More than 100 people gathered at the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles to celebrate the accomplishments of 39 distinguished self-financed Chinese students who have demonstrated academic excellence.

Amid cheers and applause from family, friends and officials on Sunday, 21 Chinese students at California universities received the 2017 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad, six students accepted the Cathay Bank Scholarship Award and 12 students were presented with the Morning Light Foundation Scholarship Award.

In a speech at the ceremony, Zhang Ping, China's consul general in Los Angeles, encouraged the students to enhance communication with their American counterparts and to improve understanding between citizens of the two countries.

"Educational discussion is an important aspect of the China-US relationship, and international students are not only the participants of China-US educational dialogues, but also the communicators of friendship between the two countries," he said.

Zhang said that around 5.2 million students had studied abroad since Chinese economic reform started 40 years ago, and more than 3 million of these students, or 83 percent, chose to return to China for work.

"This is a huge percentage, and I believe that as China continues to grow, more and more students will go back to their home country to participate in its development," he said.

The 2017 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-Financed Students Abroad, an annual program established by the China Scholarship Council in 2003, a non-profit agency affiliated with China's Ministry of Education. It aims to encourage extraordinary doctorate students from different disciplines to return to China for work.

Around 6,000 PhD students have received financial help through the program since its inception. The 2017 recipients of the award included 500 students from 25 different countries, who each received $6,000. The program also has a special award of excellence, and the 10 recipients of this award each received $10,000 to support their studies.

Cathay Bank and Morning Light Foundation created their financial aid programs in 2015 and 2016, respectively, to help undergraduates and master students in the Golden State. The Morning Light Foundation also opened its program to assist American-born Chinese students for the first time this year.

Catherine Liang is one such recipient. A student at the University of Southern California, Liang's house burned down when the Tubbs Fire, the most destructive wildfire in California history, devoured parts of Napa, Sonoma and Lake counties in October of 2017. She said coming to Los Angeles with the fire situation made her college life difficult in the beginning but realizing that she had people to support her educational dreams encouraged her to give back to her community.

"My family has always taught me this saying: `Receive humbly, and give graciously," said Liang, who is enrolled in international studies and business at USC. "So that's something I really hope to live by."

Zhang said the program is a long-term project.

"This is indeed a reflection of our country's support for our own self-financed students. I think it's a great encouragement for our international students." he said. "I think our consulate will continue to do a great job in this area so that we can enable more talented young people to study well and contribute to the development of China. I think this is the significance of this scholarship program."

Liu Yinmeng in Los Angeles contributed to this story.