Recently China’s ambassador Zheng Zeguang, visited two universities in northern England and promoted educational exchanges between China and UK and encouraged Chinese students to be cultural ambassadors.
Zheng met Simon Buitendijk, vice-chancellor of the Leeds University, and noted that China values highly on education, human resources and science and technology, and is devoted to the opening-up of the education sector.
Zheng says, partnership between universities of our two countries supports our respective strengths in terms of the quality of teaching and research. We will not be able to make as rapid progress in scientific research as it should be, without international exchanges. He also stressed that, while all countries have concerns about national security, educators can distinguish between normal exchanges and collaborations and real national security concerns.
With a history going back nearly 120 years, in UK the University of Leeds is a founding member of the prestigious Russell Group of Universities and hosts almost 6,000 Chinese students.
At the university Buitendijk praised Chinese students and teachers, for their hard work and outstanding performances and said university will uphold the spirit of diversity and openness, and with Chinese universities to continuously expand academic exchanges and cooperation.
Attracting students from other countries, working closely together with universities in other countries and creating international classrooms are core elements of our 10-year strategy and he said, that it was important to send more UK students to China for a long period, during their studies.
Many of the relationships we know have with Chinese universities lend themselves really well for that kind of exchange, and the more you exchange, the partnership becomes more closer and stronger. for our UK students, while they’re in China their views will change regarding the world and universal problems.
Zheng met Charlie Jeffery, vice-chancellor at the university of York, and expressed his thanks for the favorable learning environment for the 3,000 Chinese students studying there.
Zheng said he hoped the University of York would leverage the sister-city relationship York has with Nanjing, in Jiangsu province, to seize new opportunities connected to China’s development, and enhance exchanges and cooperation with Chinese counterparts.
Jeffery echoed the ambassador, nothing that the university is committed to openness and internationalization, and that it enjoys sound collaboration with many Chinese universities. He said he hopes UK and China have more outstanding teachers and students to get a chance to participate in study exchange, enhance mutual understanding and learning and promote research collaboration.
Zheng met Chinese students studying at the University of York and listened to their experiences as international students, while encouraging them to broaden their knowledge and capacity, promote friendship and goodwill and make contributions to closer exchanges and cooperation between China and the world.
