Photo: Courtesy of Shanghai People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries

Rivers nurture life and bring development and communication. The Yangtze-Mississippi Forum, focusing on China's and the US' largest rivers, was held in Shanghai on Monday amid the ongoing 6th China International Import Expo (CIIE). It was the latest example of regional and people-to-people exchanges between the two countries in the environment and hydrology field.

The forum gathered government officials, scholars and industry veterans from various countries such as China, the US, Pakistan, Egypt and Brazil. The attendees included a delegation that consisted of six city mayors from US heartland areas along the Mississippi River.

The delegation's head Jim Brainard, mayor of Carmel, Indiana, said that for many members of the delegation, it was their first time in China. In a speech he delivered at the forum, Brainard said that they had a wonderful time learning about China, as well as its efforts in protecting rivers and restoring the wetlands.

The US delegation visited Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province, in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, as well as the nature reserves on Shanghai's Chongming Island at the river's estuary.

"The Yangtze River is a beautiful part of China, and it is similar in some ways to our Mississippi water area," Brainard told the Global Times after the forum. "The two rivers are important to both of us, to both countries."

Brainard shared some joint efforts he thinks China and the US can make in protecting their rivers. "We need to do much work to improve the quality of water in the Mississippi River and to keep agricultural chemicals from polluting the river. China needs to do the same thing as well. I hope that we can learn from each other what works, what doesn't work, and collaborate on making both our famous rivers more sustainable," he said to the Global Times.

At the Monday forum, several Chinese and US experts made keynote presentations, at which they shared the situations and their observations on the green developments of the Yangtze River and Mississippi River, as well as some challenges the two rivers face.

The forum also held an unveiling ceremony for the International Research Center for Rivers and Deltas, an institute at East China Normal University (ECNU) to strengthen transnational academic cooperation in the field of rivers and deltas.

The new center will serve as an international collaboration platform so that people can discuss sustainable development methods in river basins and estuarine areas, said He Qing, director of the State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research at ECNU.

"Watersheds and estuaries are an inseparable system," He told the Global Times after the forum. "It is of great significance for global people living in different natural ecological environments and population densities to learn from each other."

According to the forum organizers, a similar forum that will also focus on the Yangtze River and Mississippi River is going to be held in the US next year. Many guest speakers said at the forum that they are pleased to see exchanges between China and the US have continued to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The China-US relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in today's world. It affects the overall interests of the two countries and has a bearing on world peace, security and development," said Chen Jing, president of the Shanghai People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (SPAFFC).

Chen said in his speech that many enterprises from the Mississippi River basin showcased their products at the new American Food and Agriculture Pavilion at this year's CIIE. A $5-million deal was signed at the pavilion on Sunday, the first day of the CIIE.

Echoing Chen, Daniel Delk, deputy consul general of the US in Shanghai, praised the US mayor delegation's trip to China as a wonderful opportunity. "Environmental protection, private mitigation, sustainable development, trade, educational and cultural exchanges, sub national diplomacy, and sister city relationships offer a local opportunity for sharing challenges and best practices," Delk said at the forum.

"Finding the right partners can help in finding new solutions not only for local problems, but also to help inform and reengage us on the national level and bilateral level between our two countries." Delk said. "I'm excited about the opportunities that may come not this day, but in the months and years ahead, to form new partnerships."

The forum was co-hosted by the ECNU and SPAFFC.