China is an excellent example of innovation, of progress and of technology transformation, said a group of international youth.

They were speaking at the closing ceremony of the 2024 Future Close-Up event, a youth exchange program jointly hosted by the China international Communications Group (CICG) Center for the Americas, the Hong Kong Federation of Liaoning Associations, and the Marketing and Public Relations Department of Tencent, on June 20.

Twenty-seven participants ranging from entrepreneurs, technologists, scholars to opinion leaders from 21 countries and regions including China, the United States, Russia, Germany, Italy, Thailand and Japan took part in the exchange program.

“We got to see a little bit of the beauty of the convenience of services in China, the technology that can get anything delivered anywhere. But, at the same time, you also feel a little bit of the lives of the people here,” said Ricardo Manuel Barbosa Moreira, a participant from Portugal, and head of Sourcing and Corporate Affairs at OBI Group.

“Just like anywhere else, [China] is trying to find a way, to find a meaningful way, to get the benefits of technology, key developments in areas like social media, computing and artificial intelligence,” said Richard Lorenzo Gray, president and founder of the Open Foreign Policy Initiative and an Indo-Pacific Hub Intern at USAID, as this is his first time visiting China.

“I do think China is an example of innovation, of progress, of fashion... Today, it was actually the beautiful infrastructure. You can notice how much the government has worked on the development of the area,” said Moreno Pisto, a participant from Italy and editor in Chief of the Mow magazine in Italy.

During their weeklong program, participants visited Beijing, Shenyang in the northeastern province of Liaoning, and Xiong’an New Area in Hebei province.

Xu Tong contributed to the story.