Through funding from the Canadian International Development Agency's (CIDA) China Program, the University of Regina (UofR), Canada, implemented two major development projects with the Educational Institute of Jilin province (EIJP) from 1990 to 2001. This paper re-examines this historic cooperation. The paper argues that prevailing theories of sustainable development which had been percolating in education faculties of Canadian universities in the 1990s allowed the UofR/EIJP program to transcend a simple international aid paradigm and to focus on the mutual benefit of the partners. At the same time, we observe that despite the enormous goodwill and institutional learning achieved through the UofR/EIJP program the project failed to live up to its significant potential. The paper concludes with some practical measures that institutions might implement to ensure important cooperative projects can build robust international capacity sustainable for the long term.