BEIJING: The expanding educational cooperation between China and Russia is delivering tangible results, with a record number of students crossing borders, new joint institutions thriving and collaborative research reaching new heights, which in turn is contributing to stronger mutual understanding and the building of a shared future, experts said.
As the China-Russia Years of Education unfold and bilateral student exchanges exceed 80,000, both countries are set to strengthen their educational partnership, transforming people-to-people exchanges into a foundation of enduring friendship, they added.
At the Harbin Institute of Technology, or HIT, in Heilongjiang province, which is a pioneer in China-Russia higher education cooperation, the number of Russian students reached a record high of 2,081 in 2025.
The university has established partnerships with 44 Russian institutions, including Lomonosov Moscow State University and Bauman Moscow State Technical University, and has signed 116 cooperation agreements to date. Over the past decade, HIT has admitted more than 9,000 Russian students, ranking it first among Chinese universities in terms of Russian student enrollment, according to the university.
“The university is committed to further deepening cooperation with Russia in the fields of education, science and technology, and talent cultivation, and to becoming a pioneer in China’s new frontier of opening up to the north,” said Chen Jie, Party secretary of HIT.
In 2011, HIT and Bauman Moscow State Technical University jointly initiated the establishment of the Association of Sino-Russian Technical Universities, the first such association between the two countries.
The association now comprises 80 member institutions and more than 2.2 million enrolled students. It has hosted nearly 100 major events focused on technology, innovation and youth exchanges, benefiting more than 100,000 students and faculty members from both countries, Chen said.
Shenzhen MSU-BIT University — the first Sino-Russian cooperative university jointly set up by the government of Shenzhen in Guangdong province, the Beijing Institute of Technology and Lomonosov Moscow State University — has seen remarkable growth since its official establishment in October 2016.
Li Hezhang, president of Shenzhen MSU-BIT University, said that enrollment went up from 899 to 4,458 during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) period, marking a nearly fivefold increase. “The university is committed to cultivating high-quality, innovative talent proficient in three languages, familiar with both China and Russia, and strong in professional expertise,” he said.
The institution has established five Sino-Russian joint research centers and two key laboratories under China’s national key research and development program, Li said, noting that its faculty includes 20 academicians from China and abroad, and its students have won more than 500 awards in high-level academic competitions over the past five years. –The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
