Top Chinese university holds Overseas Academic Week in Japan

Overseas Academic Week, jointly organized by Wuhan University, one of China's top universities, and Japanese universities including Waseda University, the University of Tokyo, and Kyoto University, opened on Tuesday.

The four-day event in Tokyo, centering on "regional studies with an Asian perspective," involves a series of academic activities, with the opening ceremony attracting more than 150 experts and scholars from the two countries.

In a speech at the ceremony, Du Kewei, minister-counselor of the Chinese Embassy in Japan, said increasingly close exchanges between China and Japan have promoted mutual learning and injected new impetus into educational cooperation. 

Du said Overseas Academic Week is an important part of deepening exchanges and high-level cooperation between Chinese and Japanese academics. It is hoped that universities in the two countries will take this opportunity to improve cooperation, and jointly cultivate more high-level talents with international vision and innovation capabilities.

Professor Shen Zhuanghai, executive deputy secretary of the Party Committee of Wuhan University, said during Overseas Academic Week that a series of related activities would aim to strengthen high-level interactions between China and other countries and deepen international academic cooperation and dialogue among different civilizations.

Shen pointed out that Wuhan University is active in international exchanges and cooperation, and has links with nearly 30 high-level universities and institutions in Japan. He said Overseas Academic Week can promote mutual learning and lead to further Sino-Japanese cultural exchanges. By appreciating the culture of others, he said, the world will become a harmonious whole.

In his speech, Professor Watanabe Yoshihiro, vice president of Waseda University, reviewed the history of exchanges with Chinese academic circles. As a scholar who studies ancient Chinese history, especially the Three Kingdoms period, he has frequent exchanges with Chinese academics, and he said he is planning to promote further exchanges.

This is the fifth time Wuhan University has held such an overseas academic week. The previous four activities were held at the University of Göttingen in Germany, at the University of Chicago in the United States, at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, and at universities in France.