By Shen Haixiong
Dear friends,
Bathed in the warm winter sunshine, we welcome 2023, a new year full of promise and expectations. I would like to extend my greetings to you from Beijing!
In 2022, the Communist Party of China (CPC) successfully held its 20th National Congress, setting out the task of and pathways to advancing the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernisation. As a participant, witness and recorder of the new era, China Media Group (CMG) presented the grand and magnificent congress to the world and produced a host of quality features such as "Trailblazer" and "Decoding the Past Ten Years" to tell China's remarkable stories during the past extraordinary decade, winning wide acclaim from audiences at home and abroad.
Over the past year, we have explored the integrated innovation of "Ideas + Art + Technology" to strive for the goal of delivering quality products across our channels, networks and platforms. In broadcasting the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, CMG adopted cutting-edge technologies to present a "Chinese style romance" where the Olympic Spirit mingled with Chinese culture, and the spark of technology lit up ice and snow. International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach praised CMG for the unprecedented scale and success it achieved in covering the Games. Programs produced by CMG, such as "China in the Classics" and "China in Poetry and Painting" are not only an artistic interpretation of lasting Chinese civilization, but also a continuous pursuit that contributes to the diversity of human civilizations. Our shows, like the Spring Festival Gala, the Mid-Autumn Festival Gala and the New Year Gala, have helped inspire enthusiasm for Chinese culture overseas. Our series of screening events of Chinese film and TV programs like "China Documentary Festival" and "The Bond" for Latin American and African audiences have helped build a bridge across civilizations and bring together hearts and minds through the medium of images and films.
In the past year, we held the first CMG Forum, the China-Argentina High-level Forum on Cultural Exchanges, the Chinese-Arab Media Cooperation Forum and other media events with diverse themes to continuously improve our "Media Partners" regional cooperation mechanism, elevating the friendship with our global counterparts through exchanges and interactions. Following the conclusion of the 20th CPC National Congress, we launched a series of 58 overseas media events on "New Journey: China and the World" to discuss the relevance of Chinese modernisation and its significance to the world with friends from different countries, which received support and coverage from more than 2,000 international media outlets.
As President Xi Jinping has emphasised on many occasions, China firmly stands on the right side of history and the side of human progress and strives to contribute Chinese wisdom and solutions to the cause of human peace and development. The capacity for communication is one essential metric for an international media outlet, and truth is the source of vitality of all media organisations.
Over the past year, we have improved our global news gathering network and dedicated ourselves to honing our capability to report on top world news stories. We now broadcast in 68 languages, up from 44, with a coverage of 233 countries and regions. When reporting on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Covid-19 pandemic, we have abandoned prejudices, stayed true to truth and made China's objective and impartial stance and solutions heard by the international community.
In the coming year, we will keep forging ahead with enterprise and fortitude and present new prospects in the new era in China to the international community from multiple perspectives. The coming year also marks the 10th anniversary of the proposal of the Belt and Road Initiative. And we will continue to make friends through media cooperation, advance exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations and shoulder our duty as a responsible media organisation in promoting humanity's shared values and the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.
"Rivers and mountains look lovely on this long day. The spring breeze delivers fragrance of flowers and grass." With the spring coming soon, I again wish you a happy new year filled with health, peace and happiness. Thank you!
* Shen Haixiong is the President of China Media Group.
** This article was first published by CGTN.