Asia-Pacific Media Forum: Forum highlights media's role in building regional trust, calling for greater cooperation to strengthen dialogue

Source: CGTN

Update: Sep 5th, 2026  9:51 PM

The Asia-Pacific Media Forum opens on Saturday in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, bringing together media representatives from across the Asia Pacific and beyond as China prepares to host the 33rd APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting this November. CGTN's Dai Kaiyi has more.

More than just a gathering of media professionals, the Asia-Pacific Media Forum in Shenzhen is exploring the role the media can play in building broader consensus and promoting shared development across the region. Participants say that effort starts with people, and with strengthening connections between different societies, rather than focusing solely on technology or economic growth.

AMINATH NAMZA, Chairperson, Public Service Media of the Maldives "The Asia Pacific coming together and walking the talk. We have been talking about in a world where AI is leading generations today. I want this summit to focus on the importance of humanity, telling human stories and bringing civilizations together. Be inconsiderate of our size, where we stand in development, and I understand that we in every society has something to offer and every society has something to learn."

GUPPY DARYL JAMES, Former national board member of the Australia China Business Council "APEC has the ability, through its consensus of regulation of discussion and cooperation, to reestablish trust within the region. It's trust both in terms of trade relationships, trade settlement, trade processes. So that's the important feature of bringing together everybody here at APEC."

SYEDA LASNA KABIR, Professor, Department of Public Administration, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh "The knowledge and everything should be disseminated among all the countries, and we expect collaboration, more networking because it's a huge gathering. So we'll learn from each other and the best practices should to be shared. So we'll learn and we'll develop simultaneously."

For many participants, the priority is to find common ground at a time of growing global divisions.

YASIRU BANDARA RANARAJA, Founding director, Belt and Road Initiative Sri Lanka (BRISL) "It gives them a big opportunity to find some consensus among them, especially during a time like this, where you have a lot of fragmentation in the international order. So I believe the leadership China have brought into it, bringing all the member economies together would be very beneficial, especially during this time, to find the trust among the nations so that they could operate and negotiate the issues that they are having."

REBECCA AMELIA FANNIN, Founder of Silicon Dragon Ventures, the United States "I think we're looking at areas where the US and China can get along. So areas like that can be the environment, can be energy, can be health care. Those are areas that we need to work on together."

The forum also produced concrete outcomes, including a media partnership initiative, new cooperation agreements and the Shenzhen Consensus on Asia-Pacific media cooperation.

DAI KAIYI, Shenzhen "The Asia-Pacific is home to some of the world's most dynamic economies, but also some very different views of where the region is heading.
Attendees say that makes the media's role particularly essential. They can be a bridge between different perspectives, rather than a megaphone for division. And here in Shenzhen, that idea is being put into practice. Dai Kaiyi, CGTN, Shenzhen."