Ambassador Hou Yanqi released an article on China Daily entitled "Build heart-to-heart bridges to bring China and ASEAN closer" on February 4. The full text is as follows:
On February 2, China and ASEAN countries kicked off the 2024 ASEAN-China Year of People-to-people Exchanges with a high-standard and high-level launching ceremony in Fuzhou.
It is only through friendship with the heart that a long-lasting relationship can be established. In more than 2,000 years of friendly exchanges, China and ASEAN have jointly created a diverse and splendid Asian civilization and written a magnificent poem of civilizational integration. Today, it is self-evident to promote the in-depth development of the China-ASEAN comprehensive strategic partnership and enhance mutual understanding and affinity.
The agreement of China and ASEAN to designate 2024 as the ASEAN-China Year of People-to-people Exchanges is aimed at tightening cultural ties, consolidating the foundation of public opinion and providing lasting momentum for the development of China-ASEAN relations under the new situation. Under the theme of "Enhancing Connectivity and Resilience", the Chair of ASEAN 2024 Lao PDR has prioritized "promoting the role of ASEAN culture and the arts for inclusion and sustainability", which is in line with this.
Under the framework of the ASEAN-China Year of People-to-people Exchanges, the two sides will carry out a series of exchange and cooperation activities in the fields of youth, women, education, culture, tourism, sports, science and technology, media and local areas. The ASEAN-China Youth Campus, the ASEAN-China Educational Exchange Week, the ASEAN-China Cultural Forum, the tourism exhibition during the ASEAN-China Expo, the ASEAN-China Martial Arts Competition, ASEAN-China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, etc., have been on the schedule and are being intensively prepared.
We hope that more and more colorful activities will be included in the list of activities for the ASEAN-China Year of People-to-people Exchanges, and that more people from China and ASEAN countries will participate in these activities.
We believe that the most powerful driving force for strengthening people-to-people exchanges between China and ASEAN comes from the people, and the most practical benefits it brings will also be enjoyed by the general public.
Taking tourism as an example, in 2023, China's outbound tourism experienced a strong recovery, with 3.42 million and 1.4 million Chinese tourists traveling to Thailand and Malaysia respectively, ranking second and fourth in the source markets of the two countries. China and ASEAN countries are taking measures such as facilitating visas and increasing flights. China has announced mutual visa exemption with three ASEAN countries, including Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. The two sides are also exploring various policy initiatives, including strengthening the 10+1 tourism cooperation mechanism.
Driven by various activities of the ASEAN-China Year of People-to-people Exchanges, two-way tourism will surely usher in faster development, bringing more employment opportunities and greater economic benefits to people from two sides.
The majority of young people are direct beneficiaries of China-ASEAN people-to-people exchanges. In the 2021-2022 academic year, ASEAN students account for approximately 30 percent of the total number of international students studying in China. The China-ASEAN Young Leaders Scholarship and other programs have been steadily broadened out.
We will continue to support Chinese local governments in providing targeted scholarships for ASEAN students, and encourage well-known Chinese universities to open their doors to more outstanding ASEAN young people. We will also continue to expand cooperation in the fields of vocational education and professional training, and implement projects such as the “Plan of Training for 10,000” to provide stronger talent support for China-ASEAN cooperation.
People-to-people exchanges are all-encompassing, and there are many more rich contents and achievements waiting to be realized together, and we look forward to your participation. The ASEAN-China Year of People-to-people Exchanges will build a "heart-to-heart bridge" between China and ASEAN. It will not only help the Chair Lao PDR to enrich the theme of the meetings, but also promote higher-quality development cooperation through people-to-people exchanges.
We will also take practical actions to advocate the inheritance, innovation, exchange and mutual understanding of civilizations, promote Asian values centered on peace, cooperation, inclusiveness and integration, and promote the transformation of the vision depicted in the Global Civilization Initiative into reality.
In this sense, the ASEAN-China Year of People-to-people Exchanges is the latest practice in building a closer China-ASEAN community with a shared future, and it also reflects the joint contributions made by China and ASEAN in promoting the world towards peace, security, prosperity, and progress.
