The foreign minister, Kristian Jensen, was in Beijing, China yesterday to officially open the new Danish Culture Center in the city’s renowned 798 Art Zone district.
The Danish Culture Centre building was taken over exactly one year ago and is ready following renovation work. The centre is part of Denmark’s official presence in China.
“It might sound crazy that a little country like Denmark is to influence a huge nation like China with its 1.3 billion people, but notice that Denmark is one of the few nations to have been permitted to open a culture centre in China,” Jensen told DR Nyheder.
Aside from Jensen, who had been in Indonesia as part of a Danish delegation before going to Beijing, Song Jingwu, the deputy head of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), was also present at the opening.
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Seeds sown in 2012
The famous 798 Art Zone district in Beijing is located in an old abandoned factory area and the Danish Culture Centre is an old renovated factory.
“798 is ten times as big as Kødbyen in Copenhagen and, I’m sorry to say, ten times as exciting,” said Michael Christiansen, the chairperson for the Danish Culture Institute.
The new culture centre is part of an agreement Denmark made with China back in 2012 when the president at the time, Hu Jintao, became the first ever Chinese head of state to visit Denmark.
This year, Denmark and China is celebrating 65 years of bilateral diplomatic relations.
