In the morning of November 6th 2020, the 14th Council Conference of Australian Charles Darwin University Confucius Institute was grandly held. Due to the reasons of pandemic, the council conference of this year was held under the adoption of a remote teleconference pattern. The conference was held in three branch venues - Hainan University, Australian Charles Darwin University and Anhui Normal University ongoing at the same time. President of Hainan University Qingming Luo, Vice President Guangliang Ye, Vice-Chancellor of Charles Darwin University Simon Maddocks and President of Anhui Normal University attended the conference.

Figure 1: President Qingming Luo attended the 14th Council Teleconference of the Charles Darwin University Confucius Institute

Qingming Luo expressed his sincere thankfulness in his speech to the joint effort of Charles Darwin University and Anhui Normal University in building Confucius Institute as representative of the university. He pointed that since the Charles Darwin University Confucius Institute has been built, three universities have united and cooperated closely together to give full play to each others’ respective advantages. In accordance with the terms of cooperation agreement, the work has been carried out smoothly and efficiently, therefore a fruitful educational result is achieved. After the full scale eruption of the global coronavirus pandemic, the Confucius Institute has made good use of its location advantage to communicate between China and overseas, benefit the local and the country. It has played an important and irreplaceable role in material and spiritual internationally assistance aspects. Onto the next level, Hainan University will pay close attention to the work of the Charles Darwin University Confucius Institute as always and take the signing of another round of agreements as an opportunity to elect outstanding Chinese dean, administrative staffs and teachers to dedicated into the education career of Confucius Institute.

Simon Maddocks expressed his sincere thankfulness in his speech to the policy, finance and qualified teachers support brought jointly by Hainan University and Anhui Normal University. He also sincerely congratulated and praised the excellent work performances of foreign dean Professor David Yang and Chinese dean Professor Jun Du since they took their offices. He pointed that since the occurrence of the coronavirus pandemic, the development of Confucius Institute has met many challenges, on the contrary it also brings new opportunities for the educational communication between three institutes and builds new cooperating bridge. He looked forward to the future of continuously joint effort between three institutes to create better academic environment and broader cooperating space.

Qingliang Zhang made a speech at the conference and he pointed out that under the joint effort of the foreign and Chinese deans of the Charles Darwin University Confucius Institute and other related staff members of cooperated institutes in the past 8 years, the work of transference has been finished in advance in this year’s September. From now on, Anhui Normal Universiry will continuously intensify the support towards Confucius Institute and achieve new contributions to hold the education of the Charles Darwin University Confucius Institute successfully.

The work reports of the foreign and Chinese deans of Confucius Institute were heard during the conference. The committee members discussed issues like the signing of Confucius Institute’s second tenure contract, the next election and designation of the Chinese dean, teachers funded by the government, volunteers, updates of the committee members, how to hold remote classes between three institutes, etc successively and reached for an agreement. 

Figure 2: The conference scene.

Three institutes’ committee members of Confucius Institute and related principals of Hainai University International Admission and Cooperation Office, School of International Education attended the conference.