A senior official on Sunday urged returned Chinese students to display their patriotic tradition by integrating the knowledge they learned overseas with the needs of the nation and their individual pursuit with the happiness of the Chinese people.

Chinese students studying overseas should grasp the great opportunities in China and display their talents in the country's modernization drive, said Li Yuanchao, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, at Sunday's opening ceremony of the 2008 Week for Returned Chinese Students, who are innovative and want to open their own business in China.

Li called on the returned students to come back to the motherland for innovation or running their own business, so as to "realize their ideal, ambition and value in a better way."

Returned students are a group of specially needed talents for China for carrying out the modernization drive. Since the launching of reform and opening up in 1978, a large number of Chinese students have studied overseas and some of them have returned and made outstanding achievements, while some others are making contribution to the nation in other ways, the official said.

China has entered a crucial stage for its modernization drive after 30 years of reform and opening up. Now the country is demanding more talented people, particularly high-level talents, said Li, who is also head of the Organization Department of the CPC Central Committee.

He urged Party organizations and governments at different levels to make and perfect policies and measures that encourage and support returned students to make innovations and open businesses in the country, by sparing no efforts to create a sound environment for their work and life, while protecting their rights and enthusiasm.

The annual event, which began in 2001, is sponsored by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Youth League, the All-China Youth Federation, and the Western Returned Students Association.

(Xinhua News Agency December 22, 2008)