China should support more local colleges and universities in Northeast China to participate in the Campus Asia program, which aims to promote trilateral cooperation in higher education in China, Japan and the Republic of Korea, a legislator from Dalian, Liaoning province, said during the ongoing two sessions in Beijing.

"Northeast China, which is close to Japan, Republic of Korea and Russia, needs more experts and talents familiar with not only languages but also national conditions of other countries to strengthen the exchanges," said Liu Hong, deputy to the National People's Congress, also president of Dalian University of Foreign Languages.

Campus Asia, or the Collective Action of Mobility Program of University Students in Asia, was initiated in 2012 and has become a model of higher educational cooperation among universities in China, Japan and the ROK, said Liu.

"However, only limited number of local universities have participated in it and the studies are mainly focused on the capital cities and neighboring areas, which do not fully reflect the long-term grassroots public opinion nor regional characteristics of the countries," she said.

"We should support more local universities, especially those in Northeast China, to participate in the program and cooperate in talent cultivation," said Liu.

She also suggested the program should allow individuals, social organizations and enterprises to participate in targeted training and support qualified universities to establish a fixed cooperation mechanism.