our imports by cooperating and we need to work together on developing sustainable energy sources.” Professor Yang thinks China can learn a lot from Europe about sustainable development: “Europe was the first region in the world to take up this concept in the late 1980s, so we have to look at that.” On the other hand, he expects that the joint work can help Europeans understand China better: “It’s commonly believed that China is seeking oil everywhere and exhausting the global oil supply. That is not true. In these books, we show how China is also developing alternative energy sources like solar and wind. We are now the world’s largest producer of photovoltaic cells, for example.” Understand “When a country is developing as rapidly as China, a lot of things change at breakneck speed. Other countries might worry, so we need to help the world understand these changes better. I’m happy these books and our joint project do that,” says Professor Yang. “I think that joint research is international academic cooperation at the highest level. Everyone gains more experience, and that helps us collaborate with scientists elsewhere too. In the end, that is what leads to more mutual understanding between countries.”
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