In order to provide more international students and alumni of DMU with the opportunity to meet, exchange and share, learn from each other, and build a stage for more students to show themselves and exercise their abilities, as one of the series of activities of the 2022 "International Cultural Festival", “Study in DMU, Advancing for the Blue Dream--The 3rd DMU International Students and Alumni Forum” was successfully held on November 25.
The activity took the form of online and offline synchronization. The 10 international students whose essays were enrolled in the forum gave speeches respectively. Their majors were different, covering public management, law, logistics engineering and management, marine engineering, information and communication engineering, etc; Their teaching languages are different, some are proficient in Chinese, some are taught in English; Their topics are different. Some share their learning methods, some tell their feelings about studying in DMU, and some report their research progress. However, each speaker's words describe the beautiful China in the eyes of international students, convey their gratitude for studying at DMU and their expectations for the future. The event also invited outstanding alumni of international students to send good wishes to the students, and invited relevant professors and leaders of the school to put forward encouragement and expectations to the students. DMUers from all over the world, regardless of color, language, region and time difference, are more closely connected, and teachers and students sufficiently communicated and talked about the future together.
After strict review by the Essay Review Committee, the forum awarded prizes for essays from three themes: "Promoting Common Development", "Deepening Exchanges and Mutual Learning", and "Outstanding Professional Thesis". At the same time, the award-winning works will be included in the forum collection. Next, we will successively display the award-winning works of this forum. Today, we want to display the 3rd prize winner of the theme of "Promoting Common Development": The Impact of the China-Sudan Relationship, and Its Contribution to My Blue Dream. The author is ABDELRHMAN ABDALLA OMER MOHAMED（奥马尔）from Sudan, a doctoral degree program student majoring in Information and Communication Engineering.
The Impact of the China-Sudan Relationship, and Its Contribution to My Blue Dream
OMER MOHAMED ALBDELRHMAN ABDALLA（奥马尔）
Abstract
The last decade witnessed a remarkable inflow of China-Sudan friendship and collaboration in many aspects, which have impacted positively on the life of the two nations. The key point in the cooperation is on how to benefit from the technological and financial capabilities of China to utilize natural recourse in Sudan based on mutual benefits for a common better future. The fruits of this relationship can be seen in many sectors in Sudan, such as in the communication technology sector, agriculture, petroleum and mining sectors, higher education sector, and otherwise. This relationship has helped the economy of Sudan to grow and assist the communities where the cooperated projects were implemented to develop. As a result, many jobs and other opportunities for those communities are made with good advantages. All of these have opened the eyes of many Sudanese youths about China, and I was one of them, which has motivated my Blue dream of further study in China. My aim was not only to have academic benefits but also to learn from the Chinese people's mindset positively to develop my learning skills and working attitude to join a good Chinese international company in Sudan.
Keywords: Friendship; the People’s Republic of China; Republic of Sudan; Dalian Maritime University
1. Introduction:
Sudan’s relationship with China has a long history; formal diplomatic relations started three years after Sudan’s independence in 1956. Since then, China maintained good relations with Sudan’s various political regimes in consistence with its doctrine of respecting sovereignty and non-interference. Formal economic and technical assistance between the two countries was coordinated by the 1962 agreement on Economic and Technical Cooperation (ETC), which remains effective. In 1970 a Cultural, Scientific, and Technical Protocol (CSTP) was also signed. These agreements boosted project-based assistance in infrastructure and public buildings, and encouraged a flow of professional staff, mainly in the Chinese-assisted hospital projects. Between 1970 and mid-1990s Sudan received US$ 100 million free interest loans for the construction of two bridges, the Friendship Hall, 410 km of tarmac road, one textile mill, and a hospital as well as rice cultivation and fishing projects. The last decade witnessed a remarkable inflow of China-based foreign direct investment (FDI) into Sudan’s oil sector amounting to nearly US$ 7.6 billion. This upsurge in FDI is accompanied by substantial investments from India and Malaysia and by non-oil FDI from the Arabs states and China itself.
On the other hand, Culture and education are the bonds of friendship between the two peoples. The Sudan Acrobatics Troupe set up under the care of Premier Zhou Enlai has been hailed by Sudanese people as the "Flower of Friendship between Sudan and China". In recent years, training and educational exchanges between China and Sudan continue to heat up, as learning Chinese and furthering studies in China have been an increasingly popular option for many Sudanese people and a dream of local youths. Now, Sudanese students studying in China amount to over 3,000 while Chinese students studying in Sudan total 500. Many Sudanese are very curious to know more about Chinese culture, education, economics, technology development, and the Chinese language. Today, Sudanese youths, private companies, and political leaders are very curious to learn from China, not only about the technology and financial capabilities but also the management capabilities and how to make a robust and harmonic social system in their establishments and the whole country. For that reason you find many students, no matter their majors, every year apply to have long-term or short-term education in China. Thanks to China, has helped many of them to achieve their dreams by giving them the opportunity to study in China with scholarships provided by the Chinese government and other schemes at different Chinese universities. Now, many of these graduate students are doing very well, and have made many inspired businesses and projects that are contributing positively to their local communities and the country as well. In this context, China-Sudan Agricultural Cooperation Development Zone is established in 2016, which focuses on the development and building of free trade platforms for various links of the industrial chain, from cultivation bases for superior varieties of crops and livestock breeds to agricultural products processing and trading. This motivates many Sudanese who leave in remote areas, where agriculture is their main activity, to start asking to know how to work or make collaboration with the Chinese, as individuals or companies. In the process, they discovered that to obtain their goals, first they need to learn the Chinese language, and the Chinese management system. For that reason these days, many people are learning Chinese at the Confucius Institute at the University of Khartoum-Sudan, and many other Chinese language centers. Not going far, no wonder to reveal that in many universities in Sudan, the majority of their faculty members graduated from China. Moreover, most of the Labrotraies types of equipment are from China as well. These were the additional way that motivated many Sudanese students to think positively about China and understand the value of the relationship between Sudan and China.
My Education Journey to China
2.1 Motivation
After finishing my undergraduate, I work in a Telecommunication Company that was working under Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd, Sudan, for one year and a half. That was my first contact with the Chinese. To be honest, in the beginning, the work was very difficult for me, because the manager (he was Chinese) was very serious about everything, he was always demanding that the task assigned to us have to be completed efficiently, and in the required time with no excuse. However, over time, I learned a very good lesson from that manager, which is that any success required hard work, dreams alone can’t take someone anywhere. Then, I joined the University of Blue Nile (UBN) as a teacher. This new job made me look at Chine from a much wider angle than before for these reasons: first, I found many senior professors in my department graduated from China. Also, I found that these professors have much better research profiles compared to those who graduate from other parts of the world. Second, they provide a very good way of supervising their students. Third, they have the Chinese language which opened many opportunities for them within the country. Finally, they have very good management capabilities compared to other professors. All these have motivated me to apply for a Chinese scholarship for a Ph.D. degree.
2.2 Dalian Maritime University
I first heard of Dalian city from my close friend who is a Doctor of Philosophy student at the Dalian University of Technology. He is my senior teacher at the university where I am working. He described to me Dalian's urban development, weather, people, and beauty, emphasizing how advanced the city is. He provided me with advice on some universities in Dalian that admitted overseas students. Among these universities was Dalian Maritime University (DMU). Through exploring the school I found the name of my current supervisor, Dr. Li Sen, where her research work was very interesting to me. Moreover, I was very attracted to DMU, because, I found that, in addition to my major, this university offers some maritime subjects to all degree students. Since I have never had these subjects before, I was very confident that these subjects could introduce me to the field of the maritime sector.
In 2019 I was admitted into DMU on a full scholarship for a PhD study in the Information Science and Technology Dept. on Information and Communication Engineering. In the beginning, university life was not easy because of food, climate, and language barriers. Thanks to my supervisor, and my hard work, my life in China changed in a few months, and adapted to the university norm. thanks to Dr. Li Sen, during the work in the lab with her I remembered my first manager, him, and my supervisor shared many common things, such as commitment and consistency in their work. Fortunately, this time I have learned a lot from my supervisor, not only the research skills but also the personality as well. At the same, I didn’t forget to enjoy the beauty of Dalian. When I started roaming, I found that Dalian is a city of modern history and traditional culture overflowing with natural beauty. By that time, I visited many places in Dailan, such as Xinghai square and some restaurants around it, Zhongshan Square, Russian Street, and the Dalian World Expo Centre. Thanks to the Chinese government for giving me this chance and my thanks extend to DMU staff members and ISEC team for their endless cooperation and help. I am happy to be here in China and be one of DMU international students.
3. My Future Plan After DMU Life
I have a duty to improve the education quality in the university where I work, especially in research methods and also in how to use new advanced tools in education. Additionally, my obligation is to implement my knowledge and experiences to enhance the quality of the content of subjects in the curriculum of my department, and to provide new supervision strategies for my students using all the advanced tools I learned here at DMU. And also look for the possibility of collaboration between my university back home UBN and DMU to benefit from the capability and experiences of DMU in all aspects of the education matter and train our teachers and technicians. Further, I will use my life experiences of being in China in implementing my daily duties for better performance.
Publication, Academic training programs
Studying at DMU has proven one of the best decisions I have made so far. I have managed to publish an academic paper in a recognized journal: -
Robust Adaptive Filtering Algorithms Based on the Half-Quadratic Criterion.
Furthermore, I have additional papers under review and still working on others as part of my PhD requirements and personal achievements.
Also, I have attended a very good training program tilted as
1. Global Sustainable Transport and Talent Training Program
This Training program was brought by the Transport Management Institute and China Merchant Port Group Co., Ltd. It was very very useful for me, it was an opportunity for me to meet with distinguished Chinese professors and experts in the management field. We have made very nice discussions and I have had from them very good suggestions and ideas on how to make a good career and projects.
Acknowledgment
Special thanks to my supervisor, Dr. Li Sen, for her patience, guidance, and support. I have benefited greatly from her wealth of knowledge and meticulous editing. I am extremely grateful that she took me on as a student and continued to have faith in me over these years. Her unassuming approach to research and science is a source of inspiration. My research is reflected by her simple but clear writing style, which is something I hope to carry forward throughout my career.
I acknowledge the generous financial support from the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC) and the Dalian Maritime University for good hosting.
Most importantly, I am grateful for my family’s unconditional, unequivocal, and loving support.
作者简介/ Author profile：
Author Passport’s Name: OMER MOHAMED ALBDELRHMAN ABDALLA
Chinese Name: 奥马尔
Gender: Male
Nationality: Sudan
Major: Information and Communication Engineering.
Student Category: Doctor of Philosophy
Start Year: 2019
