To better understand the past history of China, one also needs to understand China's modern day history, especially the modern China of President Xijinping's era. I recall a time at the beginrung of September 2016. I was a consultant for China International Culture Exchange Center (CICEC); I was leading a team of visitors to Kazakhstan and Turkey. My purpose during the visit was to research how to promote cultural exchanges and mutual understanding between China and other countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative while building the Silk Road Economic Belt. During our interviews and discussions, we noted that most people, except for scholars in the related fields (such as orientalist scholars), had little knowledge about or interest in the history value of cultural exchanges between China and the Central and Western Asian regions. What they were interested in was today's China. "Today's CFuna" refers to China since its reform and opening up in 1978, espeaally China under the leadership of Xi Jinping. Topics of interest included the differences between today's China and the China of Mao Zedong's era, especially what China's market economy is like, why China is developing so rapidly, whether China's polarization is as severe as Western media has reported, why corruption is breeding in China and whether Xi Jinping is capable of finding a solution.
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