With the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China around the corner, 32 leaders of media organizations from 27 countries along the Belt and Road routes have been invited to visit China. They will not only cover the meeting, but also discuss journalist cooperation mechanisms under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative.
During their stay, they will be introduced to the achievements which China has made in innovation, ecological preservation and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei regional development.
They visited the meeting's press center in Beijing on Oct. 16, and took part in a seminar covering media cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative.
The attendees agreed that the journalists should actively engage with the Belt and Road Initiative, strengthen media exchanges and cooperation, and promote people-to-people communications, so as to enjoy the new development opportunities together.
Eight people in charge of the journalist organizations from Nigeria, Thailand, Myanmar, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Belarus shared their views on the 19th CPC National Congress, Belt and Road cooperation, and media exchanges and cooperation with Chinese reporters.
They introduced that mainstream media outlets in their countries have given special attention to the meeting. The foreign media outlets have not only relied on the Chinese mainstream media for authoritative information, but have also sent their correspondents to cover the widely-anticipated event in Beijing.
According to the reporters, China's relationship with the world is undergoing unprecedented changes, and the influence of the meeting has gone far beyond China's borders and is of wide concern to the international community.
Snezhana Todorova, president of the Union of Bulgarian Journalists, commented that China's influence on the international community is increasing, and that Chinese media has an increasingly large say in the world, which is catching world-wide attention including in Bulgaria.
Sergey Sverkunov, the first deputy chairman of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, points out that China and Belarus have achieved positive cooperation results under the Belt and Road framework. "China helps us to build roads. With the support of Chinese engineers, the roads are of very high quality," he said.
He said Belarus attaches high importance to China's Belt and Road Initiative, and actively supports the implementation of the initiative. "There are no obstacles between the two countries. As long as the two sides put their hearts together, they can achieve a lot of things," he said.
The group of reporters considers that western media coverage of China can easily lead to bias and misunderstanding. Witnessing China's development and changes, they believe, puts them in a better position to report China objectively to their compatriots and introduce China more comprehensively.
According to the press center of the 19th CPC National Congress, more than 1,800 foreign journalists have registered to cover the event in Beijing.