On December 16^th, commemorative events of “China-Korea Communication Year” were held in Qingdao city of Shandong province. Zhang Xu, Chinese vice culture and tourism minister, Ling Wen, vice Shandong governor, Zhu Peiji, Qingdao vice mayor, and consul general of Korea in Qingdao participated in the event and delivered speeches. Jang Ha-sung, Korean ambassador to China, gave a speech through video. Feng Chuntai, counsellor of the Asian department of the Foreign Affairs Ministry , Huang Hongguang, vice secretary of Shandong People’s government, and Wang Lei, director of Shandong provincial cultural and tourism department, attended the event.

    Zhang Xu said that holding “China-Korea Cultural Communication Year” was an important agreement reached by Chinese president Xi Jinping and Korea president Moon Jae-in, proving their care for China-Korea relationship and their attention payed to cultural exchanges. Since the pandemic, the two countries had been supporting each other to overcome difficulties, which was exactly the interpretation of an old Chinese saying meaning that “if people have the same belief, being in different countries is not a problem for their relationship”. Exchanges in different fields had been suffering from temporary difficulties due to the pandemic, but complementary advantages in all aspects indicated great potential and bright future. He sincerely hoped that “China-Korea Cultural Communication Year” could be an opportunity to enhance cultural exchanges and tourism cooperation, so as to create a better future for two countries’ cultural exchanges and cooperation and to inject new vitality to a close strategic partnership.

    Ling Wen said that Shandong and Korea were separated by only a narrow strip of river and we had a long history of exchanges. The next year was the 30^th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relationship between China and Korea, an upcoming historical opportunities for the diplomatic relationship. Shandong would continue to improve it’s practical cooperation with Korea in all aspects; promote two-way communication and push forward people-to-people exchanges, so as to realize win-win cooperation.

    Zhu Peiji said that the recent years had seen increasing cooperation in economy, trade, culture and tourism between Qingdao and Korea, so Qingdao had become an important bridge of China-Korea friendly exchange. In China, a person would be thought to be mature at his 30^th anniversary. Since China-Korea relationship was about to celebrate it’s 30^th anniversary, Qingdao would strive to be a city more adaptable to open to Korea and enhance it’s exchanges with different cities in Korea, so as to contribute more to China-Korea friendly exchanges and to the welfare of people in the two countries.

    Jang Ha-sung said that China and Korea were close geographically and culturally. In the last nearly 30 years since the establishment of the diplomatic relationship, the two countries had been having continuously improvement in economy, diplomatic relation, culture, tourism and other areas. Cultural communication was a thriving driving force to push forward the relation. He hoped that the 30^th anniversary would be an opportunity to launch cultural communication, to improve mutual understanding, to promote friendship and to prepare for the 30^th anniversary for the diplomatic relationship, so as to develop our relationship.

    Consul general of Korea in Qingdao said that the last 30 years had seen rapid development between China and Korea. The communication and cooperation between Shandong and Qingdao had been in the leading position of that between our two countries. He hoped that from now on, culture could served as a connection to enhance the mutual understanding between our people, so as to enhance friendship and to alleviate the diplomatic relationship between our two countries.

    Later, both parties watched the commemorative performance of Qingdao symphony orchestra. It’s an important part organized by Chinese and Korean cultural and tourism departments during the “China-Korea Communication Year”. Qingdao, China·Cheongju, Korea art exhibition was also held in the event.