China eyes stronger soft power of culture, says vice premier

China is set to make more efforts to build up its cultural strength in pursuit of the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation, Vice Premier Liu Yandong said in Shanghai on Wednesday.

China will give more attention to cultural development, which has already been made a national strategy, to boost its soft power, and expand cultural and people-to-people exchanges with other countries to open up larger room for reciprocal and win-win cooperation in the world, Liu said as she delivered a speech at the opening ceremony of the third annual conference of the Taihu World Cultural Forum.

The forum is a non-governmental organization founded in China to promote development of the Chinese culture and cross-cultural communications between China and other countries.

Liu said cultural exchanges play an important role in reducing misunderstanding and prejudice as well as enhancing trust between different nations, which helps to promote world peace and development and benefit all the people in the world.

She proposed all nations respect each other and get rid of zero-sum thinking to ensure various cultures co-exist in a harmonious way.

The nations should also lay a solid foundation for cooperation and ensure their people support, participate in and benefit from their friendly relationship, Liu said.

"We should increase dialogue and interactions between different cultures, and carry forward peace and friendship from generation to generation so as to build a harmonious world of enduring peace and common prosperity," said the vice premier.