Building Bridges

A dialogue between China and LAC countries aims to promote high-quality partnership By Yuan Yuan

Soccer, carnival, reggae, tango, wine—these are the cultural symbols creating a mosaic of the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region in the minds of Chinese people. The physical distance between China and the LAC countries makes a visit from one to the other not an easy trip, but the distance has not deterred more frequent talks at higher levels over the past few years.

On September 1-2, the Fifth Forum on China and LAC: Dialogues Between Civilizations took place in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province.

About 100 representatives from governments,international organizations, research institutes,media outlets and business circles attended the forum onsite or online, where they discussed a wide range of topics including China-LAC cooperation in business, green development, agriculture and high technology.

Vice Governor of Jiangsu Province Fang Wei,Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng and several ambassadors of the LAC countries participated in the forum. They all hailed the event as an important platform in enhancing China-LAC communication.

Building a bridge

The forum sanannual eventinitiated by subsidiaries of China International Communications Group (CICG), the Foreign Affairs Office of Jiangsu Province and the Institute of Latin American Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences(CASS). Since its launch in 2017, it has developed into a flagship event for exchanges between China and the LAC.

Yu Tao, Vice President of CICG, called on China and LAC countries, both from the developing world, to broaden the prospects of their communication, learn from each other’s best practices in state governance, explore new development paths meeting their respective national conditions, establish high-quality partnerships,and contribute to world peace and security.

“The cultures of the LAC countries are quite different from those of the United States, Europe and Asia,” said Gao Bo, an associate research fellow with the Institute of Latin American Studies under the CASS. In addition to conducting academic research on the region, Gao has been working and living in Latin America for a number of years and has visited many countries in the region.

This difference has made talks necessary but has also created obstacles in cooperation, especially in business. “A growing number of Chinese enterprises have been to the LAC countries to do business in recent years and the cooperation has covered many industries, including manufacturing, trade in services and the digital economy,”Gao said.

He added that the business environment in the LAC countries is very different from that of China, Europe and the U.S. Chinese enterprises have encountered many obstacles when doing business in these countries, such as complex tax systems and different labor protection standards. To solve these problems, Chinese companies usually adapt to local conditions either through cooperating with European and American enterprises or hiring middlemen,Gao said.

With rising uncertainties over frictions between China and the U.S., cooperation with American, and even European, enterprises has become more difficult, Gao said. Moreover,information asymmetry makes finding reliable middlemen a hard task.

“In light of this situation, Chinese academics should study the political ecology and power system of the LAC countries in more in-depth manner,rather than focusing only on the macro level,” Gao said. “We should conduct more research at the micro level such as studying non-governmentalorganizations, churches and communities, to help Chinese enterprises foster a clearer understanding of the region.”

Representatives at theFifth Forum on China and LAC: Dialogues Between Civilizations in Nanjing,Jiangsu Province,on September 1

Academics from the LAC countries should do the same to gain a clearer picture of China, he said. Since President Xi Jinping attended the China-Latin America and the Caribbean Summit held in Brasilia, capital of Brazil, in July 2014, the cooperation between China and the LAC countries has entered a new era.

“Many colleges and academic institutions have set up research programs on Sino-LAC cooperation over the past few years,” said Yang Xinxin, a lecturer at Nanjing Normal University and postdoctoral fellow of the Historical Theory Research Institute under the CASS. “A cooperation mechanism among these programs needs to be set up to share resources, avoiding repetitive work.”

“There is still a large gap in communication between China and the LAC countries,” Wang Lichao, Director of the Beijing-based China Latin America Cultural Exchange Center. Established in 2019, the center is China’s first non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting exchanges between China and Latin America.

“We have hosted a number of online and offline forums, seminars and other activities in the past three years and invited experts and scholars, especially young scholars, representatives of Chinese enterprises in the LAC countries and overseas Chinese to engage in in-depth exchanges,” Wang said.

He hopes to see more such non-governmental organizations and exchanges between the two sides, providing better resources and larger platforms for more scholars studying China-LAC issues.

On the screen

The forum witnessed the launch of a program screening documentaries and TV series from China and the LAC region.

Documentaries from LAC countries including, and, respectively about football and snacks in Brazil, will be screened on Jiangsu TV later this year; and Chinese documentaries including, a six-episode documentary featuring China’s development including its express railway network and online retail sales, and the TV series,will be shown on media platforms in the LAC countries in November.

tells how people from 10 poverty-stricken places in China fought against poverty. “China’s efforts in poverty alleviation have made remarkable achievements,” said Jorge Dias, Coordinator of the Venezuelan Center for China Studies in Beijing. “There are still many people living in poverty in Venezuela and we are eager to learn from China’s experiences.”

Pan Jinjing, a producer with CGTN-Español,the Spanish channel of China Global Television Network (CGTN), said at the forum in Nanjing that they are making a documentary on a trip by three young men from Argentina, Mexico and Cuba to Sichuan Province in southwest China to learn about rural revitalization. The three went to a village in Sichuan’s Mianyang City this June.They lived there for 15 days and worked on farms with villagers. The documentary paints a picture of the village through their eyes.

“Traditional media now are facing many challenges from new media such as short-video platforms,” Byron Galarza, Director of Ecuador TV said. “The younger generation prefers to get news and other information from platforms like TikTok.”

Galarza said apart from making professional TV programs, the traditional media should explore more possibilities in integrating with new media. “This might be the new direction of media cooperation between China and LAC countries,”he concluded. BR