On August 22, WANG Yongjie, Vice President of the Shanghai Party Institute of CPC & Shanghai Administration Institute (SPI/SAI), led a delegation to visit  Korea Research Institute for Local Administration (KRILA) and attended the China-South Korea Bilateral Seminar on “Modernization of People-Centered Urban Governance.” President Yook Dong-il of KRILA met with the delegation.

WANG Yongjie stated that this bilateral seminar, which coincided with the Central Urban Work Conference of the Communist Party of China, heldremarkable theoretical and practical significance. He noted that SPI/SAI had conducted long-term research in the field of modernizing urban governance in megacities, while KRILA had long carried out in-depth research on policies of local governmentsregarding governance. He believed that the discussions and exchanges between experts from both sides would further deepen people’s understanding of the lawsunderlying megacity governance.

Yook Dong-il mentioned that the exchanges and cooperation between KRILA and SPI/SAI had spanned a period of over two decades. He stated that the visit, led by one leader of SPI/SAI, was highly instrumental in pushing ahead withfuture cooperation between the two sides. He emphasized that this seminar was a majormoveto implement the Memorandum of Understanding signed in April 2025.

At the seminar, Professor LI Zongjian, Director of the Department of Leadership Science at SPI, elaborated on the concept of “building modern cities of the people that are innovative, desirable to live in, beautiful, resilient, culturally advanced, and smart,” which was proposed at the Central Urban Work Conference. Taking Shanghai as an example, he briefed on the ideas and practices of guiding the construction of cities for the people in the new era with the principle that a city should be built for the people. KangYoungju, a researcher from Local Administration and Innovation Office at KRILA, delivered a special report on “Resident-Oriented Innovative Governance in the Era of Digital Transformation.”

The participating experts and scholars engaged in academic discussions and experience exchanges, focusing on hot topics such as people-centeredness, digital transformation, andinnovation in urban governance.