On April 19, 2019, Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Hanhui met with Head of the Public Diplomacy Centre of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Uzbekistan Rakhmatulla Nazarov, exchanging views on promoting China-Uzbekistan good-neighborly friendship, non-governmental exchanges and cooperation among SCO member states and other topics.

President Xi Jinping proposed that all countries establish social organizations engaged in non-governmental friendly exchange at the SCO Bishkek Summit in 2013. After the Chinese side took the lead in setting up the SCO Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation Committee, the Uzbek side established the SCO Public Diplomacy Centre in 2018.