Editor’s note: Beginning with this issue, we will run a column entitled “China Story” which will focus on China’s rise, its growing cultural confidence, the Belt and Road Initiative, the anti-corruption campaign, efforts at poverty alleviation, mass innovation and other important topics.

Uniardo is 26 years old and was born on the island of Java in Indonesia. He spent his childhood on the hot and humid seashore, where there were volcanic eruptions from time to time. He never expected he would one day come to Beijing and stay for two years experiencing totally different weather.

In 2015, Uniardo found an opportunity to work in China and teach Indonesian language and culture at Beijing Foreign Studies University. During his classes, Uniardo does not limit his instruction to just grammar, but instead combines aspects of Indonesian history, society and culture into his lessons so that students can develop a vivid impression of his motherland.

In his spare time, Uniardo attends free Chinese courses provided for foreign experts by Beijing Foreign Studies University. Currently, his biggest goals are to teach Indonesian and become fluent in Chinese.

As China continues to increase educational partnerships with countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative, many young people like Uniardo are actively engaging in relevant exchanges and other cooperative endeavours. As of April 2017, China has signed bilateral or multilateral cooperation agreements with 45 Belt and Road countries. Additionally, agreements focusing on higher education and the mutual recognition of diplomas have been signed with 24 Belt and Road countries.

In the promotion of people-to-people exchanges with Belt and Road countries, education not only acts as an adhesive, a catalyst and a lubricant, but also plays a fundamental, guiding and implicit role, said Chinese vice minister of education Tian Xuejun.

Cylimy, a woman from Myanmar, has come to China through the Afro-Asian Talented Young Scientists Programme of the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology. After obtaining her doctorate in environmental biotechnology in 2011, she later joined a “biological decontamination” project at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 2015.

 According to Cai Jialing, deputy director of the Department of International Cooperation at the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, since the Afro-Asian Talented Young Scientists Programme was first launched in 2013, more than 200 young scientists from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Mongolia, Egypt and other countries have come to China on scientific exchanges. “The programme has greatly promoted exchanges between scientific and technical personnel working in Belt and Road countries. ” said Cai Jialing.

After returning to Myanmar, Cylimy acts as a researcher at the Institute of Biotechnology at her country’s Ministry of Education. “What I learned in China is a great help in my present job. Now I’m using the knowledge and experiences I obtained in China as a part of my work,” she said. (Xinhua)