Recently, Sun Ye, Secretary-General of the Leading Party Members Group and Director of Shenyang Foreign Affairs Office as well as President of Shenyang People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, led a working group to Beijing and met with Yuan Mindao, Vice President of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC).

Sun Ye expressed gratitude to the CPAFFC for its long-standing guidance and support for the work of Shenyangon people-to-peoplediplomacy. She gave a detailed briefing that since the 4th Council of Shenyang PAFFC took office, centering on building Shenyang into an international centercity in NortheastAsia, tangible progress has been made in serving China’s overall foreignaffairs agenda, optimizing the layout of international friendshipcities, deepening people-to-people bonds between China and foreign nations and strengthening the development of councilmembers.It is the hope that CPAFFC would offer further guidance and support to fuel the advancement of the cause of Shenyangon people-to-people diplomacy, help Shenyang host and participate in more international events, attract high-level foreign delegations and major diplomatic activities, thus accelerating Shenyang’s development into aninternational centercityin NortheastAsia and delivering highlevel openingup and highquality growth.

Yuan Mindao spoke highly of the fruitful outcomes of the work of Shenyang on people-to-people diplomacy. He commended Shenyang’s down-to-earth measures in proactively undertaking key tasks assigned by CPAFFC, improving the institutional framework and promoting exchanges and cooperation across diverse fields. In particular, he praised Shenyang for capitalizing on outcomes from the SCO Forum on People-to-People Friendship and Forum on Friendship Cities, successfully concluding friendship city agreements with Yekaterinburg and Kursk of Russia, and innovating international communication via new media platforms.

He stated that the CPAFFC will keep responding to Shenyang’s revitalization driven development and opening up related needs and scale up resource driven support. It is the hope that drawing on its geographical strengths and industrial features, Shenyang would systematically arrange international exchanges covering culture, sports, tourism, economy and trade, while leveraging state-level and international platforms to present Shenyang’s stories and spread its voice to the outside world. Meanwhile, Shenyang should further deepen friendship city cooperation, take an active part in city-to-city interactions under frameworks including United Cities and Local Governments, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, China-CEEC cooperation, RCEP and the Belt and Road Initiative, so as to fully unleash the aggregating effect of these platforms.

The working group also held exchanges with the Department of Cultural Exchange and Department of American & Oceanian Affairs, discussing ways to expand friendship city resources in Latin American countries, streamline foreign exchange channels and pool high quality foreign affairs resources. Consensus was reached on helping Shenyang further enlarge its global network of friends, diversify platforms for people-to-people diplomacy and consolidate the foundation for opening up.