Professor Menahem Ben Sasson, President of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) visited Peking University (PKU) on December 6, 2013. President Menahem Ben Sasson was accompanied by Mr. Jonathan Mandelbaum, Assistant to the President. They were warmly welcomed by the PKU delegation led by Dr. Li Yansong, Vice-President of PKU, and Professor Liu Shuseng, Dean of the School of Foreign Languages.

Both parties discussed on the establishment of Confucius Institute and relevant issues. An executive agreement regarding the establishment of Confucius Institute in HUJI has been reached and approved by Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban). According to Hanban, the signing ceremony would be held on February of 2014.

Dr. Li Yansong attached great importance to this cooperation, and expressed his willingness to send more Chinese professors to the Confucius Institute at HUJI as teachers and researchers, and welcome more professors from Israel to PKU for academic communications. President Sasson is also looking forward to the signing ceremony next February, hoping to perfect current education services. He proposed that Confucianism plays a very important role nowadays and we should encourage the translation of relevant classical works.

Besides this, both parties also showed their willingness to cooperate in a broader field. President Ben Sasson said that HUJI is a comprehensive university and he hoped that more exchange programs between students and professors could be set up in the humanities and social sciences, agricultural sciences, medicine and so on. Dr. Li mentioned that PKU is conducting a “Green Campus” program, aiming to balance environmental protection and economic development, with other prestigious universities including The University of Edinburgh, Stanford University and so on, and he encouraged HUJI to take part in as well. President Ben Sasson showed great interest in this program.

At the end of this event, both parties exchanged gifts and took a group photo together.

Written by: Shi Xinyu