Last October, the Yunnan Daily Press Group and The Pioneer of India launched the first jointly edited English news page—China•Yunnan in India. Since then, Indian readers have had the opportunity to learn about both Yunnan and China through the news page every week.

Yunnan province and South and Southeast Asia are close to each other geographically, and are intimately connected by people-to-people bonds. The regions also enjoy similar cultural backgrounds. Taking advantage of these assets, Yunnan province has organized a series of annual events in recent years. These include the China-South and Southeast Asia Art Week, the Lancang-Mekong River Basin National Culture and Arts Festival, the South and Southeast Asia Mainstream Media Yunnan Tour and the China-South Asia Think-Tank Forum. In addition, Yunnan province has organized extensive regional film and television exhibitions, sporting events, calligraphy, painting and photography exhibitions and other cultural activities. All of these events have greatly promoted a feeling of mutual cultural trust and fostered people-to-people exchanges between the province and the countries from South and Southeast Asia.

Yunnan media is expanding its overseas presence at an accelerated pace. For example, Yunnan Daily Press Group has carried out cooperative efforts with mainstream media in more than ten countries, and has successively released 13 China•Yunnan news pages in Chinese, English, Indonesian, Burmese and Cambodian in newspapers published in the United States, Indonesia, Myanmar, Bangladesh and four other countries.

Educational exchanges too have become an important instrument for cultural exchanges. To date, Yunnan higher education institutions have set up 12 Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms in foreign countries. Yunnan province’s 43 higher education institutions now offer 62 minority language programs to 81,900 students. From 2012 to 2016, Yunnan province also held five “Chinese Bridge” language proficiency competitions for foreign secondary students.