Weekly News Collection

SILK ROAD
Silk Road sheds light on international exchanges
The fifth China-Canada Cultural Dialogue was recently held in Dunhuang, northwestern China’s Gansu Province. Participants in the forum exchanged ideas on innovating means of cultural creation, interpretation, expression and communication. Cultural exchange is able to bring people closer together, and Dunhuang will become another bridge for China-Canada cultural exchanges, said Sheila Copps, former deputy prime minister of Canada and a senior consultant at the Canadian International Cultural Funds. Zhang Xiantang, deputy director of the Dunhuang Research Academy, said the spirit of the Silk Road includes peaceful exchange, equal communication, inclusiveness, mutual learning, mutual benefit and win-win cooperation. The spirit of the Silk Road once drove exchanges among peoples of different ethnicities and religious beliefs in Eurasian areas. This spirit still has historical value and can provide valuable lessons to guide international exchanges today, Zhang said. 

ECONOMY
Shenzhen, Harbin cooperate to boost Northeast China
At a recent forum in Harbin, scholars suggested strengthening cooperation between Shenzhen and Habrin. Paired cooperation is an important policy in the latest phase of the strategic revitalization of Northeast China and other old industrial bases, said Song Xibin, mayor of Harbin. Harbin has established a partnership with Shenzhen, which focuses on exchange and cooperation in such major areas as industrial development, scientific and technological innovation, and industrial park development, Song said. Harbin and Shenzhen are respectively the northern and southern window for development within the framework of the “Belt and Road” initiative. Cooperation between the two is instrumental in promoting the initiative and revitalizing Northeast China, said Tong Zhangshun, deputy director of the Department of Northeastern Region Revitalization under the National Development and Reform Commission.  

ARCHITECTURE
Architecture to stress aesthetics, not just function
The seventh International Symposium on Teaching and Research of the History of World Architecture was held from Sept. 9 to 10 in Guangzhou. Architecture was once seen as the mother of art, but today the history of architecture has gradually become estranged from the history of art, said Wu Qingzhou, an architecture professor from the South China University of Technology. As society develops and industrializes, the practical function of a building becomes increasingly emphasized, weakening the bonds between architecture and art, said Liu Songfu, an architecture professor from the Harbin Institute of Technology. Chen Yuheng, a young scholar from Southeast University, said China’s first generation of modern architects integrated Chinese and Western ideas into their artistic tastes and architecture styles. Traditional Chinese aesthetic philosophy and Western classical aesthetics have different, often conflicting value orientations, creating, to some extent, more possibilities, Chen said.

HISTORY
Multidisciplinary approach to Jun Porcelain study
Jun Porcelain, with the main kiln site located in Yuzhou City, Central China’s Henan Province, was a famous school of porcelain. Recently the General History of Jun Porcelain was published in Yuzhou city. Zhang Jinwei, curator of the Yuzhou Jun Kiln Museum, said the history of ceramics is an important part of the history of Chinese tangible culture. Ceramics are synthetic products of science, culture and art. The form, decoration, glaze, function and artistic style of a ceramic work is closely related to the society, economy, culture, technology, art as well as the lifestyle and geographical resource of the times when it is made, Zhang said. A multi-angled and multidisciplinary study of ancient ceramics will help to restore the historical truth and date these artifacts, he added.