President Li Xiaolin met with co-founders of US Global Creative Cities Coalition (GC3) and representatives of the city of Long Beach in Los Angeles, California, USA on May 25.

President Li said that this year marks the 40th anniversary of the China-US diplomatic relations. The bilateral relationship is currently undergoing some challenges. Yet at difficult times like now, efforts from non-governmental organizations like GC3 are even more needed in carrying out people to peole exchanges between the two countries, so as to win popular support for the sound development of the bilateral relations.

Barry R. Sedlik, co-founder of GC3, introducted that the coalition together with the city government of Long Beach will co-host 2019 Ping Pong Fit International Festival by the end of coming August. Chinese cities are warmly welcomed to join the festival. The coalition hopes to strengthen exchanges and cooperation between US and China in fields of culture, arts and education through this event.

David Zanatta, parks and recreation commissioner of the city of Long Beach reiterated the great importance Long Beach attached to China over the past years. Next year, the city is going to celebrate its 35th anniversary for the sister city relationship with Qingdao city. Zanatta hopes that the US-China trade tensions could be resolved in an early date, so that the bilateral friendly and cooperative relations could make new headways.

Photographed by Zhang Yang