Message for the 112th Anniversary of Tsinghua University

By Qiu Yong, Secretary of the CPC Tsinghua University Committee and Wang Xiqin, President of Tsinghua University

“Among emerald trees, the pavilion takes flight; Hues of rainbow clouds, adorn the pool so bright.” In such a delightful spring, Tsinghua University will celebrate its 112th anniversary, as many alumni and friends gather together once again with great joy. On behalf of the University, we are immensely pleased to extend our warmest regards and best wishes to all our alumni at home and abroad, as well as our faculty, staff and students. We would also like to express our heartfelt gratitude to friends from all sectors of society who have shown their interest in and support for Tsinghua’s development over the years.

The grand blueprints inspire the people and the clarion call of the times urges us forward. 2022 had been an extremely important and critical year in the history of both the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the country. With the success of the 20th CPC National Congress, the people have been fully mobilized to build China into a modern socialist country in all respects and to advance the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. It has also pointed out the direction for Tsinghua University to pursue a new path and established guidelines for action to build a world-class university with Chinese characteristics.

An enthusiasm to study and implement the guiding principles of the 20th CPC National Congress has surged up in Tsinghua. Our faculty, staff, and students have been diligently cultivating their minds and spirit with Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. We resolutely uphold the establishment of both Comrade Xi Jinping’s core position on the Party Central Committee and in the Party as a whole and the guiding role of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. We boost our consciousness of the need to maintain political integrity, think in big-picture terms, follow the leadership core, and keep in alignment with the central Party leadership. We stay confident in the path, the theory, the system, and the culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics. We firmly uphold Comrade Xi Jinping's core position on the Party Central Committee and in the Party as a whole and uphold the Central Committee's authority and its centralized, unified leadership. Furthermore, we regard science and technology as the primary productive force, talent as the primary resource, and innovation as the primary driver of growth, in order to gather and inspire great confidence and power as we embark on new quests and contribute to the new era.

Planning ahead and advancing with great enthusiasm, the University has convened its 15th CPC Congress, where development and achievements over the past five years were systematically reviewed, the invaluable experience of running and governing the University in the new era comprehensively summarized, and future tasks laid out. At this new historic moment, the University shoulders paramount tasks on a challenging quest. We shall firmly remember our missions as we go ahead, reinforce the all-round leadership of the Party and promote high-quality development. Driven by innovation and inspired by reforms, we will focus on our responsibility to foster integrity and promote our students’ rounded development. Moreover, we will actively support major national strategies while maintaining an open stance. Focusing on the people-centered philosophy of development, we will launch the University’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25), Double First-Class University Initiative and 2030 Mid-and-Long Term Strategies. We will endeavour to achieve the University’s high-quality development as we advance towards joining the ranks of leading world-class universities.

Tsinghua has implemented the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education and fostered students who have all-round moral, intellectual, physical, and aesthetical grounding with a hard-working spirit. The University has been extensively promoting Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era through textbook preparation, classroom teaching, and ideological education, while formulating the comprehensive reform plan for ideological and political education so that the cornerstone of ideological and political education of the new era may be laid. The 26th Symposium on Education was held to further intensify educational reforms on the theme of “perfecting the educational-evaluation system, optimising development and organizational models and enhancing the capabilities to cultivate high-end talent”. Meanwhile, we have established Weixian College and launched a Marxism program and the “Outstanding Physician-Scientist Class” for undergraduate admission. We have also established the National Graduate College for Engineers while enhancing the scale and quality of the recruitment of students for specialized postgraduate degrees. We have driven the reform of specialized postgraduate degrees and explored new talent-cultivation models with industry leaders. As we strive to train all-round talent as the builders and successors of socialism, we have formulated plans for the introduction of physical education, aesthetic education and labour education while vigorously promoting their importance in Tsinghua. Yang Qian, an Olympic gold medallist and an undergraduate student of Tsinghua, was honoured with a China Youth May Fourth Medal last year, while Liu Dibo, a volunteer at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and a PhD student at Tsinghua, was named the “Most Beautiful College Student” of 2022. Moreover, for the first time, Tsinghua Student Sports Teams were champions in both men’s and women’s basketball games in the Chinese University Basketball Association (CUBA) league. These young men and women are shining bright in the new era. On the eve of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Youth League of China, students from Tsinghua are calling for “everyone to contribute to national rejuvenation, starting from me, starting from now,” as they set their minds on serving the Party and the people.

Advancing resolutely with great confidence, we improve through reform and innovation. The University has been targeting global science frontiers, serving the main economic battlefield, striving to fulfil the significant needs of the country and benefiting people’s lives and health as we actively become part of the country's new system for mobilizing the resources nationwide and continue to improve the University’s innovation system. Focusing on interdisciplinarity, we have established programs in key fields such as integrated circuits, advanced materials, carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. With the objective of training compassionate, top-notch physician-scientists and academic doctors, we have re-established the frameworks and functions of our medical programs to develop a new system for medical education at Tsinghua. Meanwhile, we are advancing the construction of disciplines such as Chinese Paleography, History and Party Building of the Communist Party of China, and Discipline Inspection and Supervision. The Institute for Discipline Inspection and Supervision, Tsinghua University (THUDIS) has been established to accomplish the academic mission of building China’s independent knowledge system. Furthermore, we have implemented a comprehensive reform of our State Key Laboratories. Our State Key Laboratory of Tribology in Advanced Equipment, and State Key Laboratory of Power System Operation and Control have been selected as the first batch of State Key Laboratories. Three of our laboratories have undergone restructuring, including the State Key Laboratory of Intelligent Green Vehicle and Mobility, while the building of the State Key Laboratory of Internet Architecture has been newly approved. The University boasts numerous significant achievements in academic research, and the number of its projects supported by both the National Key R&D Program of China and the National Natural Science Foundation of China has reached a record high. The Tsinghua team has made the transistor with the smallest gate length for the first time and was selected as one of the top ten domestic science and technology news stories in 2022, and Volume 12 of the Warring States Bamboo Strips Collected by Tsinghua University was published. Following the formulation and implementation of the “Opinions on Furthering the Core Strategy of Building an Influential University Based on Talent in the New Era”, we will step up our training and recruitment of talents with a strategic mindset. We will also promote the reform of the personnel systems for our research series and professional researchers and encourage our faculty to engage in organised scientific research. We are intensifying the reform of our pilot teaching and research institutes and have formulated detailed plans for the creation of a digital campus. Seizing the opportunities of launching special investment projects, the New Civil Engineering Building, General Experiment Building and North Gymnasium have been constructed. We are also improving our resource allocation and service standards to build Tsinghua into a place where global talents have a greater sense of belonging.

Unity is strength as we fight the pandemic as one and collaborate to advance forward with great courage. The pandemic control and prevention over the past three years have been anything but ordinary, and the University has always put the health and safety of our faculty, staff and students above everything else. We remain vigilant in pandemic control and prevention, diligent in teaching and scientific research and relentless in reform and development. We regard teaching and talent cultivation as our sacred duty, learning and development as the necessary responsibility of students and the health and safety of elderly comrades as the most important task of pandemic control and prevention. During the pandemic, particularly in 2022, our faculty, staff and students formed a succession of pandemic-fighting teams, which overcame challenges together with all Chinese people, and clinched decisive victory in pandemic control and prevention. The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly changed the world and shown that we are a human community with a shared future. Tsinghua has always focused on major issues and joint challenges facing human beings. We have launched the Climate x Campaign, organized by the Global Alliance of Universities on Climate. We have also successfully staged the 10th World Peace Forum, the 2nd World Health Forum, the Global MOOC and Online Education Conference 2022 and the plenary sessions of the World Digital Education Conference, and co-organized the “2022 Harmony and Cooperation Civilization Forum” with the International Confucian Association. We continue to implement the 2030 Global Strategy, which has seen the opening of the Tsinghua Southeast Asia Center in Bali, Indonesia, and the University’s first overseas social-practice base for students in Milan, Italy. We have proactively assumed the paramount responsibility of introducing and representing China globally. We promote academic exchanges, ideological interactions and cultural communication as we contribute our wisdom and strength to the building of a future world that is more peaceful, prosperous and tolerant.

The enormity of a task lends it greatness and glory. It is a shared dream of generations of our faculty, staff and students at Tsinghua to build a world-class university rooted in China. This historic moment is the most ideal time for Tsinghua to rapidly develop and achieve greatness. Let us rally more closely around the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core and usher in a new era of diligent self-improvement as we advance in unity. We shall create the high-quality development of Tsinghua as a world-class university with Chinese characteristics as we advance the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernization.

In this beautiful season of vibrant scenery and fine weather, we once again warmly invite our alumni to come back home and celebrate our shared festival!