Hundreds of guests in capital for mutual learning among civilizations

Beijing Culture Forum attracts experts and scholars from across the world

The 2024 Beijing Culture Forum, themed "Enhance Cultural Exchanges for Common Progress", opened on Thursday and will run until Saturday.

Featuring academic, high-end, international and public-oriented characteristics, the forum has attracted more than 800 participants. Of them, more than 240 foreign guests come from more than 70 countries and regions, a significant increase compared to 2023.

They include domestic and international dignitaries, industry leaders, renowned experts and scholars, heads of international organizations, and representatives of central and local cultural publicity departments.

Topics discussed will cover exchanges between Eastern and Western civilizations, digital cultural tourism and artificial intelligence.

This year's event has one main forum, also serving as the opening ceremony, six parallel forums and 32 professional salons.

During the main forum, Chinese and overseas guests delivered speeches on such topics as strengthening cultural confidence, inheriting and promoting excellent traditional culture, and deepening exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations.

A highlight of the opening ceremony was the release of a special report on the inscription of Beijing's Central Axis on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The report told the city's experience in heritage protection and measures to strengthen the protection of historical and cultural cities.

The ceremony also announced the top 10 events in the construction of the national cultural center for 2023, an activity that has garnered widespread attention, with more than 34 million votes cast by netizens.

Parallel forums have themes like cultural inheritance, assets, trends, communication and exchanges, exploring the directions and paths for cultural development.

For example, the "Cultural Empowerment: Spiritual Life and Industrial Development" parallel forum will present projects including an action plan that reflects the collaborative development of the cultural and tourism industries in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and a strategic cooperation platform for the animation and game industries, covering 10 provinces and cities.

At the "Cultural Heritage: Systematic Protection and Living Inheritance" parallel forum, experts and scholars in cultural relics and archaeology from Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas will engage in discussions with their Chinese counterparts.

The salons, to be held on Sept 20, will focus on topics such as immersive digital cultural tourism innovation and new patterns in the international dissemination of Chinese documentaries.

Their hosts include renowned universities like Tsinghua and Peking, the China National Archives of Publications and Culture and the Grand Canal Museum of Beijing.

Moreover, this year's culture forum will hold an industrial investors' conference for the first time. The event, kicking off on Sept 21, aims to promote the integration of culture with technology and finance, and create an influential cultural investment and financing brand.

Additionally, the forum is committed to creating a cultural festival with broad public participation. It has collected and made short videos showcasing cultural achievements from various provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, and released them on central and local media and internet platforms. Diverse cultural activities for the public will also be held during the forum.