On April 4th, Vice President LEI Xinghui met with Ms. Annette Schavan, former minister of Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany, who was awarded an honorary doctorate from Tongji University, on her visit to Tongji University. Mr. Lei showed his warm welcome to Ms. Schavan and briefed her on exchange and cooperation between Tongji University and its counterparts in Germany in recent years.
In the afternoon, Ms. Schavan delivered a lecture on New Changes in Domestic and Foreign Policies of the New German Government at the Sino-German Institute.
Ms. Schavan expressed her heartfelt thanks to her Tongji friend for his warm welcome and showed her appreciation to Tongji University for its active role in the communication between Germany and China as an important gateway to Germany. She pointed out that how the new German government realized its development blueprint as laid down in the cabinet agreement on New Journey of Europe, New Impetus of Germany and New Unity of the Nation will be a priority issue faced by this grand coalition government against the background of unstable and uncertain factors both at home and in the world. Ms. Schavan exchanged her ideas with students on such issues as German cultural integration, educational policy reform, China's Belt and Road initiative, the German-French relation and German-US relation.
