During his visit to Colombia, a country known to Chinese for the novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude", Premier Li Keqiang brought with him not only entrepreneurs, but also Chinese writers.[Special coverage]
Li is currently on a four-nation visit to Brazil, Colombia, Peru and Chile from May 18 to 26.
At a symposium on China-Latin America cultural exchange in Bogota, Li said China's cooperation with Colombia and broader Latin America is not only at the physical level but also at the spiritual level, and the latter merits even more attention.
China and Latin America have made great headway in political and economic exchanges over the past decade, with trade volume amounting to 263.6 billion U.S dollars in 2014.
Now, more than ever, they must connect spiritually.
Bilateral cooperation has expanded to telecommunications, transportation, nuclear power, infrastructure, finance and other emerging sectors.
Li's visit comes only four months after the Beijing forum between China and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, reflecting China's sincerity in consolidating the relationship.
Building on the momentum, communications between China and Latin American countries will expand considerably in the years to come.
However, the two sides, separated by a vast geographical distance, differences in values, still bear misconceptions about each other.
As ancient Chinese wisdom preaches, ties between countries lie foremost in people-to-people exchanges. Their people need to be brought closer through exchanges on culture and literature, just as Chinese got to know late Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez through his "One Hundred Years of Solitude".
China and Latin America should strive to create dialogues, or heart-to-heart communication, in order to close gaps in knowledge of each others' civilizations and ways of thinking.
Such dialogues serve as a soft cushion to political and economic ties, as well as the bedrock for "a community of common destiny" which was proposed by President Xi Jinping during his visit to Latin America last year.
Such dialogues are particularly needed among the youth.
During President Xi's Latin America visit, he announced 6,000 government scholarships, in addition to a China-based training program for 6,000 people from the region.
China also proposed a "China Latin-America cultural year" for 2016.
The heart-to-heart communication with Latin America introduces to China a world not just divided between the East and the West, but also a world with rich cultural diversity.
When Gabriel Garcia Marquez introduced to the world magic realism with "One Hundred Years of Solitude", he influenced Chinese literature during the 1980s.
Chinese Nobel laureate Mo Yan, who attended the symposium on China-Latin America cultural exchange in Bogota, acknowledged the influence of magic realism in his work.
During this visit, Mo Yan introduced his work to the continent.
It is conceivable that the mutual influence will get increasingly stronger and China will better connect with the Latin America continent spiritually.
