Exchanges: Students vow to strengthen friendship

When Sat Aslanbek watched a movie starring Chinese action star Jackie Chan on television at the age of 7, the Kazakh boy developed an interest in China and started to learn about the language, culture and history of the neighboring country.

Now, the 22-year-old is a first-year postgraduate student majoring in petroleum engineering at China University of Petroleum-Beijing.

President Xi Jinping recently replied to a letter from Central Asian students at the university. Aslanbek said he was motivated by Xi's words, and this firmed up his confidence in devoting himself to promoting cooperation between Kazakhstan and China.

In his letter, Xi encouraged the students, whom he referred to as "envoys of friendship" and "bridges of cooperation", to contribute to building an even closer China-Central Asia community with a shared future.

"I used to be an intern at the representative office of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade in Kazakhstan, so I hope I can continue to work to facilitate bilateral trade ties after graduation," Aslanbek said in fluent Chinese.

He was the first-prize winner of the "Chinese Bridge" language proficiency competition last year in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.

Rahman Bayramdurdyyev, from Turkmenistan, was one of the authors of the letter to Xi in which the students from Central Asian countries expressed their determination to study hard and strengthen their home countries' cooperation with China.

"We had expectations when we wrote the letter, but did not expect to actually receive a reply from President Xi," he said.

Bayramdurdyyev has been living in China for 13 years and is now a doctoral student majoring in the Sinicization of Marxism.

He said many of the students from Central Asia had received scholarships from China to study at the university, and were very appreciative for being given this opportunity.

Bayramdurdyyev said China has made remarkable achievements over the past years, and that's why he came to the country.

Ravil Latypov, a postgraduate student at China University of Petroleum-Beijing, said that Xi's letter would help to further bolster people-to-people exchanges.

Recent years have seen increasingly frequent people-to-people exchanges between China and the five Central Asian countries — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Yang Lei, the Chinese director of Eurasian National University's Confucius Institute in Astana, is a witness to this.

"Since our institute was established in 2007, it has been attended by more than 10,000 Kazakh people who know Chinese, and most of them are young students," Yang said.

He said that the young Chinese and Kazakhs who are now actively engaged in bilateral communication in all fields have become the envoys of China-Kazakhstan friendship.

"I felt greatly honored to have witnessed their progress. I expect to see more bridges of cooperation and exchanges established between people in China and Central Asian countries," he said.

In January last year, Xi announced at a virtual summit that China would provide 1,200 government scholarships over five years to the five Central Asian countries, with priority given to opening Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms.

Gao Hanxun, an associate researcher of Central Asian studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that since ancient times, Central Asia has been an important hub connecting different civilizations.

"After the great ancient 'Silk Road' was opened up, people living in China started to visit the West, while businesspeople, envoys, monks and priests came to China and went back to their hometowns with information about the mysterious country in the East," Gao said.

Nowadays, multifaceted and all-around people-to-people exchanges, especially among young people, between China and Central Asian countries epitomize their concerted efforts in building the Belt and Road Initiative based on equality, mutual benefit and win-win cooperation, he said.

"As President Xi stressed in his letter, young people shoulder the responsibility to carry forward the friendly relations between China and Central Asian countries from generation to generation," said Saodat Nasirova, the Uzbek director of the Confucius Institute of Tashkent State University of Oriental Studies, the first Confucius Institute established in Central Asia.

Nasirova said most of the young people who had attended the institute had gone on to become involved in work related to the Chinese language and achieved good results. For example, some students became full-time teachers after pursuing advanced studies in China, and some others work for China-Uzbekistan trade companies.

Sardor Ganiev, an Uzbek student at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, said the closer ties between Central Asian countries and China have brought major changes to Uzbekistan, especially after his country joined the BRI.

"Many Chinese companies invest and open factories in Uzbekistan. This has helped promote local economic development and created many jobs," he said.

Ganiev said he believes that the people-to-people exchanges between China and Central Asian countries will certainly be facilitated when the leaders sit down and discuss practical cooperation during the upcoming China-Central Asia Summit.