WASHINGTON - China will provide 10,000 more scholarships to students from the United States to study in China, visiting Chinese State Councilor Liu Yandong said.

The scholarships were agreed at the second annual US-China High-Level Consultation on People-to-People Exchange, which ended in Washington on Tuesday.

"The spring of US-China cultural exchanges has come," Liu said at the closing ceremony of the consultation.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said more than $3 million had been allocated for new private sector support for the 100,000 Strong Initiative, a program dedicated to enhancing US students' understanding of China by studying there.

In January, US First Lady Michelle Obama announced $3.25 million in private sector support for the initiative, including major pledges from Caterpillar, Citigroup and Coca-Cola.

The consultation was the result of discussions held when US President Barack Obama visited Beijing in November 2009. The first consultation was held in May 2010 in Beijing.

At the Washington meeting this week, the two countries also discussed ways to broaden the US-China Fulbright program's reach to younger students in more fields and to engage community colleges through scholarly exchanges.

The Fulbright program has provided support for more than 3,000 US and Chinese students and scholars to study, teach and conduct research in each other's countries.

The consultation also set up a US-China dialogue between women leaders.

In addition, there will also be visits from basketball teams from the US and China, and the Chinese martial arts team.

For China Daily

(China Daily 04/14/2011 page11)