Focus on: China and Cardiff
A traditional lion dance at a Chinese Students and Scholars Association festival
Cardiff University’s association with China goes back several decades, to a time when few other western institutions had such links. Today, our strong relations with China continue to flourish.
"Cardiff University has one of the longest track records of any British university for successful co-operation with China," said Cardiff University Vice-Chancellor Dr David Grant. "We continue to build on existing links and promote new collaboration to provide scholarship and research of benefit to both countries."
University honours leading Hong Kong businessman
Dr Fong Yun-wah is pictured with the Vice-Chancellor, Dr David Grant
University Honorary Fellowships are awarded to those who have achieved international distinction in their field, exemplified by the award to Dr Fong Yun-wah.
Dr Fong Yun-wah is a leading member of the business community in Hong Kong and China with a distinguished lifetime of success in business and an exemplary record of public service.
The award was made by the University’s Vice-Chancellor, Dr David Grant at a ceremony held in Hong Kong [News October 2007]. Leading cancer researchers Professor Wen Jiang from the School of Medicine (featured below) also attended and met with Dr Fong.
Dr Fong said: "As a lifelong believer in the importance and value of education, I will try my best to assist Cardiff University in its world leading research into the causes and effects of cancer. It is my sincere hope that the researchers from Cardiff and the universities and institutions of China and Hong Kong will collaborate to advance the field of knowledge in this area and to provide important health benefits to people in all countries.”
Cardiff’s history with China
Cardiff University has long and extensive mutually-beneficial links with universities, businesses and organisations in China. Cardiff’s success in establishing these links has been propelled by recognition across China of the University’s consistently high performance in independent government assessments and its status as one of Britain's leading teaching and research universities.
With the City of Cardiff establishing its own twinning links with the city of Xiamen, the University set up its own Chinese Studies Centre in the early 1980s to promote interest in the country.
As China opened its doors over the next two decades, attracting increasing business interest, the Centre developed with it. Re-named the China Centre, it now helps form strategy for the University’s activities in China, including partnerships, scholarships and exchanges.
Today, China plays a key role in the University’s campus life as well as in its international activity. Chinese nationals are employed as academics at the University and many of the University’s 28 academic schools have specialist Sino-focussed research centres. These include the Chinese Accounting Finance and Business Research Unit at Cardiff Business School, the Urban China Research Centre at the School of City and Regional Planning. The University presently has some 555 Chinese students — the largest number from any one country overseas.
Former students now leaders in their fields
Beijing Normal University, one of the hosts of a recent Cardiff University mission to China.
Many of Cardiff’s former Chinese students have returned to successful careers in China. Professor Zhong Binglin, who completed his PhD with the School of Engineering in 1994, now President of Beijing Normal University, is a former Director General of Higher Education, during which time he reformed teaching in the nation’s universities. He has recently been appointed as the University’s International Vice-President.
Jiang Heping, who took an MA in Journalism in Cardiff in 1996, is now controller of CCTV-9, mainland China’s official, 24-hour English language channel (viewable in the UK on Sky). Also with a reputation for innovation, he increased the length of news bulletins and appointed the station’s first western anchor. Dr Bin Zhao, one of the channel’s best-known presenters, is a former research fellow of the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies
The pagoda at Peking University
Collaboration with institutions in China
Cardiff has many active, mutually beneficial collaborative links with universities, organisations and academies in China. The School of City and Regional Planning has links with the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design going back 20 years and has been training Masters students under a Memorandum of Understanding every year since. The School recently advised the Academy on the drawing up the China National Spatial Plan for approval by central government. The School is now helping Xiamen University establish a planning department of its own. The International Symposium on Chinese Accounting Finance and Management was held at Peking, one of China’s elite Universities, in 2005 and returned to Cardiff in June 2006. The symposium enabled delegates from the UK, China and the US to discuss the new methods of financial control which are developing in the transition from a state-owned economy to one of the largest capital markets in the world. The Business School has also become an attractive destination for Chinese students. More than 300 Chinese students have studied there in recent years, and more than 20 postgraduate researchers are currently at work in Cardiff. The University is also one of only two UK members of the International Strategic Technology Alliance. Co-ordinated from Hong Kong, this is a network which also includes more than 20 Universities in the USA, UK, Israel and Australia as well as China, all interested in sharing intellectual property and technology transfer
China at the Cardiff Campus
A number of on-campus activities have brought China to Cardiff. In October 2006 the University held a ‘China Seminar’ aimed at highlighting the key role that the country plays in the University’s international activities. The event allowed members of the institution to share ideas and experiences on Sino-related activities and to provide an update on recent developments within China. The seminar was introduced by the University’s International Ambassador Sir Brian Smith and the keynote speech delivered by Andrew Disbury, Director of Education for the British Council in China. The University was also successful in its bid to host one of nine British Council-led workshops for Chinese students aimed at enhancing their employability. Held at Cardiff City Hall in February 2007 the event attracted approximately 350 Chinese students from Cardiff and the region. The University also celebrated the arrival of the Year of the Pig, as the Chinese Students and Scholars Association held a Gala event in the student union complete with entertainers, food and music, and attended by 300 guests.
Learning Chinese - Confucius Institute
Chinese language programmes are currently offered to a small number of students at the University, but this provision is set to be boosted considerably by the establishment of a Confucius Institute, based at the Centre of Lifelong Learning. Under the guidance of the Ministry of Education in China and in collaboration with Xiamen University, the Institute will offer courses in Chinese language and culture to members of the community, public and private sector organisations, as well as university staff and students and act as a focus for those involved in China-related research and teaching. The Chinese Ministry of Education is looking to create around 100 Institutes around the world and specially selected Cardiff University to take part in the Confucius Institute programme.
Collaboration in training, teaching and learning
Cardiff University has been at the forefront of the Chinese Government’s efforts to reform its higher educational system, providing input for the Chinese Ministry of Education on the development of a group of universities of global renown under its Project 211 Programme. The University was specially selected, along with other partners, to deliver a training course for Vice Presidents from leading Chinese institutions under the Higher Educational Leadership Training Overseas programme. In addition, Cardiff University has developed a bespoke training programme to enhance the teaching skills of a group of young law professors from China, and a course providing exposure to the UK public sector for group of administrators from Shanghai. Cardiff has also signed up to be involved in the ‘Scholar Ship’, a semester-long academic programme aboard a dedicated cruise ship that traverses the globe. Developed by a consortium of leading international universities, including Fudan University, and backed by Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd, the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes bring students and staff from around the world together to form a trans-national learning community. For further information go to www.thescholarship.com
Tackling China’s biggest killer
Professor Jiang helping to tackle the growing problem of lung cancer in China
When a promising young surgeon at China’s top university hospital was asked to go abroad to study, he assumed it would be for just one year.
Wen Jiang had come top in the national entry exam for Beijing Medical University and had a glittering career ahead of him. A year abroad was simply part of his development.
He said: "I didn’t particularly want to go but they said I could go anywhere I wanted. My supervisor knew someone who had studied at Cardiff and said it was very nice. I didn’t know anything about the city."
That was 1989, and 17 years on, Professor Jiang is still here. Despite the offer of a deputy headship of department in Beijing, he received exceptional permission to complete his research in Wales into immune malfunction in jaundice associated with biliary carcinoma and gallstones.
Professor Jiang became a Doctor of Medicine (MD) at Cardiff in 1993 — the year he and his wife had their first child, David, born on March 1st St David’s Day, the national day of Wales. A daughter, Amy, followed the next year.
He said: "We have found this is a really attractive place in which to live. The people are very warm and very positive. It’s a beautiful city too — you can just turn round and see the mountains behind you."
After his MD, he turned his attention to cancer, and in particular, its spread. In 2004, his team identified a protein molecule which could be vital in controlling the development of breast cancer. Now Professor of Surgery and Tumour Biology at the University’s School of Medicine, and head of the Metastasis and Angiogenesis Research Group, Wen leads a team of scientists and clinicians looking at how and why cancer spreads and how to stop it.
Professor Wen Jiang at work
He said: "There is very little effort in the world on cancer spread, which is surprising as that is the killing factor. It’s a very complicated issue, for which you need medical and scientific knowledge."
Over the years, he has maintained his links with Beijing and is now collaborating on one of the biggest problems in world health — lung cancer in China. Work has been under way for four years and Professor Jiang is now seeking to establish more formal links.
He said: "This is the biggest killer in China right now. In global terms, it has vital importance and we are powerless to beat it. Being a cancer surgeon and Chinese myself, I feel that the sooner we tackle it the better. The Chinese authorities are just starting to realise what a big problem it is.
Water quality research flows both ways
Professor Roger Falconer, the Halcrow Professor of Environmental Water Management in the University’s School of Engineering has been visiting China since 1980. He was one of the first Western civil engineers to be allowed into the People’s Republic.
In that time he has seen enormous change. "In 1986, there was no car culture. In Shanghai, you might see the odd Russian car. Now it is the most heavily traffic-congested city in the world. Any change on that scale is bound to have massive environmental impacts."
Professor Falconer initially worked with Tongji University in Shanghai on reducing chlorine in waste water — one of the first environmental projects ever set up in China.
Since the early 1990s, he has been working with Tsinghua University in Beijing on modelling water disinfection and with Tianjin University on water discharges into Bohai Bay. All effluent water from Beijing, passes through Tianjin, itself China’s third largest city, and into the Bay.
Professor Roger Falconer with the award from the city of Tianjin for his work on water discharges
Water flows have been modelled and processes introduced to reduce contamination. Over the past decade, this has significantly improved water quality in the Bay. The partnership was highlighted this year as a flagship project by the British Council to mark 25 years of Higher Education links in China. Professor Falconer has received the Haihe Honour Award from Tianjin Municipal Government for his work. He is a Guest Professor at Tianjin University, and also an Advisory Professor at Tongji.
However, the pace of development in China means the nature of the challenges in the Bohai Bay region are changing constantly. The team has to deal with a complex range of issues, including industrial growth, land use change, public health, marine ecology, increasing aquaculture and the impact of tourism on the bay.
Professor Falconer said: "China has a rapidly developing demand for fish, for which Bohai Bay is ideally suited. Tianjin is one of the largest ports in the world. Most effluent from Beijing and Tianjin goes into Bohai Bay. Despite considerable efforts to treat it to higher and higher standards, it still has a major impact on water quality indicators in the Bay. The Bay itself is quite shallow, about 5-10 metres deep, and semi-enclosed.
"All of this poses a major challenge for the Chinese hydro-environmentalists and the Government. China is to be applauded for taking hydro-environmental pollution seriously and working with overseas universities such as Cardiff. The project has been very challenging and exciting for Cardiff, enabling staff to test computer models for a major international marine environmental challenge."
The benefits have flowed both ways. Sophisticated computer models developed in China are now being applied to UK problems by the School of Engineering at Cardiff. Dr Dekui Yuan from Tianjin University is now applying land use models developed in China in response to climate change and increased flood risk here.
Professor Falconer said: "We have a lot of Chinese people in the team developing state of the art models to predict flooding in steep valleys, particularly here in Wales. We have benefited enormously from the quality of Chinese research."
Urban China Research Centre helping cities at the crossroads
As agricultural land is increasingly taken up for development, many Chinese cities are in danger of becoming urban sprawls, with gated commuter communities.
Not everyone is benefiting from this phenomenal growth, creating the problems of social inequality already witnessed in eastern European cities like Prague, Warsaw and Budapest in the 1990s.
The increasing use of private cars is creating more problems with congestion, with many cities finding it difficult to encourage public transport use.
The challenge of helping resolve issues like these prompted Professor Fulong Wu to return to Cardiff last September to set up the Urban China Research Centre in the School of City and Regional Planning.
A Starbucks sits just yards from the site of the First Communist Party Congress in Shanghai, reflecting the old and new force at work in China
The Centre is working on urban transition, poverty and property rights in six Chinese cities, in pioneering work that has already earned support of more than £250,000 from the Economic and Social Research Council. (ESRC) In a country still making the transition to a market economy, where a Starbucks coffee shop can sit just yards from the site of the first Communist Party Congress, Professor Wu wants to examine how property rights can be used to enhance social inclusion.
China is still looking for external expertise in planning and research and Professor Wu believes the new Centre is well placed to take advantage. The School is well-known in China, with 40 Chinese MA students currently researching here, and a long relationship with the China Academy of Planning and Design.
Professor Wu said: "A lot of cities need to be planned or re-planned. These opportunities are very real. We know people there through our collaborative research. A lot of alumni are now key members of local planning boards in China. "In terms of set-up, the Centre is very strong. "
Chinese Students and Scholars Association
Traditional playing of the pipa at a Chinese Students and Scholars Association New Year Celebration
Chinese students make a vital contribution to the vibrant and diverse student community which is a central characteristic of the University. Their involvement with the University often extends well beyond their period of study.
The Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) - Cardiff organises, sponsors and supports social activities for Chinese students studying at or visiting the University.
The Association also aims to represent the interests of the 600 Chinese students currently studying at Cardiff and assist them in their academic studies and daily lives.
The organisation, a local branch of the national organisation CSSA-UK, runs a range of events in the Cardiff area including seminars, film shows and Chinese New Year celebrations. It also encourages cultural exchange between Chinese and British students.
The Association in Cardiff is a non-profit, non-political organization of Chinese students and scholars. It is run by its own members and administrated by an Executive Committee.
Treasurer Duo Jonjie said: "The Association is committed to developing unique and attractive programmes and activities locally. This enables Chinese students, scholars and other individuals interested in China to experience and enjoy a richer, fuller and more successful life in the UK and beyond."
Many graduates maintain their links with Cardiff on their return to China. The highlights of last November’s tour of China by Vice-Chancellor Dr David Grant included two dinners with some 200 China-based Cardiff alumni. University International Vice President, Professor Zhong Binglin is Honorary President of a very active Chinese Alumni Association.