Why students in Beijing are learning Armenian
Motivating students to reach out to all parts of the world fits President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative – the goal is to enrich minds and the economy at the same time
In 2012, when He Yang started her college life in Beijing, the then 18-year-old had a clear plan of her future: after graduating from the Beijing Foreign Studies University, known as the cradle of Chinese diplomats, He wanted to work for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Five years passed, her life seems far from that plan. Instead of working as a Russian-speaking diplomat in Beijing, she now studies at a graduate school of Yerevan State University in Armenia, a mountainous nation sandwiched between Turkey and Azerbaijan. Yet still, He is serving a government’s mission.
He is learning Armenian, the language of a country of about 3 million people, less than the population of Berlin. But with Beijing hoping to set a new world order, the demand for talents that can speak languages like Armenian has been skyrocketing. Once considered itself as the centre of the earth surrounded by barbarians, the Middle Kingdom is now actively reaching out, learning the language of countries stretching from Eurasia to Africa.
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The agenda has become so important that it landed on the list of top 100 tasks of China’s 2016-2020 development plan. Backed with government money, in 2016 alone, thousands of Chinese students and scholars headed to countries involved in the initiative for language learning and other studies. At home, Chinese universities which once stuck to only some of the world’s most popular languages, such as French and Spanish, have begun offering language courses that few people in China have ever heard of.
Meri Knyazyan, an Armenian linguist in Beijing, knows this well as she has witnessed how her personal goal – helping the Chinese learn more about Armenia – has been taking a ride on Xi’s ambition of connecting China with the world.