At the invitation of Sister Cities International (SCI), Vice President Xie Yuan visited the U.S. from July 30th to August 3rd . He participated at the 62nd SCI annual conference in Aurora, Colorado. Prior to that he visited California to attend the opening of Politics and Pop Culture of First Ladies Fashion Exhibition at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda and meet with President Jerrold Green of the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles.
Themed as “Cities Leading the Way”, the SCI annual conference attracted more than 500 participants from 15 countries, including elected officials, sister cities and community leaders, scholars, business executives and youth leaders. As a special sub-forum of this year’s conference, the “Silk Road Track” gathered speakers from the U.S., Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzsta to talk about how to do a better job for sister cities of the relevant countries along the Silk Road. Vice President Xie delivered a speech as the guest speaker. He introduced the ancient Silk Road and its major features including openness and inclusiveness, peace and cooperation, mutual benefit and win-win. He also introduced the “Belt and Road”Initiative (BRI) and its achievements during the past five years. He emphasized how to promote sister cities work and deepen people-to-people bond through the BRI platform. Participants spoke highly of Vice President Xie’s speech and expressed their willingness to join the BRI, and conduct more practical cooperation in the fields of sister cities, education, people-people exchanges, so as to make tangible benefits to local citizens. Vice President Xie also held meeting with board members of SCI and exchanged ideas on co-hosting the Fourth U.S.-China Friendship Cities Conference next July.
Over 100 people from political, business and other social sectors of southern California attended the opening of the exhibition at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library. The exhibition featured the red coat wore by Mrs. Pat Nixon on her 1972 trip to China, and thus China-US relationship was a highlight at the opening event. Vice President Xie Yuan said in his speech, President Nixon’s visit to China opened the door of communication between China and the United States. It is one of the most important events in the world history. Next year will mark the 40th anniversary of the establishment of China-U.S. diplomatic relations. The exhibition will help the American people to understand that important part of history in China-U.S. relations, and encourage people to treat China-U.S. friendly relationship in a more prudent way.
When meeting with President Jerrold Green of the Pacific Council on International Policy, the two sides discussed about the plan of co-hosting China-U.S. Relations Conference in the U.S. next year.
