Empowering China–Central Asia cooperation through youth contributions

In May 2023, Chinese President Xi Jinping replied to a letter from Central Asian students at the China University of Petroleum-Beijing (CUP), encouraging them to make greater contributions to the development of relations between China and Central Asian countries.

Xi emphasized that friendly relations between China and Central Asian countries need to be carried forward from generation to generation by ambitious and promising youths.

At the time, Turkmen student Bayramdurdyyev Rahman, who was pursuing a PhD at CUP, was one of the students who had written to President Xi. Today, he has successfully graduated and stayed on as a faculty member at the university, continuing to tell the stories of China and Central Asia.

As cooperation between China and Central Asian countries accelerates across various fields, more and more young people from Central Asia, like Rahman, are coming to China to pursue their studies. They are becoming ambassadors of friendship and bridges of cooperation between China and Central Asia.

With the second China-Central Asia Summit just around the corner, let's listen to the inspiring, cross-border journeys of students from the five Central Asian countries.