A Nanjing university student was crowned champion at the National Final of the 2025 "FLTRP · ETIC Cup" "Understanding Contemporary China" (UCC) International Communication Contest in Beijing on Monday.

Yan Xin, from Nanjing Normal University, joined other finalists in captivating the audience with compelling narratives on a wide range of topics, from educational equity, environmental protection to cultural heritage conservation.

The UCC contest has established itself as a premier platform for college students to showcase their linguistic excellence and international communication capabilities. This year witnessed a record level of participation in the competition, with over 726,000 contestants from more than 1,500 universities and colleges across China entering.

Promoting cross-cultural exchange, the UCC contest features 11 language categories – English, Russian, German, French, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, Italian, Portuguese, Korean and Chinese as a second language for international learners. Five students from Beijing Foreign Studies University took home awards for the Russian, German, Arabic, Italian and Portuguese contests.

This year's Chinese short video sub-contest attracted entries from 90 countries, with the top prize being awarded to a team from Zhejiang Conservatory of Music for their work "When Gamelan Meets Jasmine", which beautifully portrays cultural exchanges between China and Indonesia.

In the highly competitive English short video sub-contest, first place went to a team from the Communication University of Zhejiang. Their winning entry, "Bronze Rhymes, Shared Roots", tells the story of a student from Taiwan choosing to study and live in Zhejiang who discovers local beauty and fulfills her grandfather's dream of revisiting his hometown.

"The contestants demonstrated exceptional talent in articulating their views and the event was impeccably organized," said one member of the judging panel.

The contest also drew audiences eager to see their "international communication idol" – renowned CGTN anchor and journalist Wang Guan, who was one of the two question masters for the national final.

The "FLTRP · ETIC Cup" "Understanding Contemporary China" Foreign Language Contests are organized by the Beijing Foreign Studies University in collaboration with Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press (FLTRP).