On June 12, to celebrate the 41st anniversary of the friendship between Hangzhou and Boston, a cultural and tourism promotion conference "The Most Memory of Hangzhou", hosted by Hangzhou Municipal People's Government and supported by the China Tourism Office in New York and the Boston Metropolitan Area Tourism Organization "Meet Boston", was successfully held in East Boston, USA. The conference was successfully held in Boston. Huang Ping, Consul General of China in New York, Chen Xinhua, Vice Chairman of Hangzhou Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), Senator Edward of Massachusetts, Boston Mayor's Special Representative and Deputy Director of the Department of International Relations Colin Coughlin, President of “Meet Boston” Chariton and Board of Directors of “Meet Boston”, and Director of the Department of Tourism, Sports and Recreation of the City of Boston, Mr. Boldt et al, delivered speeches at the conference. More than 100 guests from Boston, New York and Philadelphia attended the event.
Huang Ping combined with personal experience to deliver a speech, centered on "beautiful", "rich", "open", "innovation". Around the four key words to tell the story of high-quality development of contemporary Hangzhou. He said that Hangzhou has enjoyed the reputation of "Paradise on Earth" since ancient times, with natural and humanistic landscapes complementing each other, and the organic integration of tradition and modern development. Hangzhou has always been an affluent place in China, with rich material and cultural resources. In recent years, it has maintained a high speed of development, and its per capita GDP has reached about twice the per capita level of China. In the process of accelerating its opening to the world, Hangzhou successfully hosted the 2016 G20 Summit and will also host the 19th Asian Games in September this year, and now has 31 sister cities around the world, of which Boston is the second to be twinned with Hangzhou. As one of the earliest cities in China to embrace the digital economy, Hangzhou has given birth to a number of China's leading Internet companies, created many "firsts" in the field of e-commerce, and ranked 14th globally in the city's innovation index. Under the guidance of the new development concept, Hangzhou will surely make more achievements on the road of high-quality development.
Huang Ping pointed out that Hangzhou is an important city that has witnessed the development of China-US relations. During World War II, pilots of the U.S. Doolittle Raid made a forced landing in the coastal area around Hangzhou and were rescued by the local people, writing a good story of the people of China and the U.S. working side by side for the just cause of mankind. In 1972, the leaders of the two countries reached the Shanghai Communiqué in the State Guest House at the West Lake, which started the historical process of the normalization of relations between the two countries. In 2016, President Xi Jinping met with the then U.S. President Barack Obama in Hangzhou, reaching a series of important consensus. , reaching a series of important consensus. In particular, Hangzhou and Boston were twinned as sister cities in 1982, and have since maintained positive and friendly cooperative relations, becoming a model for China-US friendship cities.
Huang Ping said, China and the United States local cooperation is of great significance. Boston is one of the earliest regions in the United States to carry out trade with China. China in recent years has become an important source of imports and export markets in Boston, the two sides of trade and practical cooperation in various fields for the people of the two countries has brought tangible benefits. Since the outbreak of the epidemic, Hangzhou and Boston have given each other material support to prevent the epidemic, writing a vivid chapter of the people of China and the U.S. looking out for each other and fighting the epidemic together. The Greater Boston area is the area where Chinese students in the U.S. are currently concentrated, and the Boston Dragon Boat Festival has witnessed the history of cultural exchanges between the two countries. We should respond to public opinion and try to build bridges and pave the way for friendly exchanges between the two peoples and remove obstacles. We hope that the Boston area will continue to give full play to its regional advantages and make positive contributions to the development of relations between the two countries and the friendship between the two peoples.
Chen Xinhua said that Hangzhou has been awarded "China's Happiest City" for 16 consecutive years, was named by the United Nations World Tourism Organization as "15 Sample Cities for Global Tourism Best Practices", receives more than 200 million Chinese and foreign tourists every year, and is now working hard to build a "world-class tourist destination", and sincerely invites friends in Boston to come to Hangzhou this year to watch the 19th Asian Games and 4th Asian Para-Games, and to experience the charm of the oriental culture of Hangzhou which is a blend of history and reality.
Representatives of the U.S. side enthusiastically recalled the history of friendly relations between the two cities and expressed that Boston and Hangzhou share a lot of common ground in terms of their beautiful natural scenery, rich cultural heritage and a concentration of renowned universities, and that the two sides have been developing a sister-city relationship with mutual respect and close cooperation since 1982, which has achieved fruitful results. In the future, we hope to continue to strengthen cultural exchanges and tourism cooperation and deepen the understanding and awareness of the two sides, so as to promote the sustainable development of friendship between Boston and Hangzhou.
At the conference, relevant departments and organizations of Hangzhou and Boston also signed the Memorandum of Cooperation on Tourism Development and the Tourism Cooperation Agreement, laying an important foundation for practical cooperation in culture and tourism between the two places. The U.S.-China Business and Tourism Association and Hangzhou Travel Agency Industry Association signed a contract at the promotion meeting, which will strengthen the communication between Hangzhou and the United States, and promote the beauty and culture of Hangzhou to more American people.
The organizer's elaborate Hangzhou cultural tourism promotional video and "The Most Memorable is Hangzhou" on-site special promotion made the guests applaud, and they all said that this was the most beautiful introduction they had ever seen, and that they must go to visit Hangzhou. On the periphery of the venue, Hangzhou also carefully arranged Song painting, folk music, incense, Chinese dress, tea and other exquisite and elegant experience of China's outstanding traditional culture area and "De Shou Palace red wall" card area, attracting guests to stop to appreciate, take pictures.
