Minister, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

To travel is to see and learn.
To travel is to make new friends and renew old friendships.
To travel is sometimes to make dreams come true, such as revisiting one of our most ancient civilisations.

This is my third trip to China. My dream of coming back to China has come true and it gives me the opportunity to renew my friendship with his Excellency Ding Guang Gen, whom I had the honour of meeting in Norway last year.

Both my previous trips to China have been related to the presentation of the work of the Norwegian author Henrik Ibsen. I was then manager and artistic director of the Norwegian National Theatre. On my first visit to China I attended a seminar on the translation of Ibsen’s work into Chinese. In 1995, on my second visit I had the pleasure of accompanying the previous Prime Minister of Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland, on her official visit to China. On that occasion The National Theatre staged a performance of "Ghosts" in Beijing and Shanghai.

In 1996 Beijing Experimental Theatre visited Oslo and our International Ibsen Festival with a performance of "An Enemy of the People" – and the actress Ji Shu Ping, who played "Nora" in "A Doll's House", was guest of honour at the Ibsen Festival.

The work of Henrik Ibsen is a mainstay of the Chinese-Norwegian cultural co-operation. But there is also cultural dissemination in other fields – as for instance the field of film, music and contemporary art. In these fields we will this year in Norway have several opportunities to experience Chinese art and Chinese artist. These highly sophisticated examples of Chinese art and culture show of course that art and culture today as before will travel across geographical boundaries and distances.

I believe that cultural diversity is a precondition for cultural development. Exciting things are bound to happen when artistic and cultural forms from different cultures meet.

As we discussed when you visited Norway last year it is important that the governments of China and Norway should contribute to creating these places where different forms of art and culture can meet. A concrete result of your visit has been that a group of Norwegian newspaper publishers have recently visited Beijing. Their report to me was that they were received with warmth and that they had an extremely good and fruitful dialogue with their Chinese counterparts.

On this trip two Norwegian jazz musicians, Sidsel Endresen and Bugge Wesseltoft, are accompanying me. I do hope that this trip and their concert in Beijing will prove an opportunity for them to enhance their knowledge of Chinese jazz music and to get to know Chinese musicians.

There are lots of examples that cultural forms that originate in one part of the world become so deeply rooted in another that we no longer contemplate their history. I think the rose exemplifies this very well.

Despite our rather cold climate roses can be successfully grown in Norway but few people reflect on the fact that the garden rose originated in the Far East. We know that in China you had rose gardens more than 4000 years ago. In Europe the variety Rosa chinensis – or Chinese rose – became widely popular in the 17 ^th> century because of its ability to bloom throughout the season and even today specimens of the Rosa Chinensis varieties are highly prized.

Let the rose serve as a symbol of all the cultural products and art forms that have travelled the world and have been successfully integrated into very different cultures to such an extent that it has become part of the national culture.

I come to your country to seek inspiration and I come in deep respect of your ancient culture. Let me express my deep gratitude on behalf of my delegation and myself for your invitation and this extraordinary opportunity to experience your vast and varied country and ancient civilisation.

Let us raise our glasses and toast to the cultural co-operation and friendship between China and Norway.