Yangtze River Civilization Forum Opens in Chongqing, Uniting Voices from Nearly 20 Countries

CHONGQING, China, Sept. 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report from iChongqing.

The 2026 Yangtze River Civilization Forum opened on September 15 in Chongqing, gathering scholars, officials and diplomatic representatives from nearly 20 countries — including Egypt, Brazil, India, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Australia and Mexico — to explore how the world's great river civilizations can learn from one another.

Co-hosted by the CPC Chongqing Municipal Committee and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) under the permanent theme "Crossing Rivers and Seas, Mutual Learning of Civilizations," this year's forum focuses on exchanges among river civilizations and sustainable river basin development.

"Every wave of the Yangtze is a vivid footnote to exchange and mutual learning among civilizations," CASS President Gao Xiang said at the opening, calling the forum a concrete practice of the Global Civilization Initiative and a useful exploration of different paths to modernization.

British scholar Martin Jacques, Visiting Research Fellow at LSE's Asia Research Centre, told the forum that "a fundamental aspect of civilization is about rediscovering and exhuming the past." The forum, he said, is exploring "how the great rivers of the world have shaped humanity, the culture of those who live on their banks, the differences and commonalities their peoples share." In his words, "rivers are bearers of change, they are the arteries of civilization, they enable contact and cross-fertilisation that otherwise would be impossible, they bring humanity together, they encourage cosmopolitanism and mixing rather than isolation and separation."

The forum is producing tangible cooperation. Following the 2025 China-Egypt dialogue that produced the documentary When the Yangtze Meets the Nile, Chongqing's Baiheliang hydrological inscriptions — often described as the world's earliest hydrological station — are pursuing a joint World Heritage inscription with Egypt's Nilometer on Rhoda Island. In 2026, the dialogue extends to South America through the "When the Yangtze Meets the Amazon" initiative and a new co-produced documentary, Rivers in Harmony.

The Chongqing Yangtze River Culture Research Institute also unveiled its first research outputs: the five-volume Yangtze Civilization Series: Upper Reaches of Great Rivers and the 140-volume Compendium of Travel Writings on the Chuanjiang River and Shu Roads.

Also launched was the "A Bond between Great Rivers" international communication project, linking river cities worldwide through film production, think-tank dialogues, youth exchanges and media visits.

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