Peking celebrates a hundred

Oxford University vice-chancellor Colin Lucas is to share a platform with Chinese president Jiang Zemin during celebrations for Peking University's 100th anniversary next week.

President Jiang will deliver the keynote address as a mark of the importance of the university in Chinese higher education.

The celebration conference of 10,000 academics, alumni and other guests from around the world is to be held in the Great Hall of the People on May 4. The university's president Chen Jia, a graduate of Oxford, will also speak. Professor Lucas may be asked to respond on behalf of the invited foreign universities.

The week-long celebrations coincide with the anniversary of the May 4 movement of 1919 - led by the students of Peking University - a date commonly held to mark the birth of modern China.

A live televised variety performance from the campus by top artists will cap a day that will include the issue of commemorative stamps, the naming of an asteroid discovered by a Peking University graduate as Peking University Star, and the conquering of Everest by the university mountaineering team.

Twenty-one international conferences are to be held including a showpiece conference on "The University of the 21st century".