Recently, the "Training Course on Management and Operation of Crop Planting, Processing Storage and Acquisition in Timor-Leste" hosted by the Ministry of Commerce and organized by Center of International Cooperation Service, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, was successfully conducted in Dili, the capital of Timor-Leste. Professor Du Xiong from the College of Agronomy at Hebei Agricultural University(HEBAU), an expert in crop cultivation, was invited to participate in the training.

During the training, Professor Du Xiong became a "star instructor" of the program due to his solid theoretical foundation, extensive practical experience and engaging teaching style. His outstanding teaching quality and service were widely recognized by the participants. This initiative has helped HEBAU build a pool of potential candidates for recruiting international postgraduate students, demonstrating the initial success of the HEBAU's international talent cultivation strategy "leveraging foreign aid as a platform and focusing on education as a driving force".

In recent years, HEBAU has actively responded to China’s ‌Belt and Road Initiative‌ and the demand for ‌"going global" in education and technology‌, making significant contributions to ‌international agricultural talent cultivation‌, ‌promoting global academic exchange‌, and ‌sharing China’s agricultural education experience with the world‌. Professor Du Xiong of HEBAU's recent agricultural technology training mission to Timor-Leste exemplifies the HEBAU's 20-year commitment to leveraging international aid programs to enhance its postgraduate education for international students. The ‌"problem-driven, practice-first"‌ teaching model employed in this initiative aligns perfectly with the HEBAU's reform requirements for international postgraduate education, offering a ‌"globally applicable benchmark"‌ for practical teaching methodologies for incoming international students.