Source: GT    Published: 2023-07-24

The first "Hello, Silk Road" International Conference on Internet Communication was held on July 23 in Karamay, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Over 200 guests, including experts and scholars from more than 20 countries, Chinese and foreign journalists, and online influencers gathered together to envision future cooperation between China and countries along the Belt and Road in the field of international communication.

Wang Jianxin, director of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Committee in Xinjiang, sincerely invited Chinese and foreign journalists and online influencers to visit Xinjiang, discover a beautiful Xinjiang and tell stories of people-to-people connectivity along the Silk Road well.

The year 2023 marks the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and it is the right time to hold the event this year, said Zheng Jian, director of the General Office of People's Daily, in a speech he delivered at the conference.

Promoting exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations in countries and regions along the Belt and Road is a great undertaking that needs the participation of all sides, Zheng expressed.

Mederbek Shermetaliev, head of the Kabar News Agency of Kyrgyzstan, said Central Asian countries enjoy a bright prospect of development thanks to BRI cooperation. The media should extensively convey information about the aims and objectives of building high-level strategic partnerships between China and Central Asian countries to the general public in a way which is easy to understand.

"We need to stay focused and engage in in-depth exchanges to promote cooperation and win-win results," Argentine Ambassador to China Sabino Vaca Narvaja said in a video speech.

Chen Kai, mayor of Karamay, noted that the city will contribute to the realization of the dream of integration of diverse cultures in the world, the dream of connecting the world and making progress together under the BRI, and the great dream of building a community with a shared future for mankind.

During a roundtable discussion on international communication & value shaping and cultural envoys & common prosperity, the guests shared their views on international communication and other topics.

Zhang Weiwei, director of the China Institute of Fudan University, pointed out that compared to traditional media, the threshold of participating in international communication has been lowered today and thanks to cultural diversity, good stories are told everywhere.

Wang Wen, executive dean of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at the Renmin University of China, believes that China should open up its own narrative space in the process of promoting international communication.

The first "Hello, Silk Road" International Conference on Internet Communication was part of a series of communication activities that kicked off on July 18.

During the five-day visit to Karamay, journalists from countries including China, Bangladesh, Thailand, Türkiye and Vietnam visited landmarks in Karamay, including the the Dushanzi Grand Canyon and the World Mystery Town, a Yardang scenic area, and joined a tour to emerging complexes including an industrial park of cloud computing and Wuerhe Town, a tourism complex that gathers B&B hotels and showcases local folk customs and the only one in China built on the Gobi Desert.

They also joined a thematic discussion on international communication to discover the development achievements Xinjiang has made in all respects.

Members of the delegation said the trip was rewarding and they discovered a different Xinjiang through the trip.

The first "Hello, Silk Road" International Conference on Internet Communication was co-hosted by the information office of the government of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the government of Karamay and Global Times Online, and supported by the Special Fund for Positive Online Communication of the China Internet Development Foundation.