During her visit to China from 23 to 27 October 2011, Commissioner Vassiliou met the Chinese Minister of Culture, Mr Cai Wu, to prepare the EU-China Year of Intercultural Dialogue in 2012 and the forthcoming High-Level People to People Dialogue in the context of the new Third Pillar of the EU-China partnership.

During her visit, she also opened the 4th edition of the EU Film Festival in Beijing and the 2nd edition of the High-Level Culture Forum, "Inventing Cities" dedicated to the cultural aspects of urbanisation.

The EU-China High Level Cultural Forum is an unprecedented platform for comprehensive communication between Chinese and European influential scholars.

The Forum is designed to be the framework for an open dialogue on the ancestral values of two civilizations, on their models of society, their different patterns of knowledge, epistemological, ethical and aesthetic. It has to be forward-looking, taking into consideration the changes in the world.

Participants in the "Inventing Cities" Forum meeting at the National Museum of China, Tien Anmen Square, Beijing on 27-28 October included leading intellectuals, designers and architects from Europe and China who met to discuss issues of city development, history, governance and urban public spaces.