Amir
Lati
Deputy Director, North East Asia Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Received a scholarship in 1999
Thanks to the Polonsky Travel Award, I was able to study at Beijing University in 1999. At the end of that year I was accepted into the cadets training program of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel. Between the years 2000-2006, I was posted (for various terms) in the Israeli missions in Mumbai, Senegal, Australia and South Korea. In the year 2005 I was a member of the Israeli young diplomats’ mission to China.
All throughout this time, maintaining a high level of proficiency in Chinese, which I initially achieved at Beijing University, was a top priority for me. I was posted in China in 2006 as a Deputy Consul General at the Israeli Consulate General in Shanghai. My main fields of responsibilities were trade, culture, press and the daily administration of the consulate. In 2010 I was appointed the deputy manager of the Israeli Pavilion in the Shanghai Expo exhibition. It was the first time in the history of Israel's participation in this exhibition that Israel built its own pavilion. During the 6 months of the exhibition we had more than 3 million guests from China, among them approximately 1500 delegations that were defined as VIP. Needles to say, my proficiency in Chinese was an asset throughout my 4.5 years in China.
I returned to Israel in the beginning of 2011 and since then have assumed the position of deputy director of the north-east Asia department in the Foreign Ministry, covering China and Korea. In June this year I am scheduled to lead a delegation of 10 young Israeli leaders to China.
In the academic realm, I completed a MBA in Tel Aviv University and a program in Democracy Studies at the Open University. I also completed MBA-C degree at Shanghai Jiaotong University, and studied a Business Chinese course at Donghua University.
On a personal note, I have the honour to be one of the graduates of the East Asian Studies department in the Hebrew University. These studies have opened a door for me into a new world of which I had no prior knowledge, and paved the way in my professional career. I have been following China for more than 15 years and am glad to witness the growing interest in China both in the academy and outside. The growing number of students in the East Asian Departments in universities in Israel, as well as in elementary schools and high schools, is a testament to this.
Scholarships like the Polonsky Travel Grant, which I had the honor to receive, will create the new generation of China specialists that serve the important role of enhancing and strengthening the dynamic relations between China and Israel