Photo: Cao Siqi/GT

The award ceremony of the Second Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) Short Video Competition was held in Wuhan in Central China's Hubei Province, aiming to share the stories of builders and beneficiaries from countries along the BRI, who help to build a community with a shared vision for the future of mankind; also to highlight Wuhan's re-emergence from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the solidarity converged in the city whilst fighting virus.

The competition, co-organized by the China Public Diplomacy Association, the News Center of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC), and Global Times Online, was held in Wuhan on Friday. 

Themed "Act in Solidarity," the second BRI short video competition continues to focus on the BRI while carrying forward the ideas of planning that were a part of the first competition. By collecting short video stories from builders and beneficiaries, from countries all along the Belt and Road, the competition helps build a community with a shared future for mankind. 

Launched in mid-July and ended at the end of September, the competition received more than 500 entries from nearly 80 countries. After the Organizing Committee's preliminary review, public voting and expert evaluation, the 10 final award winners of this competition were announced.

Seven state-owned enterprises in Hubei received awards in the second BRI Short Video Competition. 

For example, one video submitted by Gezhouba Co tells the story of Naseer from Pakistan, a construction worker from Dasu Dam, a large hydroelectric gravity dam, whose civil works were undertaken by Gezhouba. 

Naseer's work at the Dasu Dam has changed the lives of his family and enables his kids to study at school. 

According to incomplete statistics, the entries of this competition have received more than 300 million views, including nearly 50 million views overseas, providing colorful stories about the Belt and Road to a global audience. The wonderful videos of this competition were not only posted and displayed on the exclusive voting platform Kwai with the hashtag of "#Footprints and Memories#", but also published on Douyin, Bilibili, and Tencent Video, as well as overseas social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok.

The competition has drawn extensive attention since its launch in July, said Wu Hailong, president of China Public Diplomacy Association at the conference. 

He said it was actively joined by Chinese enterprises and their employees in Belt and Road countries, who used their cameras to unfold the touching stories of beating COVID-19 together with local people and joining hands with them to share weal and woe, he noted, adding that the videos demonstrated the characters of the employees of the Chinese enterprises in the Belt and Road countries.

"The short video competition was a concrete action of telling Chinese stories, an example of people-to-people exchanges between China and foreign countries, and also a lively public diplomatic activity," Wu remarked.

"I'm glad to see, through the more than 500 entries of the competition, that great stories are happening every day about the Belt and Road construction," said Zhang Yihao, deputy director of the SASAC News Center, Rong Hanjun, first-level inspector of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Hubei Provincial Committee, adding that he also saw in the videos the resolution and confidence of the people of the whole world to jointly fight the virus and resume production.

He said mutual assistance has always been highlighted in the Chinese culture. In the face of the sudden COVID-19 outbreak, China tried its best to help with the global fight against the virus, passing on the spirit of cooperation, and it also actively assisted global poverty reduction and promoted sustainable development, making concrete actions to implement the BRI vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind, he noted.

Rong said that collecting great stories about how the BRI contributes to the building of a community with a shared future for mankind from Belt and Road constructors and people from the Belt and Road countries, and telling these stories in a way that makes foreign audience feel comfortable accepting, the competition has achieved wide and positive influence both at home and abroad.

He called the second BRI Short Video Competition a hard-won result given the COVID-19 pandemic this year. The award ceremony, held in the heroic city of Wuhan to witness the great stories of the Belt and Road cooperation, bore special significance, he remarked.

Xie Rongbin, deputy editor-in-chief of the Global Times makes a speech at the ceremony. Photo: Cao Siqi/GT

Xie Rongbin, deputy editor-in-chief of Global Times said at the ceremony that Global Times and Global Times Online, as media outlets with both domestic and international influence, have always taken the BRI as a vital topic in their reports over the recent years.

Citing his own experiences of being a journalist in Yugoslavia from 1999 to 2002, during which he personally witnessed the painstaking efforts made by the then-fledgling Chinese enterprises to expand overseas businesses, he said he was delighted to see the growth of these enterprises today when he visited Belt and Road countries for interviews again, though the growth was arduous. 

He said the competition was a bold attempt of the Global Times Online to tell Chinese stories and build a bridge of international economic and cultural exchanges as a media outlet. "Facts proved that our decision is 100% correct," he said.

Huang Zhijin, deputy secretary of CPC China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group Co. compared the BRI Short Video Competition to a "bridge" connecting people and enhancing their friendship, saying China is willing to join hands with and offer mutual assistance to Belt and Road countries and regions to build a bridge of common development in the year of 2020 haunted by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

He emphasized the country will keep enhancing its global competitiveness. On one hand, the "going global" strategy of Chinese enterprises will be accelerated to expand international operation, improve core competitiveness and enhance the hard power of enterprises; on the other hand, efforts will also be made by Chinese enterprises to build brands, shape cultures and display images, so as to improve their soft power and capability of overseas communication, and contribute to the BRI construction, he explained.