On the afternoon of September 23, the graduation ceremony of the Eighth Arab State Officials Seminar of CARC was held at the International Education Center of Songjiang Campus. Zha Mingjian, Vice President of SISU; Li Chengwen, Ambassador of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Board Chairman of CARC; Gong Xiaosheng, Former Chinese Special Envoy for the Middle East and the participants of the seminar attended the graduation ceremony. The graduation ceremony was hosted by Wang Guangda, Secretary-General and Executive Director of the CARC Council.
Vice President Zha Mingjian first delivered a speech and congratulated the participants on the successful completion of the ten-days training courses. He pointed out that in this world of change and turmoil, in this era of opportunities and challenges, China and the Arab League are both active and promising to become the international partners with responsibility and the pioneers who lead changes on the international stage. He particularly emphasized that innovation is the first driving force for development and the brightest lighthouse to guide the changing times. The collective cooperation between China and the Arab League will pay more attention to the increasingly prominent issues of scientific and technological cooperation in the future, and jointly explore a scientific and technological cooperation model which meets the actual needs of China and Arab countries. The inter-disciplinary international foreign language talents of SISU and the ideological exchange platform of CARC will provide language support, intellectual support and humanistic care for China-Arab innovation cooperation.
Participants Representative, Ahmed Mustafa, Director of the Arab League Conference and Headquarters Affairs Division, expressed his gratitude to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Education, the Shanghai Municipal Government, the Shanghai International Studies University, the Yangzhou Municipal Government，the staffs and volunteers of CARC. He said that through these days of training and exchanges, the participants learned about China's reform and opening up policy, the development of Shanghai, and recognized China's foreign policy based on respect and equality, also the status quo and prospects of China-Arab relations under the framework of the “Belt and Road”. The Arab countries are grateful to China for its firm stance on the Palestinian issue. The Arab League Secretariat will write relevant reports to introduce the Chinese experience to the Arab countries, and each participant will also tell the Chinese story to their surroundings.
Ambassador Li Chengwen congratulated the participants on the successful completion of the training and thanked CARC for their hard work in organizing the seminar. Ambassador Li pointed out that the Chinese nation and the Arab nation met on the ancient Silk Road. Today they support each other on the road of building a community of human destiny and strengthen cooperation in the process of building the Belt and Road. China-Arab friendly relations have broad prospects for development. At present, we have the responsibility to think about forward direction of the countries, the Middle East and the world. The Sino-Arab exchanges such as the Arab National Officials Training Program help usunderstand and take care of each other's concerns on relevant issues. Ambassador Li stressed that China supports the just cause of the Palestinian people and hopes that the Arab side will continue to support China on issues involving China's core interests.
At the beginning of the ceremony, each student talked about the feelings of the participation of seminar and their suggestions. Then, they enjoyed the performance of traditional Chinese instruments Guzheng and Erhu. Finally, Vice President Zha Mingjian, Ambassador Li Chengwen and Ambassador Gong Xiaosheng issued diplomas to the participants, and presented the New Concept, New Ideas and New Strategies for Governing the Country with Comrade Xi Jinping as the Core (Arabic Edition) and souvenirs.