Yang Dan, President of Beijing University of Foreign Chinese
According to incomplete statistics, among the alumni who graduated from Beijing, more than 400 people have served as ambassadors abroad and more than 2,000 people have served as counselors, so the school is known as the "cradle of diplomats of the republic"
From 1941 to 2021, in the past eighty years, the construction of languages in Beiwai has always resonated with the same frequency as national development. From the initial teaching of Russian and English, to the teaching of more than a dozen or dozens of foreign languages, and then to the current approval of 101 foreign languages, Beiwai has contributed important forces to China's foreign exchanges and reform and opening up
In the past, Beiwai introduced the world to China more, and the mission of contemporary Beiwai is to dig up Chinese stories, write Chinese stories well, and tell Chinese stories well through multilingualism
Wen | Zhang Chengcheng, Zhao Xu, Ma Xiaodong, reporters of the "Lookout" news weekly
Beijing Foreign Chinese University (hereinafter referred to as Beiwai) was founded in the war-torn anti-Japanese War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, formerly known as the Russian Language Brigade of the Third Branch of the China Anti-Japanese Military and Political University founded in Yan'an in 1941, and was the first foreign Chinese higher education school founded by the Communist Party of China.
From 1941 to 2021, in the past eighty years, the construction of languages in Beiwai has always resonated with the same frequency as national development. From the initial teaching of Russian and English, to the teaching of more than a dozen or dozens of foreign languages, and then to the current approval of 101 foreign language courses, Beiwai has contributed an important force to China's foreign exchanges and reform and opening up.
According to incomplete statistics, among the alumni who graduated from Beijing, more than 400 people have successively served as ambassadors to foreign countries and more than 2,000 people have served as counselors, so the school is known as the "cradle of diplomats of the republic".
Rooted in China, serving the world. With the mission of "introducing the world to China and introducing China to the world", Beiwai has witnessed countless wonderful moments when China is getting closer to the center of the world stage. On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the establishment of Beiwai School, the reporter of "Lookout" News Weekly interviewed Yang Dan, the principal of Beiwai.
Geng continued to carry forward the red gene
"Lookout": Looking back at the 80 years of school history, how can Beiwai continue the red gene?
Yang Dan: In the 80 years since its founding, Beiwai has always taken it as its duty to inherit the red gene and serve the construction of the country, adhere to the principle of cultivating people with virtue, continuing the red bloodline, cultivating socialist builders and successors with all-round development of morality, intelligence, physical fitness, beauty and labor, continuously improving international communication capabilities and levels, telling Chinese stories, and spreading Chinese voices.
After the founding of New China, a group of founders of non-lingua franca in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe started from the difficult environment of "no textbook dictionaries, self-editing; teaching experience, and exploration", holding mimeographed lecture notes and relying on a chalk to cultivate urgently needed specialized foreign language talents for the country.
A group of outstanding diplomats, experts, and scholars set out from here, walked into embassies and consulates abroad, walked to the bilateral and multilateral negotiating tables, became leaders of international institutions, and played an important role in the development of China's diplomatic undertakings and the building of economic culture.
Today, the red gene in Beiwai is manifested as relying on the global language advantages, serving the urgent needs of the global development of national culture, improving the whole chain education mechanism, taking root in China to cultivate high-quality international talents participating in global governance, and telling China, integrating the world, and creating the future. I summarize this mission and responsibility as follows: where the people need us, we will go to the feelings of home and country; the global pattern of where the world needs us to go, we will go; where the times need us to go, we will take responsibility for the future.
"Lookout": How to carry forward this red quality in the new era?
Yang Dan: 2021 is the centenary of the Communist Party of China, and at this great historical juncture, Beiwai ushered in the 80th anniversary of the school. Taking the school celebration as an opportunity, Beiwai comprehensively reviewed and summarized the history of the party's leadership over the development of higher foreign language education in New China, strengthened the "four self-confidences", and took root in the land of China to establish a world-class foreign Chinese university.
Entering a new era, Beiwai unswervingly adheres to and strengthens the party's overall leadership, takes Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as the guide, thoroughly implements General Secretary Xi Jinping's important exposition on education and the party's education policy, strengthens the direction of socialist schooling, regards serving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation as an important mission of education, has the "great power of the country", adheres to the "four services", adheres to the school motto of "inclusiveness and erudition", and plans the tasks of school reform and development in the new era in the strategy of serving the party and the country To cultivate new people of the times who are worthy of the great task of national rejuvenation.
At the same time, we will further promote "Xi Jinping on Governing the Country" into campuses, teaching materials, and classrooms, give play to the role of the main channel of ideological and political classrooms, promote the reform and innovation of ideological and political courses, integrate Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era into the whole process of cultivating foreign language professionals, and build a new pattern of "thinking about politics in the curriculum, and teachers are all talking about educating people".
Beijing University of Foreign Chinese Library Courtesy of Beijing University of Foreign Chinese
Tell the Story of China in multiple languages
"Lookout": Introducing the world to China and introducing China to the world is one of the important responsibilities of Beiwai. How is the construction progress in these two aspects?
Yang Dan: From the perspective of a hundred years of history and space, if in the past, Beiwai was more about introducing the world to China, the mission of contemporary Beiwai is to really dig up Chinese stories, write Chinese stories, and tell Chinese stories well through multilingualism.
Making full use of the advantages of "foreign language", "foreign mouth" and "external brain", Beiwai has long been committed to the international dissemination of Chinese culture, establishing cooperation and exchange relations with 486 universities and cultural institutions in 72 countries and regions in the world, creating conditions for foreign teachers, students and researchers to experience the real China, encouraging them to tell Chinese stories and spread Chinese voices.
Beiwai has also vigorously excavated the essence of traditional Chinese culture, resulting in a series of landmark achievements that promote communication and understanding between China and the West. The series of books compiled by "Chinese Ideological and Cultural Terminology" was successfully selected for the large-scale achievement exhibition celebrating the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
On April 30 this year, we established the Institute of International Communication of Chinese Culture, which aims to better answer the new proposition of how beiwai relies on global language advantages in the new era, grasps the laws of Chinese and foreign cultural communication, and explores the trajectory and path of international communication of Chinese culture in the world.
"Lookout": What are the specific measures of Beiwai in serving the national strategy and improving language capacity building?
Yang Dan: International language ability is an important part of national soft power and an indispensable global governance ability for world powers. Foreign language colleges and universities have the responsibility to cultivate a group of high-quality international talents with a solid foundation in foreign languages for the party and the country.
In the past 80 years since its establishment, Beiwai has continuously strengthened the construction of foreign language disciplines and languages, and insisted on making the "foreign" character fine, large and strong. At present, it has built a base for The Largest European and Asian Language Populations in China, and the 101 foreign language courses approved to open have provided greater support for in-depth exchanges and cooperation between China and countries along the "Belt and Road".
Beiwai has also built a national research center for translation capacity based on language. This is the first research institution in China to focus on national/country translation capabilities, which will provide language guarantee and intellectual support for Chinese culture to go global and build a community with a shared future for mankind.
In 2020, we launched the "BFSU CREATE" global strategy for the first time, and plan to achieve the goal of "One Body, Two Wings, Four Goals and Six Plans" by 2050, that is, in the process of creating "double first-class", build a global academic community, achieve the combination of internationalization and global participation, improve the national strategic ability to serve, the global competitiveness of scholars, the global competence of students and the global influence of the school, implement the global partnership program, the global reputation plan, the global faculty program, the global research program, Global Talent Program and Global Support Program.
Entering a new stage of development in the "14th Five-Year Plan", Beiwai will comprehensively build a new pattern of non-lingua franca construction, plan and formulate the "101 Project" non-lingua franca revitalization plan, strengthen the construction of the teaching staff and the construction of non-lingua franca teaching materials, optimize the innovative talent training model, build a non-lingua franca education and service platform, and comprehensively improve the quality of talent training.
Cultivate compound compound talents
"Lookout": What new requirements are put forward for the construction of foreign language universities and the cultivation of foreign language talents in the current world and the new situation of China's development?
Yang Dan: At present, the construction of foreign language universities is undergoing an important period of strategic transformation, and it is also a major challenge.
From the supply side, artificial intelligence is affecting the traditional language service field, while more universities provide more language education. From the demand side, since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China has been moving closer to the center of the world stage and playing a role in international affairs with a more positive attitude, so it needs a large number of professionals who are familiar with the principles and policies of the party and the state, understand China's national conditions, have a global vision, are proficient in the use of foreign languages, are proficient in international rules, and proficient in international negotiations. Social demand not only values foreign languages, but also looks at repetitive compound talents.
Lookout: In the face of new requirements, how should foreign language universities transform?
Yang Dan: Foreign language colleges and universities should continuously enrich the connotation of the development of foreign language disciplines, expand the humanistic value of foreign language disciplines, and improve the quality and level of foreign language higher education services to the party and state strategy.
Taking Beiwai as an example, first of all, we must fully implement the party's education policy and create a "golden undergraduate" in Beiwai. In addition to foreign language teaching, it is also necessary to strengthen general education, lay a good foundation in literature, history and philosophy, and at the same time penetrate the master's degree and doctoral degree.
Second, it is necessary to promote discipline aggregation, discipline integration and discipline union. In September 2020, Beiwai and China University of Political Science and Law signed a cooperation agreement on the training of foreign-related rule of law talents, and the two universities gave full play to their respective disciplinary, professional and resource advantages to cultivate high-end foreign-related rule of law talents who "speak at home and abroad and rule the world under the rule of law".
Finally, we must grasp the major strategic opportunities for the development of artificial intelligence. Beiwai established the "Key Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence and Human Language", focusing on the integration of language and technology, and joining hands with global information technology leading enterprises such as iFLYTEK and Huawei to promote cutting-edge topics such as multi-lingual brain science experimental research, big data-driven language intelligent teaching modeling and application research, and cross-language multi-modal natural language processing research.
Only by reading China can we understand the world
"Lookout": Talking about integration and transformation, you studied, taught and served at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, with an academic background mainly related to economics, and later worked at Tibet University, and now you are serving as the president of Beiwai. How do you see the transformation and convergence behind this?
Yang Dan: I have been to three "double first-class" universities. Southwestern University of Finance and Economics has been staying for the longest time, 30 years, which is a university featuring finance and economics. The second is Tibet University, where I work as a cadre aiding Tibet, which has distinct national characteristics and is also a comprehensive university. The third is the North Outer, which is characterized by language.
Three universities, three characteristics. These experiences have enhanced my disciplinary vision and management skills. When I look back on the day I retire, it will be the glory of life.
I believe that the soul of the university is the same, and its mission for value shaping, knowledge transfer, and ability cultivation is the same. From the perspective of educating people for the party and the country, colleges and universities are to cultivate talents who serve the party and the country, serve the people, and contribute to society.
In addition, the management philosophy and system of the university, the interaction between the university and the society, including the shaping of the university spirit and the cultivation of the behavior and value of teachers and students are consistent.
From this point of view, although I am cross-border, in a way, I feel that I have always been within the boundary.
"Lookout": Shortly after the beginning of the new semester, Beiwai celebrated its 80th anniversary. What are your hopes for the academic and life of students from Beiwai?
Yang Dan: In this era, being born Chinese is the luckiest thing.
To be a Chinese is to become a true Chinese culturally. For foreign language college students, if the object of speech is particularly in place Chinese, and it is not good to write and tell Chinese stories with Chinese, it is a chinese cultural aphasia, which is the end of the book.
Article 7 of the Constitution of Beijing University of Foreign Chinese describes the goal of talent training as follows: "To cultivate composite, polyglobal and high-level international talents with Chinese feelings, international vision, social responsibility, speculative ability and cross-cultural ability for the country and society." "Putting "Chinese feelings" before "international vision" is precisely because we know that reading China can understand the world, and Chinese feelings determine students' international vision.
I hope that the students will consolidate the professional skills of "learning like a bow and crossbow, only like an arrow", and speak well at home and abroad, and help the world. Proficient in global languages, master the amazing true skills of languages; gather global culture, master the true ability of cultural people; be familiar with global governance, master the true wisdom of Concord Wanbang, and become a leader of cross-cultural exchanges with Chinese depth, global breadth and humanistic height. (Intern Fang Anran participated in the writing)■