Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton announced Wednesday the formation of a student exchange agreement between the University of Wisconsin and Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Lawton recently returned from the National Lieutenant Governors Association’s mission to China, where the agreement was signed. The trip lasted eight days and included visits to Beijing, Chengdu, Mianyang and Shanghai.

“The goal is to expand scholarly ties between our flagship university and one of the finest universities in all of China, facilitate academic cooperation and promote mutual understanding through student exchange,” Lawton said.

According to Lawton, Tsinghua University is considered one of the top universities in China and is the first Chinese university UW has formed a partnership with.

Gilles Bousquet, dean of the Division of International Studies, said the hope is for China to be one of the top five destinations for study abroad students in the near future.

Under the agreement, two students will attend each university as exchange students every semester. Tuition will be equivalent to what they pay at home, and they will be allowed to take classes in their native language.

UW senior Ben Nyquist recently studied abroad in China under a different program and spoke positively about his time there.

“It’s a great experience, and I am really excited for this program because it allows more people to get to China,” Nyquist said. “I would recommend it to anyone who is considering going somewhere different; China is a great place to go.”

Along with the educational agreement, a committee called the Global Manufacturing Institute has been created. The committee is a collaboration between UW, Tsinghua and the University of Warwick in Coventry, England to advance international research in manufacturing.

“If we continue to build a network of relationships, we will support growing exchanges and relevant trade around campus and our nation,” Lawton said. “I applaud UW-Madison in establishing this relationship with China. Imagine how we can modernize and innovate our manufacturing sector.”

Lawton’s trip also included a trip to the Sichuan Province, which was devastated by a powerful earthquake in May. She said she was deeply affected by the children she met who had been displaced by the earthquake.

Plans were also made with Wisconsin’s sister state, the Heilongjiang Province, for a delegation on Wisconsin’s production practices. This would be held in China at an undetermined date in the future.

“I think that we all need to have some sense of China and the magnitude of the part it plays in the global economy,” Lawton said. “It’s a country of contrast, great ambition and great interest in becoming a responsible part of a peaceful, global economy.”