Brief look at Henan Province as Xi goes on inspection tour

Henan, the central Chinese province steeped in rich history where Chinese President Xi Jinping made an inspection tour on Monday, is forging a path of all-round development as it writes a new chapter of prosperity in the country’s modernization journey.

Nestled in the heart of China, Henan is often referred to as the birthplace of Chinese civilization. Today, it continues to thrive as a vital agricultural, industrial, and cultural hub, contributing significantly to China's high-quality development.

Covering an area of 167,000 square kilometers, the province was home to 97.85 million permanent residents by the end of 2024, making it one of China’s most populous provinces.

In the first quarter of 2025, Henan's GDP reached 1.49 trillion yuan (about 206.7 billion U.S. dollars), representing a year-on-year growth of 5.9 percent.

As a major agricultural producer, dubbed the "granary of the central plains," Henan plays a crucial role in safeguarding China's food security. Over the years, the province has been leveraging its natural resources to accelerate the development of agriculture in the rural revitalization strategy.

Henan is fostering new quality productive forces based on local conditions and strengths as part of its commitment to innovation-driven industrial growth. With a focus on building advanced manufacturing clusters, the province is accelerating the development of a modern industrial system.

Strategically located at the "crossroads of multiple provinces," Henan is improving its transportation infrastructure to cement its role as a key regional hub and drive economic growth through enhanced connectivity.

Spanning the Yangtze, Huaihe, Yellow, and Haihe River basins, Henan is committed to ecological conservation, building ecological security shields to ensure sustainable development.

With a long and storied history, the province takes pride in preserving and revitalizing its outstanding cultural heritage, promoting cultural prosperity.

Henan remains committed to improving its people’s livelihoods, ensuring that its residents enjoy an enhanced sense of security, happiness, and fulfillment.

Brief look at Henan Province as Xi goes on inspection tour

Indonesia and China are exploring new frontiers in cultural collaboration from museums and stage performances to digital platforms, media and arts, according to Indonesian Minister of Culture Fadli Zon.

"We have 76 years of diplomatic relation. So, I hope that in the near future we can accelerate or strengthen the cultural exchange, the cultural cooperation between our two countries, including the exchange of collection, museums and maybe the film production, co-production. And with the digital platforms that China is very advanced, we can also learn and maybe cooperate in that matter," Zon said at a TV interview during his visit to Beijing late in April.

The minister said artists should leverage innovation and digital platforms to explore new artistic forms.

"We can explore many things with the innovation, with the digital platforms. The contemporary arts, for example, combined with the ancient-rooted civilization that both we have. Like Indonesia, we have the cave painting, the cave art that is the oldest in the world. China also is a long-standing civilization, a living civilization since 5,000 years ago. We need to exchange more in order to have a new form of art and media art. But I think from the contemporary approach and the traditional approach we can find something new," he said.

Zon said both preservation and reinvention are crucial for cultural expression, especially in the digital world.

"We cannot separate between preserving and reinventing, because it's continuity. Preserving means that we need to actualize our intangible cultural heritage and reinventing it, because it's very important for our identity, but also for the expression, the cultural expression, especially in this digital world," he said.

Indonesian minister on cultural collaboration with China