CRI听力:Cultural exchanges "bridge of friendship" between people from China and U.S.

Ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to China, cultural ties are being promoted as a way to enhance people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States.

An exhibition including artifacts from China's famed "Terracotta Warriors" is set to go on display in the U.S. in under 2 weeks.

The exhibition, entitled "Terracotta Army: Legacy of the First Emperor of China," will open at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts starting from November 18th.

It includes artifacts from 14 museums and archaeological research institutes in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province.

Curator Alex Nyerges says the exhibition provides a good opportunity to introduce Chinese art and history to people in the US.

"Chinese artists, Chinese culture has been making great art for more than 5000 years, and Americans know so little about the continuum of Chinese art history, how unbroken it is, how magnificent it is, and so this exhibition is a way for us to show in Virginia and in America how magnificent that Chinese creative world has been for millennia," says Nyerges.

The Terracotta Warriors are life-sized sculptures produced at the behest of China's first Emperor, Qinshihuang, over 2200 years ago.

They were buried outside the Emperor's mausoleum, with archaeologists suggesting they are meant to protect him in the afterlife.

The site outside the modern-day city of Xi'an is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The exhibition in Virginia is the latest of 48 events put on by the US and Chinese governments since 2009.

Earlier this year, another exhibition featuring Chinese art from the Qin and Han Dynasties dating back some 1800 years was held in New York from April to July, attracting over 300,000 visitors.

China and the U.S. are engaged in multi-level cooperation in cultural and people-to-people exchanges.

Liu Shuguang, deputy head of China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage, says this has been highlighted by a deal between the two sides, cracking down on the illegal smuggling of cultural relics.

"In 2009, the Chinese and the U.S. government signed a memorandum of understanding to protect categories of archaeological material from the Paleolithic Period through the Tang Dynasty more than 1100 years ago, as well as monumental sculpture and wall art at least 250 years old. The agreement allows both countries to jointly crack down on smuggling stolen Chinese cultural relics to the U.S. It has been well implemented, serving as a good deterrent to those offenders," says Liu.

The Chinese and U.S. sides launched high-level talks on people-to-people exchanges in 2010, with some 400 deals signed as of the end of last year.

A new platform, the China-U.S. Social and People-to-People Dialogue, was initiated in September in Washington, D.C.

Chinese authorities are also set to hold more art exhibitions with artifacts from the U.S. on display in the coming years, while working on creating more cooperation among museums from both sides.