Top foreign, Chinese officials wish YNU happy 100th birthday

Top foreign, national and provincial officials wished Yunnan University, also known fondly as YNU, best wishes as its 100th anniversary ceremony and its innovation and development conference was held on April 20.

Fang Jingyun, president of YNU – located in Kunming, capital of Southwest China's Yunnan province – delivered a keynote speech, while teacher and student representatives of the university made a collective dedication.

Officials from the Ministry of Education and Yunnan province's government addressed the conference and extended their sincere wishes to all teachers, students, staff members and alumni from home and abroad.

Officials from the Laos-China Cooperation Committee in Laos and the foreign consulates general in Kunming – as well as academicians, experts and scholars at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering – also attended.

At the conference, Yunnan University was praised by officials of the provincial government for its cultivation of a large number of high-level people, who have made positive contributions to the economic and social development of the province and even the entire country.

Yunnan University was also urged to take its centenary as a new starting point to speed up its development as a "double first-class" university – one with foremost national standards – and to improve its level of teaching to even higher levels.

In addition, Gong Qihuang, president of Peking University, and Sun Handong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, delivered speeches at the event. Representatives from well-known universities at home and abroad also delivered speeches via videos.

After the conference, officials visited the Yunnan University History Museum.