Cultural exchanges promote understanding

Editor's note: Wang Chen, vice-chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, delivered a speech at the opening ceremony of the Taihu World Cultural Forum on the role of culture in building a community with a shared future for mankind. Excerpts follow:

Today, we have friends from around the world gathering in Beijing to attend the fifth annual conference of the Taihu World Cultural Forum. President Xi Jinping has sent a congratulatory letter to the conference, which fully displays the high importance that the Chinese government attaches to strengthening exchanges and the mutual learning of cultures, as well as its desire to work with others to build a community with a shared future for mankind.

The Taihu World Cultural Forum is a nonofficial but high-level international cultural forum. It aims to strengthen cultural exchanges between China and the rest of the world, and promote dialogue and cooperation between various civilizations and cultures for the purpose of jointly building a harmonious world. As an open, inclusive and pluralistic high-end platform for cultural exchanges, the forum has won wide recognition and support from people both at home and abroad, particularly those in academia, the cultural industry and the media.