On the morning of November 2, Yin Li, Secretary of the CPC Beijing Municipal Committee, met with representatives of international guests for the 2024 Beijing Forum for Performing Arts & Taihu International Stage Art Forum at the Beijing Performing Arts Centre.

Yin Li stated that the Chinese nation has established a splendid civilization and made significant contributions to the progress of world civilization. The Global Civilization Initiative proposed by President Xi Jinping aims to promote the advancement of human civilization and has received widespread support from the international community. Beijing is a city with a long history and profound culture, where tradition and modernity coexist. It is home to a wealth of cultural and artistic resources and serves as an important window for mutual learning between Chinese and other civilizations. As the national cultural center, Beijing is making efforts to build itself into a “city of museums”, a “capital of performing arts”, and a “city of readers”. Through continuous improvement in public cultural services, the city strives to integrate historical culture with modern life, Chinese civilization with world civilizations, allowing the public to experience the progress of the times and and society while enjoying a richer intellectual and cultural life. We are ready to work with all stakeholders to fully leverage the World Association for Performing Arts (WAPA) as a platform, fostering more pragmatic cooperation in areas such as works promotion, theater management, stage design, and talent cultivation. By doing so, we will bring more outstanding international performing arts groups to Beijing. Collaborative efforts should be made to achieve deeper integration of technology and art, continuously enriching artistic expression to better meet the high-quality intellectual and cultural needs of audiences. Additionally, to foster cultural prosperity, it is crucial to create new internationalized performing arts spaces, thereby enhancing cultural exchanges and people-to-people ties among peoples of different nations.

Alex Beard, Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House, spoke on behalf of the foreign guests and expressed his admiration for Beijing’s strong commitment and substantial investment in the development of its cultural sector. He expressed readiness to collaborate with Beijing to promote international exchanges and cooperation in performing arts, thereby contributing to the prosperity and advancement of human civilization.

Municipal leaders Zhao Lei and Sima Hong, as well as Zhang Xu, Chair of the World Tourism Alliance (WTA), and Wang Ning, President of the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) and Chairperson of the WAPA, attended the meeting.

(Written by Qi Mengzhu and Fan Junsheng)