The 12^thConfucius Institute Conference was held in Xi’an on December 12-13, 2017, with the theme ofDeeping Cooperation, Developing through Innovation, and Working Together to Build a Community of Shared Future for Mankind.About 2,500 representatives composing of university presidents, representatives of Confucius Institutes (classes), and representatives of foreign language and cultural promotion agencies from over 140 countries attended the conference.

At the opening ceremony of the conference, Confucius Institute Headquarters Chairman Liu Yandong pointed out that since the Confucius Institute was founded 13 years ago, 525 Confucius Institutes and 1,113 classrooms have been established in 146 countries and regions around the world. The cumulative number of all types of students has exceeded 9 million. It has made positive contributions to enhancing the friendship between the people of China and other countries and promoting the exchange of Chinese and foreign civilizations. It is necessary to improve the institutional mechanisms, bring both sides strengths into play, and build a humanities exchange brand that embraces sharing and harmonious symbiosis and makes new contributions to building a community of shared future for mankind.

The establishment of the Confucius Institute jointly established by our university and the University of Graz was officially unveiled in October 2010. In the past seven years, the Confucius Institute has promoted the cultural exchanges between China and Austria by organizing cultural lectures, salons, exhibitions, forums, summer camps for Austrian students, which has given young Austrians this opportunity to learn more about China, promote their Chinese language and Chinese culture.