Zhang Guobin, Vice President of the Charhar Institute’s National Council, attended and gave a keynote speech at the 2nd International Forum on the Dialogue between Hui Culture and French Culture, which was held at Anhui University in Hefei, capital city of Anhui Province in eastern China on October 12th. 

At the 2nd International Forum on the Dialogue between Hui Culture and French Culture

The forum was held also for marking the 55th anniversary of the establishment of the China-France diplomatic relations. 

Zheng Mingwu, Director-General of the Information Office of Anhui Provincial People's Governance, H. E. Mamadou Ndiaye, Senegal’s Ambassador to China, and Cai Jingmin, Secretary of the Party Committee of Anhui University, attended the opening ceremony of the forum. Hu Yan, Vice Dean of Innovation and Development Strategy Research Institute of Anhui University, presided over the opening ceremony.

Zheng Mingwu, on behalf of the Information Office of the Anhui Provincial People's Government, first congratulated the opening of the forum and thanked all the guests at home and abroad who have always been concerned about and supported the reform and development of Anhui Province.

He noted that Anhui Province, located in the Yangtze River Delta region of China, is a province with rich culture represented by Hui Culture, a culture featuring extensive, profound and consistent content and also with impressive local characteristics. 

He welcomed more people to have an exploring of Hui Culture and Anhui Province, which is beautiful, combining both tradition and modernity and both inheritance and innovation.                     

Cai Jingmin, Secretary of the Party Committee of Anhui University, said that the forum is a display of an attempt of Anhui University on exploring the value of Hui Culture especially its international communicational value through taking advantage of Anhui University’s strength on multiple disciplines including literature, history, foreign languages, international relations, media and so on.

He hoped that this forum will enhance the academic exchanges between Anhui University and the universities in the circle of French culture, promote the status of Hui Culture in the international community and boost the development of the university to a higher level.  

Ambassador Mamadou Ndiaye first thanked the organizers of the forum for their invitation. He remarked that different cultures can coexist, enrich each other and help contribute to the harmony among peoples of different countries in the world. He pointed out the world peace and stability relies on whether all the countries have the capability to understand the point that all cultures are equal by nature. Therefore, more attention needs to be paid to educating  people on this and urging them to respect others' cultures, so as to achieve the goal of building an inclusive and harmonious world.  

Zhang Guobin, also former China’s Consul General to Strasbourg of France, shared his own experience and ideas on the cultural exchanges between China and France. Taking the producing and screening of the documentary The Rebirth of the Dragon as an example, he noted that in the process of disseminating Hui Culture, we should consider the difference between Chinese people and French people on concept of culture. 

Zhang Guobin speaks at the forum.

He suggested taking advantage of the local rich cultural resource, mastering the arts of disseminating Hui Culture, and developing more cultural products with strong Hui Culture’s characteristics, which can be easier to be accepted by French people through combining with the local features of French culture. In addition, he suggested taking the ‘Express Train’ of spreading Chinese language and trying to build up a favorable communication environment of Hui Culture.

Li Yongsheng, former China’s Consul General to Manchester of the UK and Director of the Foreign Affairs Office of Anhui Province, shared with the guests his working experience of six years in Europe and his ideas on how to disseminate Chinese culture and also Hui Culture to the world. 

Yang Baozhen, former Consul of the China’s Embassy in France, emphasized the important role of French language in telling Chinese stories to the world. Yang remarked that language, as a carrier of information communication, plays an irreplaceable role in cultural exchanges.           

Altogether, nearly 50 experts and scholars from China, France and Senegal attended the forum and made in-depth discussion.           

After the forum, Diao Mingsheng, former Chinese Ambassador to Benin, also gave a lecture on "Diplomats' Duties and Missions" to students of Anhui University in the evening. In his lecture, Diao reviewed the development history of China’s diplomacy since the founding the PRC in 1949 and the tireless efforts made by diplomats of generations to safeguard the national interests.    

Since its establishment, the Charhar Institute, as a nongovernmental, non-partisan think tank on diplomacy and international relations in China, has been devoting itself to the study of public diplomacy and peace science, with the study of issues relevant to China-France relations being a key area. Since the First International Forum of the Dialogue between Hui Culture and French Culture was held by Anhui University in 2018, the Charhar Institute has kept on actively participating in the activity with support.

The Charhar Institute has maintained frequent exchanges with a series of political institutions, NGOs and academic organizations in Europe and in France, including the European Parliament, the European Association for Human Rights and the Paris Institute of Political Studies. 

Through holding or participating in a variety of forums and seminars, the Charhar Institute has provided its intellectual support for the development of China-France relations. And in the future, the Charhar Institute will continue to pay attention to the development trend of the China-France relations and contribute more wisdom to it.

Group photo

Copy Editor：Zhu Yanhong