Beijing International Studies University

Beijing International Studies University is a high-level university with distinctive strengths jointly developed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Beijing Municipal People’s Government. It is a renowned institution centered on foreign languages and distinguished by tourism, with coordinated multidisciplinary development. It is an important Chinese base for training and research in foreign languages, translation, tourism, economics and trade.

The university was established in October 1964 at Premier Zhou Enlai’s personal suggestion, building on the former Xinhua News Agency Foreign-Language Cadre School. It was among the first institutions nationally to admit undergraduate students. It was successively administered by the State Commission for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Beijing Municipal People’s Government, Ministry of Education and National Tourism Administration. It came under Beijing municipal administration in February 2000 and became jointly developed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Beijing Municipality in March 2022.

Since its founding, it has upheld its motto, “Virtue, Diligent Learning, Truth-Seeking and Striving for Excellence,” developing a learning ethos of “connecting China and the world, combining knowledge and action” and a teaching ethos of “thoughtful openness and cultural cultivation.” Distinguished translators from the early years of the People’s Republic, including Li Yueran, Su Qi, Zhou Xiqing, Dong Leshan, Guan Zhenhu, Li Chuansong, Wang Zhiyou, Wang Wenjiong and Shu Yu, taught and promoted scholarship here. Its tens of thousands of graduates work throughout China and the world. Outstanding figures in politics, diplomacy, business, culture and education include Wang Yi, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs and foreign minister; former commerce minister Gao Hucheng; former International Department deputy heads Liu Hongcai and Xu Lüping; former vice foreign minister Cheng Guoping; former vice commerce minister Chen Jian; former Chinese special envoy on Middle East affairs Wu Sike; former CITIC Group Party secretary and chairman Chang Zhenming; former Tongji University vice president Jiang Bo; and World Tourism Alliance vice chairman and secretary-general Liu Shijun.

The university is located in Beijing’s Chaoyang District, beside the Central Business District to the west and close to Beijing’s sub-center to the east. Its 16 teaching units are the schools of English, Japanese, Asian Studies, European Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Interpreting and Translation, Tourism Sciences, Business, Economics, Area and Country Studies, Culture and Communication, Artificial Intelligence and Language Sciences, International Education and Marxism, and the departments of Physical Education and Basic Sciences. It has nearly ten thousand students of various types, including over 6300 regular undergraduates, over 1800 postgraduate students, over 100 international students and over 300 students in integrated training programs. It has nearly one thousand active staff in established posts. It has 2 national outstanding teaching teams, 1 national Huang Danian-style university teaching team and 4 Beijing outstanding teaching teams. Its personnel include 3 national talent program selectees, 2 recipients of lifetime cultural achievement awards in translation, and over 40 provincial or ministerial talents, including Ministry of Education New Century Excellent Talents, special overseas talent recruitment selectees, Beijing overseas high-level talents and veteran translators. It also engages over 130 adjunct professors and industry mentors and has over 50 foreign experts.

The university offers 48 undergraduate programs, including 31 language programs; 6 first-level and 30 second-level master’s degree authorizations; 7 professional master’s degree authorizations; 1 joint doctoral program with the “Silk Road” International University of Tourism and Cultural Heritage; and 2 postdoctoral research workstations jointly developed with Social Sciences Academic Press and Capital University of Economics and Business, respectively. It has 2 advanced and sophisticated disciplines of Beijing universities, tourism management and foreign languages and literature, and 4 Beijing priority development disciplines: foreign languages and literature, tourism management, business management and international trade. Its 15 national first-class undergraduate program development sites are English, business English, Japanese, Korean, Russian, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Persian, translation and interpreting, tourism management, hotel management and financial management. It has 4 national distinctive programs: Japanese, Arabic, English and tourism management. Its 14 Beijing first-class undergraduate program development sites are Hindi, Italian, Hungarian, Serbian, Estonian, exhibition economics and management, marketing, finance, international economics and trade, trade economics, Chinese language and literature, Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages, journalism, and international affairs and international relations. Translation and interpreting and tourism management are its 2 Beijing priority first-class programs. Japanese is its 1 Ministry of Education comprehensive program reform pilot.

Oriented toward national strategies and the capital’s development, the university has established a multidisciplinary research system. It concentrates its strengths in three university-level platforms: the China-Arab Culture and Tourism Cooperation Research Center, Area and Country Studies Center, and Center for Civilizational Interpretation and International Communication. Research institutions include the China Academy of Culture and Tourism Industries; China Tourism Talent Development Research Institute; China Institute of Trade in Services, incorporating the Institute for the Capital’s International Exchange Center and Institute for International Strategies of National Cultural Development; Capital Institute for International Cultural Communication; China Cartoon and Cultural Creativity Research Institute; Denmark Research Center; UNESCO Research Center; China-Japan-Korea Cooperation Research Center; Peru Research Center; Greece Research Center; China Institute for Public Policy Translation; Capital Culture and Tourism Development Research Institute; China Culture and Tourism Big Data Research Institute; Artificial Intelligence and Language Cognition Laboratory; and Belt and Road Data Analysis and Decision Support Laboratory. These include 11 provincial or ministerial research bases, 1 provincial or ministerial collaborative innovation center, 1 Ministry of Education country and regional studies cultivation base and 4 Ministry of Education-registered country and regional studies centers. It hosts important academic organizations such as the Beijing Translators Association, Beijing Cartoon Society and Beijing Tourism Society and edits academic publications including the Journal of Beijing International Studies University, a Peking University core journal; Collected Papers of Arabic Studies, a CSSCI source collection; Tourism and Hospitality Prospects; Intercultural Studies; Beijing Translation; and Cartoon Studies.

The university draws on its multilingual strengths to conduct extensive international exchanges and cooperation and has a distinctive international character. It has comprehensive, multilevel partnerships with over 210 universities and educational institutions in more than 50 countries and regions. Each year it sends many teachers abroad for advanced study, academic visits, collaborative research and teaching Chinese as a foreign language. On average, over 100 foreign teachers or visiting scholars come annually to teach or exchange, over 500 students study overseas and over 1500 international student participants study at the university. It jointly operates 6 Confucius Institutes with the Autonomous University of Chihuahua in Mexico, University of Central Lancashire in the United Kingdom, Mohammed V University in Morocco, the city of Clermont-Ferrand in France, University of Coimbra in Portugal and University of Panama. It offers summer and master’s programs in “Chinese Modernization and Urban Development,” expanding the “Study at BISU” student community and providing distinctive education about China.

After sixty years of passing on its traditions, the university enters a new journey with renewed purpose. Looking ahead, it will uphold its mission of “people-to-people exchanges between China and the world,” take responsibility for serving national strategies and the capital’s development, and follow the philosophy of “connecting China and the world, combining knowledge and action.” It will pursue substantive development and interdisciplinary integration, cultivating versatile people with “multiple foreign languages and cross-disciplinary expertise,” commitment to family and country and international perspectives. It aims to become a high-level foreign studies university distinguished by “Chinese-foreign people-to-people exchanges in the new era.”