News

Shanghai Consensus on Cities in International Relations
19 Nov 2014 - 15:34

17 November 2014 - Conference participants from Clingendael and three other European and Chinese institutions concluded the Shanghai Consensus on the Role of Cities in International Relations.

The Consensus is one of the outputs of the third annual conference in a multi-year project on public diplomacy and relations between China and Europe. Partner institutions are the Clingendael Institute (The Netherlands), the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa) and the Robert Bosch Stiftung (Germany), the latter acting as the major European funder, and the Charhar Institute (China). The Chinese partner organization is a non-governmental international relations think tank with fellows from top universities.

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_preview","fid":"4750","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"180","style":"width: 180px; height: 180px; float: left;","width":"180"}}]] The 2014 conference in Shanghai, on Oct 31-Nov. 1st, focused on the growing importance of cities in relations between China and Europe. It coincided with the celebration of the first UN World Cities Day and was locally sponsored by the Shanghai Public Diplomacy Association. On this special occasion, Mayor Yang Xiong of Shanghai welcomed a series of parallel conferences in this mega-city of 24 million inhabitants.

 Future collaboration in the framework of the wider project will continue to focus on relations between Europe and China, and place more emphasis on challenges in international security. Next year’s annual conference on the provision of global goods in the context of China-EU relations is scheduled for October 2015. It will be organized under lead of ifa and held on the Berlin premises of the Robert Bosch Stiftung.