Due to historical reasons, China and Russia have much in common in higher education. The good cooperation environment and similar development processes are of tremendous potential and space to both sides. In July 2001, the Chinese and Russian heads of state signed “Sino-Russian Treaty of Good Neighbors and Friendly Cooperation”; During the Chinese “Year of Russia” of 2006, more than 300 activities were held, among which the cultural and educational projects accounted for nearly 50%; During the Russia “China Year” in 2007, more than 200 activities were held with cultural and educational activities taking a large proportion, including theatrical performances, workshops, student exchange visits. The deepening of Sino-Russian cooperation in the field of culture and education helps both sides to consolidate the traditional friendship and mutual trust.

Problems in Sino-Russia Cooperation in Higher Education

Low Level of Cooperative Education

In cooperative education, it should be taken into account whether the arrangement of courses are suitable to the needs of China's conditions, whether the introduction of educational resources adapt to China's disciplines construction and development, and whether the introduced Russian disciplines are superior. However, both countries started with courses of small input and quick benefits, mainly in the disciplines of languages ??and economic management. Science and engineering majors take a smaller part and are ignored in some degree. Owing to the language problems of the students, students overemphasize the knowledge of language learning, neglecting the distinctive professional knowledge of the native country [3]. In order to increase economic efficiency, many of China's key universities ignore their respective positioning and development goals, blindly cooperate with common Russian colleges and a lot of efforts are involved in opening general subjects. Some local colleges only focus on the return of investment, and they intend to upgrade their position through cooperative education. This has resulted in a large number of problems such as low-level and repeated introduction, the lack of features, resources waste and other issues. All the above-mentioned projects put emphasis on immediate educational benefits, while ignoring the prospect and development of the nature of education.

Lack of Effective Management and Monitoring

Since the market of overseas students in both Russia and China is quite large, relatively speaking it is not standardized. Some intermediaries deliberately take some informal institutions as state-recognized universities and colleges, and training programs as degree-granted disciplines. Some of the so-called agencies themselves are corporate or educational groups with little educational background and even less of educational law. The reason attracting them to this educational field is the force of benefit. This kind of profit-oriented behavior of taking advantage of policies is not uncommon, which deviates from the philosophy of education [4]. The government authority often emphasizes its support and its preferential treatment to the cooperative education, but it rarely conducts regular assessments of the teaching process. Even if the assessment is done, it is usually not assessed by an independent committee of experts on a regular basis, resulting in the distortion of the assessment results. The assessment is hard to play an effective restraint to the process of joint education.

Lack of Necessary Mutual Understanding

Because of social transformation, China and Russia are particularly concerned about the theory and practice of Western education. The science and education exchanges between China and Russia seem to be marginalized, and both sides lack the necessary mutual understanding. They especially lack of research on the respective national conditions during the transformation. Their understanding of some of the issues is partial, superficial, or even wrong. A growing number of Russians do not want to get lost among the Asians, fearing of the potential threat from China. They have no objection to becoming part of Europe or part of the West. They hold a resistant attitude towards educational cooperation with China. Under the Bologna framework, Russia is prepared to join the European educational circle. Nevertheless, Russian educational institutions and government agencies have not actively sought to promote the process of educational cooperation between China and Russia. The cooperation with China in education has only carried out some basic work. On the other hand, the Chinese educational circle understands more of the situation of the Soviet Union before its collapse, but neglects its research on its present education system.

The Development Strategy of Sino-Russian Cooperation in Higher Education

Introduction of High-quality Educational Resources

Sino-Russian cooperation in higher education must lift the cooperation level. First of all, both should introduce high-quality educational resources, expand the cooperation between first-class universities, and develop urgently-needed and new disciplines. Postgraduate cooperation is naturally one of the significant cooperation projects. Secondly, in the process of cooperation, we should keep China's national conditions in mind, and adhere to the principle of “benefiting from advanced countries on the basis of self-reliance give priority to with me, our advantage”. China and Russia should take complementary advantages. Currently, the cooperation between first-class universities is relatively little. Only through the cooperation among famous universities and institutions and the introduction of high-quality educational resources and advanced educational ideas and modes, can a sound development of Sino-Russian cooperation be developed. In this way, a new pattern of discipline construction and talents training will come into being, which will meet both the international standards and national conditions. Then quality programs will appear one after another.

Establishing Sound Mechanisms, Standardized Management and Monitoring, and an Assessment System

Both the international students' markets of China and Russia should strengthen their respective supervision and regulation to prevent false agencies and avoid quick success. Otherwise, the ultimate victims will be the students, universities and even states. To fully embody the typical characteristics of the Sino-Russian cooperation in higher education, it is necessary to formulate a long-term mechanism to enhance the construction of quality guarantee system of educational cooperation. To ensure the educational projects standardized and scientific, there should have effective management and supervision on the curriculum, teaching management, teaching implementation, feedback and others. Successful experience of developed countries proves that the quality of teaching could only be guaranteed through a special assessment institution of experts, specializing in research and developing a quality evaluation index system which covers the introduction of foreign courses and curriculum. In U. S., ACICS (The Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools) folk regularly release the operation of cooperative education agencies for public reference. Only those courses that have reached the evaluation criteria could be granted degrees. In order to strengthen the monitoring of cooperative education quality, educational administrative departments should make right judgments based on the conclusions of the assessment agencies. The assessment agency can accept the government's commission, but it should not be attached to the executive branch of government. Its relationship with the executive branch of government agencies should be mutually constrained. The assessment agency must have an independent legal personality. It should have the rights to conduct scientific and impartial assessment and audit towards curriculum, teaching facilities, teaching quality, and to publish the results of the assessment in the media.government's macro-control is completed through regular identifications of their qualifications [5].

Studying National Conditions, Widening Folk Exchanges

Bilateral educational cooperation is an important event between China and Russia. It is worthwhile to comprehensively and accurately understand and study the basic conditions of the two countries, namely the national policy, the humanities, social sciences, folk culture and so on. To promote the successful cooperation between China and Russia Colleges and universities, the research should focus on Russian science and technology system, technology strategy, technological innovation, energy strategy, external economic relations, and policies and patterns of external science and technology cooperation.

In July, 1981, China Education Association for International Exchange was established. It is the earliest national organization aiming at carrying out folk educational cooperation and exchanges. It has played a positive role in promoting the cooperation of Chinese education with foreign countries and areas, fostering the development of education, science and technology and cultural undertakings, and enhancing the understanding and friendship between the peoples. From the year 2005, the Moscow State University, Renmin University of China and the Communication University of China jointly organized the Sino-Russian Conference on Development of Mass Media”. It provides an academic exchange and cooperation platform for Russian and Chinese scholars in the fields of mass media and journalism. It is hosted each year by one of the universities in turn, and it has become a famous brand in media academia international exchanges. On October 17, 2008, Sino-Russian Roundtable of University Presidents proposed to create a educational and cultural exchange center. To set up an educational exchange platform composed of governments, universities, community groups, and research institutions is an important strategy for the future development. This is a diverse cooperation, and it is also an important guarantee for the sustainable development of bilateral exchanges [6]. Based on this proposal, related departments should create educational exchanges Centers, high-lighting their research and education exchange functions and creating a new and practical field for the exchange and cooperation in higher education.

Advocating academic strengths, strengthening scientific research cooperation

On the basis of existing research, the key of future Sino-Russian cooperation in educational research is to strengthen the basic scientific research cooperation between universities, to design cooperation projects, and to improve the effectiveness of the projects. Besides strengthening and widening the students exchange programs, universities should take full advantage of each other's superiority, jointly research on the scientific projects that are urgently needed by national economic development or globally concerned, and transfer the research fruits into practical use and apply them into economic development.

Sino-Russian universities and colleges should also make full use of Russia's technology advantage and China's market and technology transfer advantages to fulfill the high-tech transformation and industrialization and commercialization for the benefit of bilateral economic construction. Enterprises and universities should strengthen substantive cooperation and build high-tech parks. Only in this way, can the integration of bilateral scientific research and education and operation and management be realized. Enterprises and universities cooperatively participate in the scientific cooperation and share the most advanced scientific research fruits so as to accelerate high-tech achievements transformation and industrialization and to achieve win-win benefits.

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