On November 3, the opening ceremony of the 11th Silk Road International City Go Open, the "Jinling Wuxiang Cup," was held in Wuxiang Water Town in Lishui District, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. A record 21 teams and 63 players from 15 countries and regions along the Silk Road are competing in this year's event, representing 24 cities, the largest field in the tournament's history. Of the players, 30 are from overseas and 33 are from China. Over the three-day schedule, players from around the world will contest eight rounds of fierce competition, making friends through the game and promoting mutual learning among civilizations. The Silk Road International City Go Open was founded in 2014 as an international Go event created in response to the Belt and Road Initiative. The tournament set out from Xi'an (西安), the starting point of the ancient Silk Road, and has since been held in Shaanxi, Gansu, Xinjiang, Austria, Malaysia and other locations. This edition is the first to be held in Nanjing. Attending the opening ceremony as distinguished guests were: Chang Hao (常昊), Chairman of the Chinese Weiqi Association; Zhou Zhibin (周志斌), former Deputy Commander of the Jiangsu Military District; Ma Xiaochun (马晓春), China's first world Go champion; Zhang Haitao (张海涛), Deputy Director of the Jiangsu Provincial Sports Bureau; Zhu Xiaojun (朱晓军), Director of the Jiangsu Chess and Cards Sports Management Center and President of the Jiangsu Go Institute; Zhang Lei (张雷), former Standing Committee member of the Shaanxi Provincial CPPCC, former Director of its Committee on Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Overseas Chinese and Foreign Affairs, and President of the Xi'an Weiqi Association; Zhu Hualin (朱华林), Deputy Director of the Nanjing Municipal Sports Bureau; Jiang Fei (江飞), Editor-in-Chief of the Nanjing Daily Press Group and of the Nanjing Daily; Xu Zhenghong (徐正宏), Standing Committee member of the Nanjing Lishui District Party Committee and Vice District Governor; Wei Renjian (韦仁健), Director of the Nanjing Lishui District Bureau of Culture, Tourism and Sports; Zhang Wei (张蔚), Director of the International Exchange Department of the Chinese Weiqi Association; as well as Li Ting (黎婷), Vice President of the European Go Federation; Zhang Zhishun (张枝顺), Honorary Vice President of the Southeast Asian Go Federation and President of the Malaysian Weiqi Association; Shi Jinbo (史金帛), Executive Vice President of the Southeast Asian Go Federation and Head Coach of the Thailand Weiqi Association; and Li Xinqiang (李信强), Vice President of the Southeast Asian Go Federation and President of the Singapore Weiqi Association.
