CMG president highlights cultural exchanges between China, France

Shen Haixiong, vice minister of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and president of the China Media Group (CMG), highlighted cultural exchanges and cooperation between China and France at the opening ceremony of an Olympic-themed Chinese art exhibition.

The exhibition, titled "From Beijing to Paris: Olympic Tour of Chinese and French Artists," opened at Les Invalides in Paris on Monday.

The event is co-hosted by the CMG, the French National Olympic and Sports Committee, the Ligue de Football Professionnel, and several French art organizations, which coincides with Chinese President Xi Jinping's current state visit to France.

Addressing the opening ceremony, Shen said that the exhibition creates a platform for true, multi-dimensional and panoramic account of China's story through art, showcasing China's artistic achievements on its journey of building modern civilization.

He said that as an international mainstream media, all-media rights-holding broadcaster and the partner of the Paris Organizing Committee for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, which undertakes the most public signal production projects of the Paris Olympic Games, the CMG will send a production and broadcast team of more than 2,000 people to cover the grand sports gathering. Leveraging the latest achievements in "5G+4K/8K+AI," the CMG will complete the international public signal production for the major sports events, serving as the "eyes" for global audiences to appreciate the beauty of the Olympics.

Together with their French partners, the CMG will integrate "thoughts + art + technology" to inject new vitality and energy into the sports field through innovative fusion, contributing to the inheritance of friendship between the two great nations of China and France, and aiming to contribute to the progress of human civilization, world peace, and the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind, said Shen.

At the exhibition, the CMG donated the sculpture "Tong Zhou Gong Du" (literally "cross a river in the same boat") created by Huang Jian, the IOC's Olympic art ambassador and renowned sculptor, to the French Olympic Committee.

Nearly 200 distinguished guests, including French Minister of Culture Rachida Dati, President of the French National Olympic and Sports Committee David Lappartient and President of the French Professional Football League Vincent Labrune, attended the opening ceremony.

The art exhibition showcases over 200 pieces of artworks by more than 100 leading Chinese artists, including Chinese ink wash paintings, calligraphy, oil paintings, sculptures, and pieces of intangible cultural heritage, highlighting the diversity and openness of Chinese art. It is open to the public from May 7 to 18.

CMG president highlights cultural exchanges between China, France

The endangered Tibetan antelopes have started their annual mass migration after the first batch of 47 female Tibetan antelopes passed through the Hoh Xil National Nature Reserve in northwest China's Qinghai Province on May 7.

To protect the rare species that are under top-class state protection, the management team of Hoh Xil in the province's Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture has set up the Wudaoliang protection station along the migration route. As of noon on Sunday, over 700 Tibetan antelopes had been spotted passing through the station.

The Tibetan antelope, known as the "fairies of the plateau", undertakes a migration from May to July each year. Female antelopes from the Sanjiangyuan region of Qinghai, parts of Qiangtang Terrane in Tibet, and the Arjin Mountains in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, would travel to the Zhuonai Lake in Hoh Xil to give birth before returning to their original habitats with their newborns.

"For Tibetan antelopes, we divide them into six species groups according to their geographical distribution. For example, Qinghai and Xinjiang have one group each. For Xizang (Tibet), there are three species groups in the east, central and west of the Qiangtang Terrane. And there is also one group in southern Qiangtang Terrane, which don't migrate," said Lian Xinming, researcher at the Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

With an average altitude of over 4,600 meters, the Hoh Xil Nature Reserve is known as a "no-life zone" due to its thin air and low oxygen levels.

However, it is an important habitat for Tibetan antelopes, which can reach top speeds of up to 80 kilometers per hour while running. Lian explained the reasons behind the antelopes' remarkable speed.

"I think one of the reasons why they run so fast is that they've got underfur. The warmth of its underfur is one of the characteristics of its ability to adapt to alpine cold and high altitudes. The diameter of its fur can be as thin as about one-seventh of our human hair on the temples. Secondly, its has been found in physiology that the hemoglobin of Tibetan antelope has a blood oxygen capacity that is more than 30 percent higher than that of other plain animals, which proves that the same number of red blood cells has stronger ability to carry oxygen. That should enable the Tibetan antelope to reach 70 or 80 kilometers per hour in a short time," Lian said.

After years of conservation efforts, the Tibetan antelope population in the Hoh Xil region has increased from less than 20,000 in the late 1980s to currently over 70,000.

Tibetan antelopes on migration journey to Hoh Xil Nature Reserve