Prof. Dr. Jürgen Basedow named Honorary Professor and Marco Polo Fellow at the Xi’an Jiaotong University
12.09.2008
On 12 September 2008 Professor Dr. Jürgen Basedow was conferred an honorary professorship at the Xi’an Jiaotong University and named a Marco Polo Fellow at the university's Silk Road Institute of International Law.The city of Xi’an, located in the Chinese province of Shaanxi, is best known in the West as the home of the Terracotta Army discovered in the mausoleum of Emperor Quin, founder of the Qin Dynasty (221 to 207 B.C) and the first emperor of a unified China. Subsequently, Xi'an served as the capital of China for over 1,000 years and witnessed an unrivalled cultural and commercial awakening under the Tang Dynasty (618-907). As a starting and ending point of the Silk Road, Xi'an benefited from international influences which originated in Central Asia, the Near East and Europe and which impacted the whole of China.
At present, the city is at the center of the Chinese government's efforts to improve economic development in the country's structurally weak western regions. Numerous universities are a part of the effort, among which the Jiaotong University is playing a special role as one of the only institutions in the country which is directly under the control of the Chinese central government. Its traditional focus in the fields of natural sciences and technology was supplemented several years ago by faculties in social sciences and jurisprudence. With the establishment of the Silk Road Institute of International Law, the university is aspiring to renew the cosmopolitan tradition which flourished during the Tang era.