Professor Hua Tao on the role of the HNC in promoting mutual understanding

Professor Hua first arrived at the HNC in 1994. Having researched at Nanjing University on Turkic ethnic groups on the medieval Mongolian steppe, the first class he taught at the HNC examined Chinese ethnic minorities. 27 years later, he is still teaching a version of that class today; “Ethnic Minorities in Chinese Society”.  

In his time at the HNC Professor Hua has watched as students—and broader Chinese society, has grown and developed. He believes that as China’s relations with countries like the U.S. currently enters a “new period,” which will pose “lots of challenges coming on many levels,” that the work of the HNC will be as important as ever.  

In this new environment, he believes that international and Chinese students’ risk “forgetting each other…each other’s people and each other’s culture.”   

However, Professor Hua felt that the HNC plays an important role in creating opportunities for exchange among students from a wide range of cultural backgrounds. The HNC has hosted students not only from the U.S. and China, but from countries like India and Venezuela as well. In such an environment, “we must have more understanding about the future,” he said.  

 “The tradition of the HNC is to encourage students to understand each other. So, I think that the HNC will play a very important role in this time.”