Ding Wei: Chinese Culture Center tells good Chinese stories

During the five years from 2007 to 2013, over 10,000 activities were carried out in the 14 centers we put into operation in succession. The overall number of public people directly participating in the activities amounted to several million. Practice has shown that the CCC in service, as an important platform for the “going global” strategy of Chinese culture, has played an irreplaceable role in spreading Chinese culture, demonstrating its soft power and enhancing the international influence of Chinese culture.

Reporter: Compared with other international cultural communication agencies, what unique functions does Chinese Culture Center have?

Ding Wei: The establishment of Chinese Culture Center has become an important symbol of deepening the overall bilateral relations in international communications. Chinese Culture Center is oriented to the mainstream society of the host country. It covers all stratums, around functions of “cultural communication, teaching training, dialogue between ideas, and information service”, carrying out activities on a regular basis, extensively conducting exchanges, promoting and spreading Chinese culture in a comprehensive, balanced and sustainable manner, and providing stable platform for cultural exchanges. This unique advantage has changed the traditional situation of insufficient independent platforms and mostly short-term exchanges in promoting culture abroad, opening a new channel for the international cultural work.

In future, we will progressively build Chinese Culture Center that serves external work in every domestic industry and field, showing our achievements in all respects and our national image of civilization, democracy, openness and progress.

In particular, the “going global” strategy not only includes the promotion of exhibits and performance, but moreover that of the concept, idea and philosophy. Doing a good job in telling Chinese stories, spreading Chinese voices and interpreting Chinese characteristics and values means the real cultural soft power, as well as the important mission of Chinese Culture Center.

Reporter: In terms of strengthening international communication abilities, is there any measure in place?

Ding Wei: We will construct Chinese Culture Center in a more inclusive way with a friendly, genuine and open attitude, and tell Chinese stories in ways and languages that can be understood by the foreigners. While spreading the language, we will combine it with interesting features such as tai chi, martial arts, Chinese medicine health preserving, and gourmet cooking. As for spreading aesthetics, we will focus more on forms containing Chinese culture, such as Chinese painting and calligraphy. At the same time, we will pay more attention to the “human” role of cultural communication, and let culture “go abroad” with the participation of Chinese and foreign cultural celebrities.

Reporter: Can you talk about the prospects of Chinese Culture Center?

Ding Wei: In the future, we will earnestly implement the spirit of the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the CCP, further innovate the work methods, adopt multi-mode ideas in the Chinese Culture Center development, and lead the local, society, folk, enterprise and foreign side to construct Chinese Culture Center to accomplish the planning target as scheduled. Besides, we will actively design and decide according to the conditions of different countries, value the optimization of content quality and layout while accelerating the development. At present, we are trying to cooperate with the municipalities of Shanghai and Tianjin to jointly construct Chinese Culture Center, by taking the advantages of the local human, physical and financial resources. And if this practice proves to be worth spreading, we will try to delegate power locally, expanding the partnership to prefecture-level cities.