Dr. Salim M. AlMalik, Director-General of the Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ICESCO), received Dr. Duan Peng, President of Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU) of the People’s Republic of China, on Tuesday, 28 April 2026. The meeting aimed to explore potential avenues of joint cooperation through the development and implementation of programs and projects in the fields of scholarships, youth vocational training, and the establishment of academic chairs and centers dedicated to promoting the heritage and civilization of the Islamic world and Chinese culture.

During the Meeting, held at ICESCO headquarters in Rabat, Dr. AlMalik emphasized that building a partnership between ICESCO and the University would serve as a bridge to enhance cultural exchange between China and the Islamic world, particularly within the framework of their recent civilizational rapprochement and their historical scientific contributions. He also reviewed ICESCO’s key initiatives and programs aimed at fostering youth entrepreneurship and supporting innovation and creativity in the fields of education, scientific research, space sciences, artificial intelligence, and culture.

Dr. AlMalik further highlighted the importance of joint cooperation in developing a summer camp at BLCU for the benefit of young men and women from ICESCO Member States, with a view to introducing them to Chinese culture and its rich heritage.

For his part, Dr. Duan Peng expressed the University’s readiness to develop training programs for students from the Islamic world and to establish an ICESCO Center for Arab Culture at the University to promote Arab civilization and its contributions across the ages. Furthermore, the President conveyed his University’s preparedness to develop a joint program for translating cultural and scientific books and publications from Arabic into Chinese, and to establish a joint academic chair aimed at promoting and safeguarding cultural wealth in China and the Islamic world.

During the Meeting, Dr. Duan Peng also revealed the University’s intention to award the Director-General of ICESCO an honorary doctorate in recognition of his efforts in advancing education, science, and culture, an initiative welcomed by Dr. AlMalik.

Following that, the two sides held an expanded meeting attended by a number of sector heads, as well as department and center directors at ICESCO, during which they agreed to establish a technical team to examine mechanisms for implementing these activities in the coming period. Discussions also covered programs for translating an Arabic medical dictionary into Chinese, developing ICESCO’s multilingual Artificial Intelligence Dictionary, digitizing libraries, and establishing a training hub at the University for teaching Arabic to non-Arabic speakers.