Government of the People's Republic of China

Since the establishment by the University of the Department of Chinese Studies (now the Scottish Centre for Chinese Studies within Asian Studies) in 1966, the Library has received generous support from the Government of the People's Republic of China in the form of gifts of Chinese books which could not readily be acquired from outwith the Republic. By 1973 the National Library in Beijing had presented a 202-volume set of the "Ming Encyclopaedia", and the Government Information Bureau a 101-volume set of the "History of the War of Resistance"; in their day these were the largest gifts that had been made to a British university or academic library. In 1993 the Government donated a further collection of modern books on Chinese studies.

More recently in October 2002, the Library received again a large donation of nearly 1000 books - mainly contemporary reference books and Chinese language studies texts - from China National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language through the Chinese Embassy. The Chinese Consul-General in Scotland, Mr Liu Jingxue, and the Education Counsellor of the Chinese Embassy Mr Wang Yongda visited the Library on 28 November for the presentation of the donation.

The Library has also received visits from the former Chinese Consul-General Mr Wang Weiyang, once to unveil a University commemorative plaque for Dr Wong Foon, the University's first Chinese graduate, and again on 3 May 2001 to inaugurate the Scottish Information Network Online for Chinese Studies (SINO-CS).