Mr. Han Zheng meets with student representatives from the Confucius Institute at the University of Sydney

SYDNEY, June 4--Mr. Han Zheng, Member of the Political Bureau of CPC Central Committee and Party Secretary of Shanghai, made a visit to the University of Sydney and held cordial exchanges with some student representatives from the Confucius Institute at this university. He also presented 300 Chinese books to the Institute as gifts.

Mr. Han Zheng’s visit was highly welcomed by Ms. Belinda Hutchinson, Chancellor of the University of Sydney and Dr. Michael Spence, its Vice-Chancellor. In her speech, Ms. Hutchinson emphasized that the University of Sydney is a leading university in Australia in conducting exchanges with China. The University attaches great importance to Chinese language teaching and provides all necessary support for the development of the Confucius Institute. Currently, around 5,000 Chinese students are studying at this university, therefore, it is sometimes considered as a university of both Australia and China.

Chancellor Ms. Belinda Hutchinson and Vice-Chancellor Dr. Michael Spence welcoming Mr. Han Zheng’s visit

A tour on the campus of the University of Sydney

Prof. Feng Xiaoyuan, Vice-president of Fudan University, introduced the work done by both Fudan University and the University of Sydney in developing this Confucius Institute. He also expressed the willingness to provide all necessary assistance to the University of Sydney for a better future of this Institute and strengthen the academic exchanges between Fudan University and the University of Sydney and Australia through the Institute.

During the meeting, Professor Duncan Ivison, Dean of Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and Chairman of the Confucius Institute Board, also made some remarks. In his speech, he introduced that the University of Sydney, as Australia’s first university, established the first Confucius Institute in New South Wales. It has the largest enrollment of adult Chinese language learners in Australia. Last year, over 600 students registered for Chinese courses at the Institute, and in the first half of this year, 355 students have already registered to study Chinese. The Institute also organized a series of cultural talks and cultural publicity activities of high quality and great influence, which provided the public in local communities with access to quality Chinese language teaching and cultural events and helped them better understand Chinese culture. Therefore, this Institute serves as a bridge for the academic exchanges between China and Australia and has become a leading organization of Chinese culture and language in Sydney. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the establishment of this Institute, and the University of Sydney hopes to take this as an opportunity to promote the development of the Institute to a new level

Michael, a student with the Confucius Institute’s Chinese program, speaking in Chinese during the meeting

As a student representative from the Confucius Institute, Michael, an undergraduate student studying law and international relations at the University of Sydney, expressed his warm welcome to the Shanghai delegation in fluent Chinese. He said that he likes Chinese language and China very much and expressed his gratitude to the Shanghai Municipal Government and the Confucius Institute for awarding him the scholarship to learn Chinese culture and experience Shanghai. James, another student from the Institute, participated in the study tour on Chinese Culture organized by the Confucius Institute last year when he was doing his MA program in international relations at the University of Sydney. During the two weeks in Beijing and Shanghai, he developed a keen interest in Chinese culture. He said that he was deeply impressed by Shanghai with its charm as an international metropolis. He even planned to attend an intensive Chinese language course in Shanghai later this year to improve his Chinese proficiency.

Mr. Han Zheng taking a group photo with the faculties and students from the Confucius Institute

Mr. Han Zheng congratulated Fudan University and the University of Sydney on their partnership in running the Confucius Institute. He also highly praised the excellent Chinese proficiency of the students from the Institute, which, according to him, could be considered as important teaching achievements by the Institute. He further elaborated that language is the vehicle of cultural exchange and learning Chinese is key to understanding and appreciating Chinese culture. He hopes that the Institute would “be insatiable in learning” and “be tireless in teaching” in the future and play an even greater role in promoting Chinese language teaching and learning, spreading splendid Chinese culture and improving cultural exchanges between China and Australia. He also expressed his wishes that Shanghai and Sydney, as two great cities, would make contributions to the strategic partnership between China and Australia via more cooperation in language and technology among the universities in the two cities.