On September 12-13, 2017, the 18th Meeting of China-Russia Committee on Humanities Cooperation was held in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, two leading cities in Guangdong Province. The Meeting in Guangzhou was co-chaired by Liu Yandong, Vice Premier of China's State Council and Olga Golodetz, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia. Other distinguished attendees were Hu Chunhua, Guangdong Provincial Party Secretary; Chen Baosheng, China's Minister of Education; and Ma Xingrui, Governor of Guangdong Province.

From September 4th to 15th, two faculty members of the Russian Department, Wang Jun and Li Xueping and student counselor Yan Huimin, led a voluntary language service team, which consisted of 51 students from the Department of Russian and the Department of Translation, for the meeting. The team was formed upon the invitation by Guangdong Provincial Department of Education Exchange and Cooperation and Guangzhou Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League. Their work included translation of documents, consecutive interpretation and simultaneous interpretation sessions, for which the two teachers won high praise by Chinese and Russian leaders for their outstanding performance. The student volunteers assigned to different posts such as security, information inquiry, reception and publicity, also won recognition and praise for their diligent, dedicated and enthusiastic work as well as their strong language skills.