China to enhance people-to-people ties during Belt and Road cooperation

BEIJING -- China called for closer people-to-people bond when implementing the Belt and Road Initiative, in a bid to win public support for deepening bilateral and multinational cooperation.

"We should carry forward the spirit of friendly cooperation of the Silk Road by promoting extensive cultural and academic exchanges, personnel exchanges and cooperation, media cooperation, youth and women exchanges and volunteer services," noted an action plan unveiled on Saturday.

In the plan, China suggested participants in the Belt and Road cooperation send more students to each other's countries and promote cooperation in jointly running schools.

The country promised to provide 10,000 government scholarships to the countries along the Belt and Road every year, according to the plan named Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road.

China proposed to hold cultural years, arts and film festivals, TV weeks and book fairs in each other's countries.

"We should enhance cooperation in and expand the scale of tourism," said the plan, calling for further efforts to streamline application for tourist visa in countries along the Belt and Road.

China also urged strengthened cooperation between neighboring countries on epidemic information sharing, the exchange of prevention and treatment technologies and the training of medical professionals.

"We should increase our cooperation in science and technology, establish joint labs (or research centers), international technology transfer centers and maritime cooperation centers," said the plan.

China also called for sci-tech personnel exchanges, cooperation in tackling key sci-tech problems and efforts to improve sci-tech innovation capability.

The Belt and Road Initiative was raised by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visits to Central Asia and Southeast Asia in 2013.