China hosts 2025 Media Cooperation Forum on Belt and Road

Over 200 representatives, including 165 media outlets from 87 countries, have gathered in Kunming, southwest China’s Yunnan Province for the 2025 Media Cooperation Forum on Belt and Road. The forum, jointly hosted by People’s Daily, the Communist Party of China (CPC) Yunnan Provincial Committee, and the Yunnan Provincial People’s Government, is themed “Shared Media Responsibility […]

Over 200 representatives, including 165 media outlets from 87 countries, have gathered in Kunming, southwest China’s Yunnan Province for the 2025 Media Cooperation Forum on Belt and Road.

The forum, jointly hosted by People’s Daily, the Communist Party of China (CPC) Yunnan Provincial Committee, and the Yunnan Provincial People’s Government, is themed “Shared Media Responsibility for Exchanges and Mutual Learning among Civilizations.”

During the opening session on Tuesday, Mr. Zheng Jianbang, the Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China; Mr. Wang Ning, the Chairman of Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of Yunnan Province; and Mr. Yu Shaoliang, the President of People’s Daily, as well as other dignitaries in their addresses stressed the need for the media to further strengthen and promote the values of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in their reports with hope of serving as bridges that connect.

They reiterated that while the Silk Road bridges lands and seas, the media connects voices and hearts and both work together to enhance shared prosperity as a pathway to a win-win cooperation benefit for the people.

Together with attendees at the forum, they said that the media should serve as recorders and storytellers of development achievements, continue to report on the practices of Belt and Road cooperation, and help build broad momentum for win-win cooperation.

President Xi Jinping of China proposed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, a development that has achieved fruitful results and grown into a popular international public good and a platform for global cooperation through developments that have fostered closer ties and deeper bonds.

Since its inception in 2014, the Media Cooperation Forum on Belt and Road has been held nine times. It has attracted more than 1,000 representatives from global media outlets and international and regional organizations in over 100 countries and regions, building a broad consensus and momentum for advancing high-quality Belt and Road cooperation.

During the panel discussion on day two, journalists shared their experiences and challenges. Patricia Lubba of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) who was among the panelists on Media Collaboration for High-Quality Belt and Road Cooperation emphasized the challenges that journalists experience in sharing the messages including trust, cultural, and technological differences.

Ben Chacko, the Editor-in-Chief of Morning Star in the UK added that the fear of China overtaking the West as well as the fear of the developing countries becoming indebted to China have jointly been a reason why the impact of BRI is not usually told in Western media.

During the award ceremony, two Nigerian journalists, Lawal Sale, Publisher/Global South Affairs Analyst, and Austin Maho, the Editor-in-Chief of Daybreak Nigeria Newspaper, were among the media representatives that bagged the Second Silk Road Global News Award.

Following the forum, Chinese and international media representatives will proceed on a tour of different provinces and autonomous regions.