Representatives of the Second China Europe High-Level Political Parties Forum are discussing the China's high speed railway as well as the opening up Communist Party of China in a high speed train carriage from Beijing to Tianjin on May 17. (Photo by Wang Piyi)

Usually, when Europeans take a train, it will be very quiet in the carriage since they either take a nap or read books, and perhaps the sound of a needle dropping could be heard. However, a different scene played out on a train carriage carrying more than 60 Europeans on May 17 in China.

They are not simply "doing in Rome as the Romans do" because they are in Chinese territory but rather they were all abuzz about riding in a train with a higher speed than they had ever experienced before.

Actually, these Europeans are representatives of the Second China Europe High-Level Political Parties Forum and they were taking the high-speed railway from Beijing to Tianjin. However, what impressed them was not only the higher speed of the train but also the openness of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which celebrates its 90th anniversary this year.

Justas Pankauskas, the vice Chairman of Lithuanian Social Democratic Party, said: "I never took such a fast train" when he learned they were going to take a train to Tianjin with a top speed of over 300 kilometers per hour.

Most representatives, such as Martin Schulz, chairman of the Socialists and Democrats Group in the European Parliament, felt surprised after they finished the 100-kilometer trip to Tianjin, which only took 28 minutes.

Van Der Laan, the vice president of the European Liberal Party, left her 4-month-old little girl behind to go to China to see its development herself. She said the highest speed of the Dutch high-speed railway is about 250 kilometers, and the trains usually run at a speed of about 150 kilometers per hour due to the large number of stops. When she told her 7-year-old son, who loves taking trains, that she was going to take a train that could go 300 kilometers per hour, her son was so excited and asked to come to China for the high-speed railway.

In the train, some representatives think the open forum held by an open CPC let them see a rapidly growing China.

Justas Pankauskas said the forum helps him to better know the CPC. He felt surprised that the CPC has nearly 80 million members — about 20 times of the population in Lithuania. This is the first time Pankauskas has come to China, and he said he saw a real China. He visited a villager's yard on his way to the Great Wall, and he feels happy that Chinese peasants can live in such safe houses with a good environment as well as health care facilities.

Douglas Alexander, Labour's Shadow Foreign Secretary of Britain, has a special bond with China because his mother was born in China's Shenyang in the 1930s. Alexander cannot remember how many times he has come to China, but he would never forget what he saw China in 1993 when he first stepped into the country.

He said there were so few vehicles in Beijing at that time that even if a car broke down in the middle of the road it would not cause a traffic jam. However, the situation has changed drastically.

Just before Alexander's current trip to China, he met with the Chinese ambassador to Great Britain. He said in that meeting that China's development has drawn the attention of the whole world. Therefore, Britain and other Western countries should deeply understand the effects brought by the rise of China and Asia. And the Labour Party will devote itself to promoting a good bilateral relationship between China and Britain.

Regarding this year's forum, he commented that China's current economy is stable. At the same time, China and the CPC are becoming more open. China provides a good platform for parties of China and Europe through the forum.

He also said the Labour's Party highly values communication and cooperation with CPC and would like to enhance mutual understanding as well as promote the development of bilateral relationships.

Seeking understanding and cooperation via expanding association with world

On the first press meeting of the Second China-Europe High-Level Political Parties Forum, Huang Huaguang, the press spokesman of the International Department Central Committee of the CPC, said that the CPC has formed ties with more than 600 political parties from more than 160 countries in the world. And the dialogue system with other political parties has made great progress, such as the dialogues with the two U.S. political parties in Beijing and the United States.

Wang Hua, the director of the Bureau of Western European Affairs, said the forum provides a stage for China and the world to enhance mutual understanding.

He also said a total of more than 80 political leaders from 19 European countries have come to join this year's forum, and many of the representatives are coming to China for the first time. Before, they had only learned about China through media, but now they have come to experience China firsthand. In addition, he pointed out that the CPC has made many changes, and one of the most major is a move toward greater openness.

By Wang Hanlu, People's Daily Online