How Xi champions China's people-to-people exchanges with Latin America

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech at the Brazilian National Congress in Brasilia, Brazil, July 16, 2014. (Xinhua/Liu Jiansheng)

BEIJING, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- "Condition of good friends, condition of old wine," Chinese President Xi Jinping cited a Brazilian proverb to describe the long-running friendship between the Chinese and Latin American people when addressing the Brazilian National Congress during a visit to the South American country in 2014. It was Xi's first visit to Brazil after assuming the Chinese presidency.

In the speech, he told stories of people-to-people exchanges between the two countries. He also quoted Brazilian lyricist and novelist Paulo Coelho and mentioned the Brazilian TV series Escrava Isaura, which was quite popular in China in the 1980s.

"I listened to President Xi's speech at the Congress in 2014," said Fausto Pinato, president of the Brazil-China Parliamentary Front of the Brazilian National Congress. "In addition to the cooperation between the two countries in diplomacy and trade, he also mentioned plenty about Brazilian culture, such as Brasilia's architecture, President Kubitschek's words, Brazilian TV series and a Brazilian journalist."

"His knowledge of Brazil made us proud," he added.

Cultural exchanges are a crucial pillar of interaction for China and Latin America, two great civilizations. Xi has repeatedly stressed that people-to-people amity is vital to sound state-to-state relations.

In fact, while still a local official, Xi was engaged in cooperation between China and Latin America.

In 1996, Xi, then deputy secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Fujian Provincial Committee, visited Brazil for the first time. He flew to Fortaleza, the state capital of Ceara in northeastern Brazil, and signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a sister province/state relationship between East China's Fujian province and Ceara.

"I remember spending New Year's Day 1996 on the road ... There is some serendipity between me and the city," Xi recalled when attending the BRICS summit in Fortaleza in 2014.

This aerial photo taken on Aug. 8, 2023 shows fishing boats and buildings in Fortaleza, Brazil. (Xinhua/Wang Tiancong)

China has established approximately 180 sister-city partnerships with 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, which illustrates their ever-flourishing cultural and people-to-people exchanges. In May last year, Fortaleza established a sisterly relationship with Xiamen, a coastal city in Fujian where Xi used to serve as deputy mayor. The sister cities are known as the "BRICS Twin Cities" because both have hosted BRICS summits.

In recent years, the platforms for people-to-people and cultural exchanges between China and Latin America have become increasingly diverse, from the China-Latin America Cultural Exchange Year and the Latin American and Caribbean Art Season to the "Bridge of the Future" China-Latin American Young Leaders Training Campus.

"The rich cultures and arts of China and Latin America bloom like splendid flowers on each other's vast land, pushing the mutual learning between the Chinese and Latin American civilizations to a new high," Xi said when attending the closing ceremony of the China-Latin America Cultural Exchange Year in 2016 in Peru.