NEW EXPECTATIONS

During the talks with Castro, Xi said that the two sides should promote cultural and people-to-people exchanges to consolidate the popular support for China-Honduras friendship. The establishment of bilateral diplomatic ties has paved the way for the two peoples to strengthen cultural exchanges and enhance mutual understanding.

In May, a delegation of 30 Honduran media professionals visited Shanghai, Guizhou, Chongqing, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and other places in China.

"In the past, my impression of China came entirely from Western media reports. This trip to China allowed me to see the modern urban governance model with my own eyes, which is worth learning from," said Pedro Membreno, editor-in-chief of the Honduran newspaper People's Power.

With the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, Membreno said, the Honduran people now have a growing need for real Chinese information to grasp further knowledge of the country.

"This trip to China helped me feel the harmonious coexistence between the city and the natural environment, which embodied the concept of sustainable development. I will try to let more Hondurans know how socialism makes China prosper in a way that is easy for the audience to understand," said Carlos Mendez, a new media worker in Honduras.

Li Xinwei, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, also bears witness to the rapid development of civil exchanges between the two countries

Since 2015, Li has been working with his Honduran colleagues on a joint archaeological team to excavate the ruins of an aristocratic courtyard in the ancient city of Copan, one of the birthplaces of the Mayan civilization.

"Studying the Mayan civilization would also help us better understand the formation and development of Chinese civilization," Li said.

"There is still a lot of potential for our archaeological cooperation with China, and the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries provides more opportunities for this," said Salvador Varela Martinez, the western region representative of the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History.

Xi himself is also a champion of the diversity of human civilizations. In June 2013, the Chinese president visited the ancient Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza, saying that different cultures and civilizations, while retaining their uniqueness, should be open-minded, tolerant and coexist in peace with each other, thus to achieve common development and prosperity.

In 2016, when delivering a key speech at the Peruvian Congress, Xi called for China and Latin America to carry out people-to-people and cultural exchanges and mutual learning of civilization in order to realize the synchronous development of China-Latin America cooperation at both material and spiritual levels.

Going forward, China, Honduras, and other Latin American countries are poised to further deepen mutual trust, expand cooperation and enhance friendship, so as to promote China-Latin America relations into a new era characterized by equality, mutual benefit, innovation, openness and benefits for the people