BEIJING, November 30. /TASS/. Humanitarian relations and cultural exchanges between Russia and China are rapidly rebounding after a three-year forced hiatus due to COVID-19, First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council's Committee on Foreign Affairs, former Russian Ambassador to China Andrey Denisov told TASS.

"The China-Russia Friendship Committee for Peace and Development is a body that promotes and encourages 'people's diplomacy' and humanitarian ties that help create a suitable background and public mood in favor of developing relations with this or that country. I must say that the work of our committee is picking up after a forced pause of almost three years due to COVID-19, and now what is happening in Beijing is an obvious indicator that we are slowly restoring and even beginning to build up [the potential for cooperation]," the diplomat said.

Humanitarian ties and exchange of best practices

According to Denisov, the development of humanitarian ties and exchanges between Russia and China will include many joint projects in music, cinema, theater and sports.

"Yesterday, at a meeting with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, we talked about a number of quite serious projects, first of all in the sphere of cultural and sports cooperation. There is some interest from the Chinese audience in Russian culture and music," the diplomat pointed out, adding that the Russian audience, in turn, is also interested in knowing more about the works of Chinese directors and productions.

The lawmaker also noted that despite the differences in the political systems of Russia and China, the exchange of best practices in legislative issues could be useful from a practical point of view.

"The systems in Russia and China are different - in China there is the Communist Party of China as the core of the political mechanism. In Russia, there are many parties, but they cannot be called the core - they are rather a system-forming mechanism. <...> In terms of legislative practice, Russia is very interested in China's experience from the economic point of view. Since the Chinese economy is a very complex mechanism, it is not easy to regulate it. There is a lot of experience in this regard, and this experience, judging by the pace of economic development over the past ten years, is positive. At the same time, the role of legislation and legal regulation [in China's economic development] is extremely large," the former Russian ambassador to China said.

The China-Russia Friendship Committee for Peace and Development is an intergovernmental non-governmental organization established in 1997 by the leaders of the two countries. Its 14th plenary meeting kicked off in Beijing on November 30.