The Asia Arts Festival (AAF) is the first regional international arts festival held by China. It has been held for seven times since its debut in 1998, looking back the previous seven, each one has a clear theme and the special characteristics, which made every year's AAF won the common praise among the Asian governments and the arts field. Guangming Daily reported.

The year of 2006 is the 15th anniversary of the establishment of China-ASEAN Dialogue Relationship. The Festival this year reaches a new height, in terms of scale and contents. Starting from August 31 to September 6, the 8th AAF, with the theme of "learning from each other, and developing in a harmonious step", will hold four main activities, namely, the grand performance of "Bravo! ASEAN" jointly staged by ASEAN and Chinese artists, the "Theme Conference of Asian (10＋3) Art Museum Directors Forum", "Asian Wonders - Art Exhibition of ASEAN", and "The 2nd NEACH & (10＋3) Cultural Personnel Resource Development and Cooperation Training Class". The highlight of this year's AAF is the ASEAN Culture Week. In addition, this AAF increased the proportion of modern arts in the performance. It is the first time that Singapore and Malaysia send their best modern dance troupes to perform in China.