In an old riverside building in Fuzhou, southeast China's Fujian Province, young representatives from BRICS countries gathered on Tuesday to discuss how cultural heritage can be preserved, reinterpreted and shared across borders.

The event, titled the International Youth Talk on the Global Civilization Initiative, was held at Zhuzifang Fund Harbor, a historic area where traditional buildings have been preserved and renovated for modern use.

Organized by the China International Youth Exchange Center and hosted by the Fuzhou Youth Federation, the event aimed to promote cross-cultural understanding and encourage young people from different countries to exchange ideas on preserving traditional culture and exploring new forms of cultural expression through digital technologies.

At the event, Zhang Afeng, vice president of the Fujian Youth Federation, highlighted the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI) and its relevance to exchanges among young people.

Proposed by China in March 2023, the GCI calls for respect for the diversity of civilizations, the promotion of common values of humanity, the importance of the inheritance and innovation of civilizations, and stronger international people-to-people exchanges and cooperation.

Zhang said Fujian has maintained close ties with BRICS countries, with cooperation extending beyond trade to areas including healthcare, education, the marine economy and the digital economy. In 2025, trade between Fujian and BRICS countries accounted for nearly one-fifth of the province's total foreign trade, he noted.

He said the Fujian Youth Federation would continue to build platforms for exchanges between Chinese and foreign young people, encouraging them to use technology as a bridge and civilization as a bond to deepen mutual understanding and pursue shared development.

Dong Lin, an associate professor at Fujian Polytechnic Normal University, introduced the young participants to Fujian's history and cultural traditions, including folk songs and traditional woodcarving.

The discussion that followed focused on two questions: how young people can pass on traditional culture and bring it into contemporary life, and how digital technologies can create new possibilities for cultural expression.

Participants shared examples of using digital supply chains to bring traditional tea culture to modern consumers, as well as applying digital avatars and artificial intelligence to make traditional lacquerware more accessible and interactive. Others discussed the potential of generative AI and augmented reality to lower barriers to cultural participation and enable people from different backgrounds to take part in cultural creation.

The discussions highlighted how young people can serve not only as inheritors of traditional culture but also as drivers of its renewal. Through technology, creative approaches and cross-cultural collaboration, they can help give cultural heritage new forms of expression and make it more relevant to contemporary audiences.

The cultural exchange activities also extended beyond the discussion venue.

A day earlier, the young representatives visited Yantai Hill Historic and Cultural District, known for its blend of Chinese and Western architectural styles. They learned about efforts to preserve and renew its historic buildings, pass on architectural heritage and integrate cultural tourism into urban development.

Marwan Elsafty, COO at Grecem, a tech company in Egypt, told CGTN that cultural exchanges help people from different countries find common ground despite differences in their ways of thinking.

“We have some differences, so we need to find the middle ground. How we can find the middle ground? Just by cultural exchange,” he said.

For Anastasia Semenova, CEO of Russian video technology company ViSaver LLC, exchanges are important because people living in their own countries may not fully understand how others view the same events, opportunities or technologies.

“When we all the time live in one country, in our own country, although it's our motherland and beloved, still we don't know how exactly the same things, the same events, the same opportunities, technologies, they are perceived in other countries, how people in other countries think about the same things,” she said.

Siska Pebiana, a researcher at Indonesia's National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), said learning about different cultures can broaden young people's horizons and help them build friendships across borders. She added that being open-minded and understanding different cultural backgrounds makes it easier to connect with people from other countries.

From exploring historic neighborhoods to exchanging ideas on technology and cultural innovation, the exchanges not only reflected the GCI's emphasis on dialogue and mutual learning among civilizations, but highlighted the role young people can play in keeping cultural heritage alive and finding new ways to share it across borders.