From April 27 to May 3, 2019, Yang Li, Vice President of Shanghai International Studies University, led a delegation to visit the UAE and Jordan to attend the joint meeting of Confucius Institutes in Arab States at the University of Dubai. They visited the American University of Sharjah, the UAE Strategic Research Center, the Jordan Middle East Research center and other universities and think tanks, meanwhile, they dropped in the Arab officials who participated in the seminar organized by CARC. Zhang Xuemei, Director of the Work Department of the Confucius Institute at SISU, and Wang Guangda, Executive Director of CARC, accompanied the delegation.
On April 28, Vice President Yang Li attended the first joint meeting of Confucius Institutes in Arab Countries. Representatives from the UAE Ministry of Education, the Chinese Consulate General in Dubai, Beijing Century Good Future Education Technology Co., Ltd., China Knowledge Network International Department and Confucius Institute Headquarters, nearly 80 people of 17 Confucius Institutes in 10 Arab countries and Chinese and foreign deans in the Confucius Classroom and the president of the university attended the meeting. Vice President Yang Li attended the Chinese Principal Meeting hosted by Yu Yunfeng, Deputy Director-general of the Confucius Institute Headquarters, and exchanged views on the coordination and sustainable development of the Confucius Institute in the Arab region and the selection and treatment of the Chinese Dean of the Confucius Institute.
On the morning of April 29, the SISU delegation arrived at the American University of Sharjah. Vice President Zhao Wei introduced the history and characteristics of the university and looked forward to cooperating on the “Arabic-English Interpretation” project of the American University of Sharjah and the “Master of Chinese and English Interpretation” program of SISU, to promote the common development of Arabic language teaching and research. In addition, Vice President Yang Li and Vice President Zhao Wei held preliminary discussions on the “Alumni Association” for the former participants of CARC at the American University of Sharjah.
On April 30, the delegation visited the UAE Strategic Research Center and met with Abdullah Baruch, Director of the Center for Public Service and Support; Murad Barus, Director of the Federal Library of the UAE to discuss the construction of think tanks, the issues on research and development, also observed the UAE Strategic Research Center and its subordinate media monitoring department, public opinion analysis research department, training department, international conference department and the UAE Federal Library. The two sides agreed to invite each other to participate in their own academic seminars and exchange information on training and other interesting topics.
On May 1, Vice President Yang Li and his entourage arrived at the Jordan Middle East Research Center, and discussed the cooperation on think tanks. The center is a distinguished and key think tank which has close ties with the Jordanian Parliament and has a cooperative relationship with more than 6,000 researchers at home and abroad. Jawad Hamd, President of the Middle East Research Center; Director Bajani Omr, and Nizam Barkat, President of the Academic Council, attended the meeting. The two sides negotiated on issues such as strategic research cooperation, translation of scientific research results, and exchanges of researchers for participation in academic seminars, in the meantime, expressed their hopes of signing a memorandum and developing an annual cooperation plan.
On May 2, Vice President Yang Li and his entourage conducted a return visit and research on the participants of the Arab officials seminar organized by CARC. During the period, the participants recalled the experience during the seminar, and said that the participation of the seminar changed their cognition of China, China's reform and opening up, and the “Belt and Road”initiative. They benefited a lot and put forward their personal suggestions on the construction and development of seminar. After their return to the homeland, they seized each opportunity to publicize the real China they saw with their own eyes to Jordanese. Now, the Jordanian people are very concerned about China's development and various initiatives, hope to find opportunities to cooperate with China in various fields.
During the visit, we exchanged and negotiated with many universities and think tanks in two Arab countries, promoted the Sino-Arab cooperation in teaching and research, provided more opportunities for students and researchers to learn and exchange, to broaden a horizon for popularity of Chinese culture and Chinese language teaching.