Day: December 10, 2021

GUANGZHOU, China, Dec. 10, 2021 /Xinhua-AsiaNet/– Themed “Whence and Whither — Unprecedented Changes in the World and China and  the CPC”, 2021 Understanding China Conference (Guangzhou), scheduled from Dec.  1 to 4 in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, has attracted nearly 80  celebrated figures from the global political, academic and economic  communities.

A total of 12 successive parallel forums were held as a way of encouraging a vigorous exchange of global minds, with a focus on how to offer a more permanent solution to the pressing challenges and grave risks the world is facing.

“Because we are confronting huge global challenges that require global solutions from the cooperation we need on climate change and addressing global financial instability to the cooperation now required to eradicate global poverty, protectionism, nuclear proliferation and pandemics,” said former British prime minister James Gordon Brown.

Martin Jacques, a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, said the success of the CPC lies in its ability to demonstrate and elucidate the Chinese civilization. He added that the Party’s development has undergone a prolonged process, rather than an overnight sensation, and it has improved itself through constant reforms.

Alex Wang, a professor and co-director at the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the University of California, Los Angeles, said China has a lot of experience in areas such as solar power, electric vehicles and batteries, and cooperation can help both China and the world in improving sharing and the acceleration of action on the climate.

“Cooperation” is the most urgent and strongest call in the conference. This can be seen in topics like cooperation on COVID-19, the layout of global industrial chains, the realization of the goal of carbon neutrality and emission peak, worldwide infrastructure development and connectivity, and the alignment of the international business environment.

Addressing the international conference via video link, Pascal Lamy, former director-general of the World Trade Organization, pointed out that the vaccine gap, digital divide, carbon emissions gap and wealth disparity still pose severe challenges and risks to global peace and development.

He said that, if the assessment of these various risks and challenges is correct, then there is no choice but to address them by working together even harder.

Attendees of the event widely echoed the view and called for more international cooperation.

This is the third time Guangzhou has played host to the grand event. And not long ago, the dynamic southern Chinese city saw the opening of an unprecedented international trade fair (Canton Fair) held online and offline that drew hundreds of thousands of overseas buyers and an impressive award ceremony of the Guangzhou International Award for Urban Innovation. All these elements that a host of exciting events brought to the historic city have just made it all the more diverse and dynamic.

Source: 2021 Understanding China Conference (Guangzhou)

CHONGQING, China, Dec. 10, 2021 /Xinhua-AsiaNet/– Located near the Daba Mountains and the Yangtze River, Chongqing Jiaotong University (CQJTU), with virtues cultivating generations of talents and expertise empowering transportation projects, marks its 70th anniversary on December 12 with a celebration event as well as a summit on the transportation development of Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle.

CQJTU is a distinctive, multi-disciplinary university with a primary focus in transportation engineering. In 1951, in order to train talents for the building of a road from Chengdu to Lhasa, the school, then named Southwest Transportation Technological Academy, was established. In 1960, the School was renamed Chongqing Institute of Communications by merging with the Civil Engineering Department of Chengdu Technological College, the Metallurgical Department of Sichuan Metallurgical College, and the Hydraulic Engineering Department of Wuhan Institute of Water Transportation Engineering. In 1985, the school became one of the third batch of postgraduate degree conferring institutions. In 2006, it was again renamed Chongqing Jiaotong University, and listed as a doctoral degree conferring institution.

Seven decades of development and deposits have made CQJTU a unique university.

The university has three campuses: Nan’an, Western (Chongqing) Science City and Daping. Together, they occupy an area of nearly 200 hectares in total and over 820,000 square meters of school buildings. It has one national and six municipal experimental teaching demonstration centers. It offers 16 doctoral programs and three postdoctoral programs. With 19 schools (departments), the university offers 13 national first-class undergraduate programs and 38 Chongqing first-class undergraduate programs.

Highlighting “Transportation+” education, the university pursues creative ways to produce the best minds. Today, it’s home to over 30,000 full-time students. The initial employment rate for undergraduates has exceeded 90 percent for 23 years in a row. It is also listed in the first batch of the “Chinese Exemplary University of Employment” and “Chinese Exemplary University of Innovation and Entrepreneurship”.

The university has seen improving technological innovation capabilities in the past seven decades. It has formed a comprehensive scientific research platform with three national key research platforms, including the State Key Laboratory of Bridge and Tunnel Engineering in Mountainous Areas, the National Research Center of Inland Waterway Regulation Engineering and Technology, and the National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Transportation and Civil Engineering Materials, 41 provincial and ministerial-level platforms and more than 20 R&D institutions. A string of influential accomplishments in the field of transportation infrastructure in mountainous areas, ecological waterways, railway transport equipment, transportation and logistics, and green aviation earned 16 titles in national science and technology progress awards and national technological invention awards, and over 500 provincial and ministerial level science and technology awards for the university.

CQJTU initiated the Sino-Polish University Consortium under the Belt and Road Initiative and established two Confucius Institutes in Benin and the United States respectively. It is a training institution authorized by the Chinese Government Scholarship and the International Chinese Language Teachers Scholarship, offering six joint programs cooperating with universities in the UK and Australia, and three programs outside China cooperating with universities and institutions in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Benin.

Looking forward, CQJTU will always follow the motto of “Virtues in Mind & Transport Worldwide”, and the tradition of “Paving Stone Spirit” to expand influence beyond the western region and even China to establish an internationally renowned distinctive university with a primary focus on engineering, coordinating the development of multiple disciplines, and contributing to the transportation industry, the local economy, and social development.

Source: Chongqing Jiaotong University