In January 2006, China’s Deputy Education Minister Zhang Xin-sheng was in Bangkok to sing an agreement to help train 1000 Mandarin language teachers every year for Thailand. China also offered 100 scholarships for Thai students to study in China, and it dispatched 500 young volunteers to teach Chinese in Thailand. According to the Chinese Ministry of Education, Thai students studying in China reached 1,554, making them the sixth largest group of foreign students in the country, after South Korea, Japan, the United States, Vietnam, and Indonesia. ‘The number of Thai students studying in Chinese universities has grown six-or seven-fold within the past few years’, said Tekhua Pung, director of a local Chinese-language teaching school. Ultimately, bending with the Chinese wind seems to correspond with a new surge in the Thai public awareness about China’s rise. A recent poll showed that more than 70 percent of Thais considered China as Thailand’s most important influence and wanted the Government to continue to craft a China-favored policy for a closer relationship with Beijing.