As the first coastal open city after the reform and opening up, Lianyungang started early and developed rapidly in the sister cities program. Nowadays, its international sister cities are spread all over Asia, Europe and North America, South America, Oceania and other regions to come up with a pattern of great openness and great exchanges.
The signing of sister city relationship with Sakai of Japan enabled Lianyungang to make its first breakthrough. Since then, the two cities have maintained mutual exchanges with governmental visits stabilized on a regular basis, giving rise to deepening economic and trade cooperation, frequent people-to-people exchanges and win-win cultural exchanges.
In the 35 years since then, Lianyungang has accelerated its pace of opening to the outside world. In 1992, the port city of Mokpo, South Korea, and Lianyungang signed a contract to become the first friendly city between the two countries after the establishment of diplomatic relations. In 1998, with the legend of Xu Fu as the matchmaker, Lianyungang, the hometown of Xu Fu, and Saga city of Japan signed a contract to become sister cities.
Xu Fu was born in 255 BC in Qi, an ancient Chinese state, and probably died in between 195 and 155 BC. He served as a court sorcerer in Qin Dynasty China. Later, he was sent by Qin Shi Huang to the eastern seas twice to look for the elixir of life. He is believed to settle in Sakai and never returned to China. Today, 2200 years later, Xu Fu was worshipped as a god in Saga, and many Xu Fu cultures were so deeply integrated into modern society.
Due to its geographical location by the East China Sea, Lianyungang’s sister cities are mostly from Japan and Korea. Since the country’s launch of the Belt and Road Initiative, Lianyungang has deepened its friendly exchanges with countries and regions along the "Belt and Road". In 2015, it established a sister city relationship with Bishkek, the capital city of Kyrgyzstan, filling the province's gap in terms of sister cities in Central Asia.
Today, Lianyungang has 8 sister cities that include Napier of New Zealand, Greater Geelong of Australia and Sabadell of Spain.
Its suburban counties and districts have also established friendly city relationship with some 20 cities in the USA, Czech and other countries.
In the next three years, Lianyungang will strive to double its sister cities along the “Belt and Road” in a bid to further attract merchants, strengthen cultural and educational exchanges, and make contributions to the high-quality development of the sister cities.
（source:ourjiangsu.com）
