Contributing wisdom and power to China-Latin America cooperation

It is a great pleasure to gather with old and new friends in the beautiful city of Santiago. The China-Latin America Media Summit is held at a historical moment when Chinese President Xi Jinping is paying a state visit to three Latin American countries and attending the 24th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting. Against such a background, holding the media summit under the theme of "Media Organizations Working Together for Better China-Latin America Cooperation" and having discussions for common development is of great and special significance. On behalf of China's State Council Information Office, I would like to extend my warm welcome to all attendees and heartfelt gratitude to all parties for their hard work in preparing for the summit.

Despite the long distance between China and Latin American and Caribbean countries, their peoples have enjoyed natural amity and long-standing friendliness. In recent years, Chinese President Xi Jinping has visited Latin America three times and had frequent meetings and close contacts with Latin American and Caribbean leaders at major international conferences and other occasions, and together they reached extensive consensuses on a range of issues of common concern. China and Latin America have formed a comprehensive partnership of equality, mutual benefits and common development, and both sides are working hard to create a new "five-pronged" landscape featuring political sincerity and trust, win-win economic and trade cooperation, cultural mutual learning, coordination in international affairs, and reciprocal promotion between overall cooperation and bilateral relations. China-Latin America cooperation in various fields has maintained high-level and high-speed progress.

China and Latin America couldn't have achieved such good relations today without the efforts of their media, which have paid more attention and reported more intensively on each other in recent years. Chinese media have reported on Latin America's economic transformation and its pragmatic cooperation with China in support of its reinvigoration and collective rise. During the Rio Olympic Games, Chinese reporters showed Chinese audiences the social progress and improving lives of people in Latin America, either through written or televized reports. Mainstream Latin American media such as Brazil's Folha de Sao Paulo, Argentina's Agencia TELAM, Mexico News Daily and Chile's American Economy magazine also produced in-depth coverage of the G20 Hangzhou Summit held in China, and worked with major Chinese media like Xinhua News Agency, China Daily and CCTV in such aspects as the provision of reports and the production of special pages. Their rich and vibrant joint reports received a good response. Such media reports have deepened the understanding and friendship between Chinese and Latin American people and laid a solid foundation among the public for the development of bilateral relations.

To keep pushing forward China-Latin American relations in the new era, the media on both sides have to pool their wisdom and power. In today's society, the media is an important force that can guide public opinion, influence government decisions and promote people-to-people understanding. It should give full play to its advantages and play a constructive and conducive role in promoting China-Latin America cooperation.

The media should facilitate progress in China-Latin America relations. Media relations and public opinion are, in a way, the barometer of state-to-state relations, and the media plays an important role in shaping international relations and people's sentiments. The Chinese and Latin American media should bear firmly in mind the general direction of China-Latin America friendliness and common development and take concrete steps to shoulder their responsibility and fulfill their mission. They should proactively guide public opinion, promote the win-win concept, advocate development, and explain the significance and broad prospects of bilateral cooperation, so as to inject new vitality and energy into China-Latin America relations. There have been voices in the international community that derogate the cooperation and friendliness between China and Latin America, which is all the more reason why we should coordinate our stances and work together to be an objective and just voice in response to those misinterpretations, in a bid to create a favorable public environment for China-Latin America relations.

The media should promote China-Latin America pragmatic cooperation. We noticed that many scholars in Latin American think tanks have held discussions and released reports about China-Latin America cooperation recently. They pay close attention to the China model, feel happy to see China's transformation, and believe Latin America can learn from China's experience in a wide range of areas including making macro plans, developing state-owned enterprises, pushing technological innovations and strengthening social governance, and can fully tap the opportunities presented by China's economic transformation. Generally speaking, a growing number of scholars have adopted a rational view of China-Latin America cooperation and have good expectations for it. That's the mainstream viewpoint, and is also the inevitable trend meeting the people's wishes. Chinese and Latin American media should seize the momentum of win-win cooperation and common development, set topics conducive to that, widely disseminate the alignment of China's and Latin America's develop ment strategies under the "1+3+6" framework of pragmatic cooperation, and strive to expand common ground and interest convergence. Cooperation between China and Latin America will be a process of mutual accommodation and adaptation. We should look at it rationally and carry out more objective and accurate reports to enhance trust and dispel doubts. The media should clearly report on each other's investment policies, market demand and interests, deliver more comprehensive, specific and friendly information to each other, and set the tone of sincerity, friendliness, openness and inclusiveness for China-Latin America cooperation.

The media should foster China-Latin America friendliness. Friendly cooperation between China and Latin America requires the active participation of people on both sides and the strong support from all walks of life. An important function and advantage of news media is that they can see far from a high perspective and unite forces. I hope Chinese and Latin American media can strengthen their planning and design, actively set topics, launch extensive discussions, and mobilize the government, enterprises, public and social organizations to take concrete actions to push forward the China-Latin America friendly cooperation. We should take the opportunity of the "Year of China-Latin America Cultural Exchange" in 2016 to consolidate our traditional policy coordination, dialogue, exchanges and production cooperation. More than that we should innovate in our way of communication and launch a batch of special programs. For instance, we can carry out the "contest on the history of China-Latin America exchanges" and "China, Latin-America image survey" on social media and mobile devices, in a bid to deepen the mutual understanding and recognition between our peoples and cultivate a better social and public atmosphere for bilateral relations.

While Chinese President Xi Jinping has been paying state visits to Ecuador, Peru and Chile and attending the 24th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, Chinese media have continuously released a lot of reports and programs on the friendly collaboration between China and Latin America. Meanwhile, we were happy to see that many Latin American media have paid close attention to President Xi's visit. They selected excellent reporters to cover the event, stepped up their reporting scale, and prioritized the visit in their news pages, programs and time arrangements, making great efforts through a range of approaches to maximize the effect of the visit. We value very much your important position and influence in the local media circle, and it is our hope that Chinese and Latin American media will continue to report on President Xi's visit with good efforts and jointly create a favorable public atmosphere. To that end, I hereby put forth three suggestions.

First, please extensively deliver the important messages sent by President Xi's visit. President Xi Jinping's visit to the three Latin American countries and attendance at the APEC Meeting is a hotspot topic not only in Latin America, but in the whole world. During the visit, President Xi gave several important speeches at a number of major events. He expounded on a range of new concepts, policies and measures aimed at advancing China-Latin America relations in the new era, put forward China's policy propositions and initiatives on strengthening economic governance and boosting economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region, and provided the most authoritative information and views on China's economic trend, a topic of much concern to the rest of the world. Reporting on important international events and delivering momentous news is where the media's value lies. Please continue to focus on President Xi's visit to Latin America, keep tapping valuable content and meet the news demand in Latin America and the world at large to the largest extent.

Second, please strongly introduce the substantial and practical outcomes of President Xi's visit. The visit by President Xi this time not only promoted political trust and deepened traditional friendship, but also aimed for long-term collaboration and people's well-being. China and Latin America launched a group of major projects and agreements concerning the alignment of development strategies and production capacity cooperation, and achieved bountiful cooperation outcomes in such fields as energy, infrastructure construction, agriculture, manufacturing, technological innovation and IT. They concern the most fundamental and important strategic issues of both sides as well as the most immediate and realistic interests of their peoples. I call on you to report more on the outcomes of China-Latin America pragmatic cooperation, and find more news with value for the economic, social and livelihood improvement of both sides.

Third, please work together to create excellent reports. President Xi's visit has driven China-Latin America cooperation across the board, ranging from economy and trade to cultural exchanges, from government measures to corporate actions, from bilateral communication to multilateral collaboration, and from national stance to public perception. These provide many fresh topics and interesting stories for the Chinese and Latin American media to work on, and create a precious opportunity of dialogue and cooperation for them. I hope the media on both sides can take President Xi's visit as an opportunity to work closer together, carry out joint reporting, coordinate their voices on mainstream international social media, and record more lively stories and brilliant moments together.

The first China-Latin America Media Summit is an event of pioneering significance. It marks the primary establishment of a high-level media dialogue mechanism between China and Latin America and leads their media exchange and cooperation into a new age. As an old Chinese saying goes, "high mountains and long rivers are formed through long years of accumulation". Promoting China-Latin America media cooperation is a long-term mission, for which we need to make and implement plans carefully and take solid steps. Here I would like to propose several suggestions.

First, we should keep enhancing dialogue and communication between the Chinese and Latin American media authorities, and maintain policy communication, information sharing and action coordination. Second, we should consolidate and expand existing projects between Chinese and Latin American media, including swapping reports, supplying page and video contents, conducting joint interviews and co-producing programs, and strive to elevate our pragmatic cooperation with more and more innovative ways. Third, we should carry out the China-Latin America media mutual visit program, under which we can invite more reporters and editors from each side, especially young media professionals, to visit or work short term in the other. Fourth, we should adapt to the trend of interconnected media development and step up mutual learning in the research, application and management of new media, so as to help Chinese and Latin American media become more capable and competitive.

I hope that media colleagues here will have candid and full exchange of views and contribute more insights and visions to the friendly relation and media cooperation between China and Latin America.

At last, I wish the first China-Latin America Media Summit a complete success!

The author is executive deputy director of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and director of the Cultural Progress Advancement Office of the CPC Central Committee. The article is an excerpt from his address at the China-Latin America Media Summit held in Santiago on Tuesday.