According to them, culture is not only a bridge for communication, but also a bond of cooperation. The three cities hope to take advantage of the opportunity of being selected as the Culture City of East Asia to strengthen exchanges and cooperation and make new contributions to promoting cultural exchanges among East Asian countries and regions.

At the opening ceremony, the guests watched promotion videos of the three cities and the joint performances of artists from the three countries.

The year-round activities of Culture City of East Asia 2019 in Xi'an will cover various areas such as public cultural construction, intangible cultural heritage protection, public cultural undertakings, cultural industries, international cultural exchanges, as well as exchanges among the youth, through more than 60 key activities on the Belt and Road, literature and art, tourism, music, books, science and technology, film and animation.

The Culture City of East Asia program was first proposed by the cultural ministers of the three countries during the third ministerial conference in Nara, Japan, in January 2011.

It aims to promote cultural diversity in East Asia, and to allow the three countries to foster mutual understanding and a sense of unity in the region.

China's other East Asian Cultural Cities in recent years include Ningbo from Zhejiang province in 2016, Changsha from Hunan province in 2017, and Harbin from Heilongjiang province in 2018.