Guests of the Liangzhu Forum explore an exhibition at the Liangzhu Museum in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province, on December 1, 2023. Photo: Courtesy of the Liangzhu Forum

Receiving a congratulatory letter from Chinese President Xi Jinping, the first Liangzhu Forum, a major cultural exchange event set in motion at the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF) in October, was held in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, on Sunday. 

Delivered by Li Shulei, member of the Political Bureau and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, Xi's letter stressed the importance of "mutual learning" to boost human civilizations. 

In his letter, Xi called for efforts to promote the vision of equality, mutual learning, dialogue and mutual accommodation to help different civilizations live in harmony and reinforce one another, as well as enhance friendship and mutual understanding and affection between people of different countries.

Taking the ancient Silk Road explorer Marco Polo's Hangzhou journey and international scholars' contributions to Liangzhu research as examples, Li offers several words of advice at the forum. He called for closer "collaboration" between countries in the cultural heritage conservation field, and underlined that an "open and inclusive" mindset is a "guarantee" for exchanges between civilizations.

Over 300 guests from both China and other countries such as Qatar, Brazil and Greece attended the Liangzhu Forum. 

Tan Huism, the forum's guest speaker and the executive director of the Qatar National Library, told the Global Times that the library, as an "open platform for cultivating cultures," plays an important role in promoting China-Qatar cultural exchanges. 

She revealed that the "Qatar platform" has already connected with the National Library of China to further plan their "digital library" project. In November, Chinese peers also visited Qatar to discuss library development in a globalized world. 

Tan expressed her gratitude to Xi for the proposed agenda. She said that it was "admirable" for a leader of a country to "praise so highly cross-cultural understanding."

Photo: VCG

The Forum divided the big "cultural civilization" topic into niche subfields with experts providing their insights. Styliani Chrysoulaki, general director of the Archaeological Museum of Heraklion in Greece, gave a speech on promoting the "outreach ability" of museum facilities all around the world. 

She told the Global Times that the collaboration between China and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) member country Greece in the museum sector will be a "commitment between the two" that is "particularly meaningful" as they both are civilizations with long histories. 

Chrysoulaki unveiled to the Global Times that the Greek museum is already collaborating with the Palace Museum to launch a major exhibition about Greek culture in 2025. She added that the Forum is a "very, very, very good opportunity" for starting China-Greek activities. 

Also planned to launch an event in 2025, Ylljet Alicka, director of International Relations of Jazz Albania, said that a jazz music event called "China meets Albania" has already been proposed. He stressed that the Albanian event is in line with China's BRI spirit to promote cross-cultural dialogue. 

Inheriting the BRI spirit of "sharing for the better," guest speaker Francisco Lacerda Brasileiro, mayor of the Municipality of Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil, pointed out how both the "hard and soft powers of China's BRI initiative" have been helpful in promoting its member countries' facilities, regulations and cultural developments. 

As a city governor, Brasileiro has also emphasized that the more than 5,000-year-old Liangzhu culture, which boasts the world's earliest water management system, can still inspire the urban planning of cities today. 

"The ruins of Liangzhu ancient city are a demonstration of the 5,000-year history of Chinese civilization and a treasure of world civilizations," Xi said.

The Forum came to a close with a joint statement aimed at further implementing the Global Civilization Initiative signed by Sun Yeli, secretary of the Leading Party Members' Group of the Ministry of China's Culture and Tourism, and Hossam Zaki, assistant secretary-general of the Arab League. 

Besides the main forum on Sunday, the "Liangzhu agenda" also included two sub-symposiums addressing worldwide sinologists and artists' impressions of Chinese civilization. 

The event was co-launched by organizations such as China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the People's Government of Zhejiang Province.