A New Era of Prosperity for the East-- 40 Years of Reform and Opening-up（Excerpts Translation）

Adjacent to the Longgang sports center, a magnificent buildings springs up, with towering spires and great pentagram sculpture---the permanent campus of Shenzhen MSU-BIT University. On September 13, 2017, President Xi Jinping sent congratulatory message to this joint-university, hoping the two countries’ Education Departments and education staff play their respective advantages, tap potential for cooperation and speed up the constructions of Shenzhen MSU-BIT University, strive to build a high-level university and cultivate high-quality talents to deepen cooperation in educational field between China and Russia and promote friendship between the two peoples.

Starting from scratch in the establishment of special zone, Shenzhen now has 12 high-level full-time colleges and universities of different kinds, with nearly 100,000 students. Higher education in Shenzhen adheres to opening-up policy, forges ahead with “Shenzhen Speed” in the development of higher education, just as fast as that of economic development.

Cooperation, Openness and Exchange

A Russian style concert was held on the evening of May 16 in the auditorium of Shenzhen MSU-BIT University. It is hard to believe that the freshmen on the stage, who performed in fluent Russian, had never been in contact with this foreign language a year ago.

Bordyugovskiy Mikhail, director of Russian Language Center, told reporter that Chinese students are smart, diligent, patient and disciplined, from which we can see the characteristics of Chinese people as a whole, so that explains why China had prospered in the past forty years of reform and opening-up. Victor Sadovnichiy, rector of Moscow State University, is one of the founders of Shenzhen MSU-BIT University, and he and teachers of MSU believe that Shenzhen MSU-BIT University is prospective, and its development is important to MSU as well.

Zhang Jihong, director general of Shenzhen Education Bureau, said, Shenzhen, as an emerging city with no foundation in higher education, has a relatively big gap with other developed cities in China and abroad, which does not match its status as the economic center in high-level university and high-level discipline construction. In order to satisfy the needs of diversification of higher education and building a modern and internationally innovative city, Shenzhen Municipal Government made a higher education system with openness, internationalization and Shenzhen feature through the combination of independent school running and joint school running. The introduction of well-known university to China for cooperation is one major initiative.

Shenzhen MSU-BIT University is jointly established by Shenzhen Municipal People's Government, Lomonosov Moscow State University and Beijing Institute of Technology, which is the first China-Russian cooperative university and an example of wider opening-up in higher education in the new era.

Rector Zhao Ping said, they will conduct academic activities in the advantageous disciplines of MSU and BIT, with equal emphasis on liberal arts and science subjects, to nurture talents with solid professional knowledge and cultural profoundness and creativity, to serve for “One Belt, One Road” construction, China-Russian strategic partnership and regional economic development.

In the future, student number in Shenzhen MSU-BIT University will reach up to 5000, including overseas students from Russia, Central Asia and East Europe. They communicate and learn in Russian, immersing themselves in study to promote “One Belt, One Road” in the fields of technology, education and culture. As Shenzhen continues to lead in the new round of reform and opening up in China, such a scenario will surely come true.