A question of connections

Scholars look at how the country's relations with foreign cultures have evolved over the past four decades, Fang Aiqing reports.

A group of scholars recently discussed the cultural exchanges that have taken place in Beijing over the past 40 years' reform and opening-up. The scholars of social sciences and the humanities were participating in the academic dialogue Retrospect, Connection and Innovation, held at the Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Beijing replaced Xi'an, once the capital of imperial China in Shaanxi province, to be the cultural center of China during the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), according to Ouyang Zhesheng, a history professor at Peking University. And since then Beijing has become an international metropolis, Ouyang says.