The Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation announces the establishment of the Center for Chinese Studies, in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), with the aim of strengthening scientific and cultural ties between the two countries. The agreement for the establishment of the Center was signed on Monday, November 11, 2019 by the President of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation Panos Laskaridis and the President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Professor Xie Fuzhan, in the presence of Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
The Center for Chinese Studies, which is now housed in the premises of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation in Piraeus, was created in the spirit of cooperation and promotion of cultural and academic relations between the two countries, focusing on the Humanities and Social Sciences. The Center for Chinese Studies will develop activities for the promotion of Chinese culture in Greece and production of scientific work in the fields of Humanities and Social Sciences. Lectures, seminars and conferences will be organized as part of its activities, as well as exhibitions on China and topics related to Chinese studies.
The first joint event organized by the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was the conference “Greece-China relations and the Belt and Road Initiative”, which was held in collaboration with China Daily on Friday, November 8, 2019, at the Foundation’s Historical Library. The aim of the Conference was to promote academic and scientific relations between Greece and China for a high-level, meaningful and sustainable bilateral cooperation within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, and to forge closer relations for the prosperity of Greece and China.
The conference was addressed by Mr. Panos Laskarides, President of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation, the Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs Miltiadis Varvitsiotis, the Alternate Minister of Civil Protection George Koumoutsakos and Mr. Zhou Shuchun, publisher and editor-in-chief of China Daily who supported the event. The speeches of the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Greece Mrs. Zhang Qiyue and Minister of Development & Investment Adonis Georgiadis. During the conference, the key role of Greece in the Belt and Road Initiative and the economic interconnection between East and West, the prospects of economic cooperation between the two countries, as well as the promotion of research and intercultural communication were analyzed.
The Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation is already cooperating with China on a scientific level, as since 2015 the “Marilena Laskaridis Visiting Professor” Chair has been established at Tsinghua University in Beijing, from the podium of which President of the Republic Prokopios Pavlopoulos addressed during his visit to China in May 2019. You can see more about the visit and the speech here. Within the framework of the Chair, the Foundation organizes the sending of Greek university professors to Tsinghua and the reception of students and postgraduate students of the Chinese University who visit Greece to promote their research in collaboration with professors of Greek universities. As an evolution of this collaboration, Tsinghua University recently decided to introduce Modern Greek Language teaching into its program, as of spring 2020.