Peking University, Oct. 13, 2010: The inauguration of Peking University Alumni Association in the UK (PKUAA-UK) was officially held at King's College of the University of Cambridge on Oct. 10, setting up another platform for the communication and cooperation between the UK and China.

The aim of the PKUAA-UK is to promote the fusion between the alumni from PKU and the British society, as well as to establish a platform for the communication among PKU alumni of all ranks. PKUAA-UK was set up on the basis of alumni associations in the UK. Nearly 200 PKU alumni gathered together at Cambridge from all parts of the UK to express their congratulations.

PKU Executive Vice President Lin Jianhua’s speech (By Zeng Yi/Xinhua)

Prof. Lin Jianhua, Executive Vice President of PKU, and Prof. John Rallison, Vice President of Cambridge, were invited to attend the meeting. Prof. Lin Jianhua, on a visit to the UK for academic exchanges, gave a briefing of recent development of PKU to alumni from all walks of life in the UK, reiterated the goal of building PKU into a world-class university, and regarded the alumni association as a bridge connecting PKU and the alumni, through which PKU would provide the alumni in the UK with more information.

College leaders all expressed their congratulations on the establishment of PKUAA-UK and intensified their wishes for further cooperation. Communication among students is no less important than international mutual understanding. Exchanges will be strengthened via the communicating network of the alumni association, which is of great significance to Sino-British communications.

As one of the PKU alumni, Mr. Tian Xiaogang, Minister-Counselor of Education Section of Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, recalled his life in PKU at the meeting. When talking about the teaching cooperation and exchanges between China and the UK, Mr. Tian pointed out the inequality in scale between them. For instance, there are nearly 100,000 Chinese students studying in the UK while only 3,000 British students in China, even less than Germany and France. He hoped that the alumni association would enhance the communication between Chinese and British students and also encourage more British students to go abroad, to visit China, and to further their studies in China.

Translated by: Zhang Hao

Edited by: Su Juan

Source: PKU News (Chinese)