The Chinese often say, “Distance cannot separate true friends who remain close even when thousands of miles apart.”

The activity of “Partnership for Shared Prosperity — Photo Exhibition on the 40th Anniversary of the Sister Cities of Chengdu and Montpellier” was held in the Business & Innovation Center for China-Europe Cooperation (CCEC) on April 18. The event was guided by the Foreign Affairs Office of Sichuan Province, Foreign Affairs Office of Chengdu Municipal People’s Government, Sichuan Daily Press Group, Sichuan Provincial People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, and Sichuan Press Center, sponsored by Sichuan Belt and Road Reports Publishing Co., Ltd., and co-organized by Western Europe and Africa Communication Center of China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration (China Today Magazine), China Region Development & Reform Institute, High Speed Railway Technology, Maison de Montpellier à Chengdu, and École primaire Montpellier à Chengdu. The exhibition will last for one month and is open to the public for free.

Scene of Photo Exhibition on the 40th Anniversary of the Sister Cities of Chengdu and Montpellier

As an old Chinese saying goes, “Friendship, which derives from close contact between the peoples, holds the key to thriving state-to-state relations.” Sister cities play an increasingly significant role in promoting China’s relations, communication, and cooperation with foreign countries. President Xi Jinping delivered an important speech at the China International Friendship Conference that energetic efforts on promoting international sister cities should be made to boost exchanges between Chinese and foreign local governments and enable the sharing of resources, complementary advantages, and win-win cooperation.

In 1981, Chengdu and Montpellier became international sister cities as the first pair in Sichuan Province. Over the past four decades, the two cities have embraced close cooperation in economy, culture, education, and health, creating many “firsts” in the history of China–France exchanges: they are the first pair of sister cities between the two countries; they are the first two cities founding schools named after the other; Montpellier opened its only overseas office in Chengdu—Maison de Montpellier à Chengdu... Two cities have become a resounding success for the exchanges between international cities.

Scene of Photo Exhibition on the 40th Anniversary of the Sister Cities of Chengdu and Montpellier

Since the establishment of relations between Chengdu and Montpellier, Sichuan has expanded its international circle of friends. As of December 2021, Sichuan had established 114 pairs of international sister cities and 304 pairs of international friendly and cooperative cities. Peng Qinghua, secretary of the Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), stated in the 2019 Belt and Road Forum for Cooperation and Development of Sichuan International Friendship Cities that under the driving force of the Belt and Road, sister city activities function as an important platform for opening up to the outside world, an important carrier of city diplomacy, and important content of people-to-people diplomacy to facilitate intensive government and non-government cooperation and make positive contributions to enhancing the friendship between two sides, benefiting local society and developing state-to-state relations.

Testimony to cooperation achievements over the 40 years

In April, Chengdu is imbued with a flowery urban landscape. The Photo Exhibition kicked off in CCEC, a landmark skyscraper in Chengdu positioned as a national platform for the opening up and cooperation with Europe. The one-month exhibition held both online and offline aims to allow people in the two countries to gain a comprehensive and intuitive understanding of the 40-year exchanges and cooperation between Chengdu and Montpellier. Through this activity, Chengdu citizens can also appreciate the charm of Montpellier far apart without traveling overseas.

In May 2016, teachers and students of École primaire Montpellier à Chengdu visited École primaire Chengdu de Montpellier

The exhibition is tripartite: Work Together and Seek Common Development, Exchanges and Mutual Learning Between Distant Friends, and Cross Time and Space Toward the Future Together. It has displayed more than 100 photographic works and children’s paintings, each of which marks the highlights of exchanges and cooperation between the two cities, the important evidence of the profound friendship between the two cities, and the token of commitments of the two cities to making joint efforts to pursue mutual benefit and win-win results and build a community with a shared future for mankind.

The section of Work Together and Seek Common Development exhibits close cooperation in such fields as economy, trade, culture, healthcare, and education. Among the showpieces, a group of pictures of medical cooperation vividly show the exchange and learning of personnel between the two cities, the mutual learning of medical technology, and the diversified cooperation based on the combination of traditional Chinese medicine and western medicine. The mutual assistance of international sister cities is particularly precious in the post-pandemic era.

Copious medical cooperation achievements between Chengdu and Montpellier

Photo as window

Around the corner is a group of photos of FISE. Each photo looks cool and is bursting with passion. FISE, which originated in Montpellier, is the French acronym for International Extreme Sports Festival. With increasingly close exchange and cooperation between the two cities, Chengdu introduced the event in 2014 and held the first FISE World Series the same year. As of 2019, Chengdu had held six sessions of the event. Each session attracted the world’s top extreme athletes to gather in Chengdu, greatly promoting the process of building Chengdu into a famous city for international sports events.

These photo are like windows that allow Chengdu people to get an impression of exotic and living scenes: boys and girls on bicycles, bookstalls and fruit stalls in the streets, open-air cafes everywhere... Montpellier is known as the sun-kissed city. People there embrace the relaxed pace of life as Chengdu citizens do. The similar slow lifestyle and the optimistic and open-minded character narrow the distance between the cultures and peoples in the two cities.

Maison de Montpellier à Chengdu, as a bridge of cooperation and exchange between Chengdu and Montpellier, regularly holds various cultural exchange activities such as “Dialogue between Chinese and French Literature and Art”, “Red Wine Tasting”, and “Film Salon”. Responsible person Li Xiaoyu said at the exhibition site that Maison de Montpellier à Chengdu will provide more cultural exchange platforms for Chengdu citizens and French nationals in Chengdu to deepen mutual trust and friendship between the peoples of the two cities.

delegation of Montpellier visits Chengdu

Looking into the promising future

Children are the future and hope. Among the exhibits, there are more than 30 children’s paintings, all of which were made by the students of École primaire Montpellier à Chengdu. The school is a model of educational cooperation between China and France. It was jointly granted the “Award of Cooperation between Chinese and French Local Governments” by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China and the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs in 2016 and was included in the Memorandum on China–France High-level People-to-people and Cultural Exchange Mechanismin 2018.

Lin Cunfen, a teacher from the school, said on the exhibition site that the school carried out extensive interaction with the Montpellier academic community, even during the pandemic. The pictures of “Sister City in My Heart” drawn by children with their wild imaginations are the finishing touch of the exhibition of friendship between Chengdu and Montpellier.

The rapport between the two cities builds a broad platform for international cooperation, functions as the ties of close exchanges and mutual learning, and gathers the great strength of mutual trust and friendship. Let’s co-create a prosperous and promising future.