2024 Understanding China Conference highlights reform, shared development

The 2024 Understanding China Conference opened in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province, on Tuesday, with the focus on Chinese modernization and new opportunities for the world.

This year's conference, themed "Carry through the Reform to the End -- Chinese Modernization and New Opportunities for World Development," has brought together over 600 participants including politicians, officials, scholars, foreign envoys and media representatives.

Li Shulei, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, attended the opening ceremony, reading out President Xi Jinping's congratulatory letter to the conference and delivering a keynote speech.

Xi said in the letter that to understand China, one needs to understand China's efforts to further deepen reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization.

Huang Kunming, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and secretary of the CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee, also addressed the opening ceremony.

Participants in the event agreed that Xi's congratulatory letter, elucidating the great significance of China's further comprehensive deepening of reform to advance Chinese modernization and demonstrating China's firm resolve to work with other countries around the world to embark on the path to modernization and promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, provides an important guidance for successful convening of the conference.

Since the third plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee in 2013, China's comprehensive deepening of reform in the new era has achieved significant results, injecting strong impetus into the promotion of Chinese modernization, said the participants.

Facts have proved that reform and opening up have not only fostered China's development, but also benefited the world at large, they added.

The third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee in 2024, featuring new arrangements for deepening reform comprehensively and measures for expanding high-level opening-up, will surely promote steady and long-term development of Chinese modernization, create more opportunities for the development of all countries, and inject more stability and positive energy into the world, according to the participants.

Leung Chun-ying, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, also attended the opening ceremony.

The event, running until Wednesday, will feature six parallel seminars, 14 thematic forums, two closed-door panel discussions, and exhibitions showcasing achievements of China's modernization efforts, according to the event's organizers.

The conference will also focus on the economic vitality and potential of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area city cluster in south China as a key driver of Chinese modernization and explore development opportunities across various industries in the context of the digital intelligence era, the low-altitude economy, and new quality productive forces.

Other topics will include the protection and inheritance of historical and cultural heritage in the context of modernization, as well as South-South cooperation.

This year's event is co-hosted by the China Institute for Innovation and Development Strategy, the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs and the Guangdong provincial government.

2024 Understanding China Conference highlights reform, shared development

A China Pavilion officially opened on Monday at the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP16) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, highlighting China's decades-long efforts and achievements in combating desertification.

Covering more than 600 square meters, the China Pavilion is the second-largest national pavilion at the event. Its exhibition, themed "Cross-Century Green Great Wall, China's Restoration in Action," showcases the nation's battle against desertification, particularly through the Three-North Shelter Forest Program, a major national initiative aimed at reversing land desertification in its north, northwest and northeast regions by surrounding desert lands with trees and vegetation.

Addressing the opening ceremony, UNCCD Deputy Executive Secretary Andrea Meza Murillo praised China's significant contributions to curbing its desertification, including controlling the expansion of the Taklimakan Desert in west China, the world's second-largest shifting sand desert.

She emphasized that effective policies, community and local government involvement, as well as innovation and technology, are key components of China's success.

"The example of what the government of China is doing in restoring land, in combating desertification, means a lot to humanity. It is inspiring and remarkable to see that China has already achieved land degradation neutrality ahead of time by restoring 50 percent of curable degraded sandy land. This is amazing. It's clear that we need good leadership, good policies, engagement of the society, engagement of national governments. It's really good to see this engagement, and of course, innovation is technology, it's traditional knowledge, and this is what we are seeing in the China experience," said Murillo.

COP16, held from Dec. 2 to 13 under the theme "Our Land. Our Future," is the largest UN land-focused conference to date and the first UNCCD COP in the Middle East and North Africa.

China Pavilion opens at UN conference on desertification held in Riyadh