In ancestors’ footsteps: Malaysian students’ martial arts display during the Youth Exchange ‘Harmony for Shared Prosperity’ event. Tradition forms the foundation of a nation’s development and must be passed down the generations. — Handout
AT the Communist Party of China (CPC) in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-level Meeting, General Secretary Xi Jinping put forward for the first time the Global Civilisation Initiative, which profoundly answered the “question of humanity’s modernisation” and instilled confidence and strength into the promotion of coexistence, exchange and mutual appreciation of different civilisations, the progress of humanity’s modernisation, and the prosperity of the garden of world civilisations.
The Global Civilisation Initiative originates from the exploration and practice of the Chinese path to modernisation and draws on the experiences and lessons of all civilisations, embodying the historical laws and practical logic of the progress of human civilisations.
With rich theoretical connotations and significant practical value, the Global Civilisation Initiative demonstrates the wisdom and commitment of an ancient civilisation with a history of more than 5,000 years and is another important scientific solution provided by China in the new era to address the challenges faced by the entire human race.
Historical laws of the rise and fall of civilisations
Each of the various civilisations created by mankind has its distinctive characteristics, and they together have made important contributions to the development and progress of humanity, accumulating a rich heritage.
Based on a profound understanding of the historical development process of human civilisations and the new form of human advancement brought about by the Chinese path to modernisation, the Global Civilisation Initiative emphasises respect for the diversity of global civilisations and promotes a civilisational perspective of equality, mutual learning, dialogue and inclusiveness.
In any period of history, civilisations can be “beautiful in their own right and appreciate the beauty of others” so long as they focus on exchanges, mutual learning and inclusiveness. On the contrary, any civilisation that advocates the estrangement, collision, and superiority between civilisations, based on a winner-takes-all approach, even though it may gain the upper hand that is powered through for a while, will eventually lose in the long run.
As the crystallisation of labour and wisdom, every civilisation embodies and perpetuates the spiritual lineage of a country and a nation, whose historical heritage and development innovations must follow the laws governing historical development and conform to historical trends.
Chinese civilisation, the only civilisation in the world that has been developing without interruption, has been rooted in the fertile soil of a multi-ethnic culture that is harmonious in diversity and has achieved inclusive development through exchanges and mutual learning with other civilisations.
Let cultural exchanges transcend estrangement. As an old Chinese saying goes, “Learning alone without exchanges with others will lead to ignorance.”
The Global Civilisation Initiative upholds the pursuit of values for the progress of human civilisations as seen in the award-winning works of Malaysian students who took part in the 'Youth Creations on Shared Prosperity' Contest. — Photos: Contemporary World/Handout
The interactions among civilisations serve as the basis for the harmonious coexistence of humanity. In historical practice, communication among civilisations sustained various constraints due to differences in geography, language and cognition, resulting in long-standing barriers.
Nevertheless, mankind never relented in its efforts to promote the exchanges among civilisations. The opening of the ancient Silk Road, for example, provided an important channel for the exchanges and interactions between the Eastern and Western civilisations.
Through the Silk Road, economic, cultural and scientific exchanges among countries such as ancient China, India, Persia, Arabia and Rome continued to expand, greatly contributing to the development and progress of human civilisations.
Many achievements of people-to-people exchanges were absorbed during the formation and development of ancient Chinese and Western philosophy, laying a sound foundation for exchanges among civilisations.
It is not of pure coincidence in history that the ideas of Confucius and Plato are similar in some way. Their historical and cultural roots may be traced back to the exchanges and integration of early human civilisations. In modern times, exchanges and cooperation among countries around the world have become more frequent and extensive, and human society has thus created a more integrated modern civilisation.
At the beginning of the 20th century, China and European countries, representing Eastern and Western civilisations respectively, came across another important turning point for exchanges among civilisations. After its birth, the Communist Party of China (CPC), has broken new ground for Chinese revolution and development, demonstrating the charm of Chinese civilisation, and contributing to the enrichment and development of world civilisation to a greater extent.
Let mutual learning transcend collision.
As a Chinese adage goes, "a delicious soup is cooked by combining different ingredients". Diversity of civilisations endows different civilisations with unique charm, and it is only by complementing each other’s advantages and learning from each other can we enhance the quality of our civilisation and promote the creative development of human civilisations.
There is no such thing as a perfect civilisation or a good-for-nothing civilisation in the world.
Civilisations are enriched by mutual learning and sublimated by integration. The strong vitality demonstrated by Chinese civilisation in our era lies in the extensive borrowing and absorption of advanced human civilisation achievements.
By combining the basic principles of an international ideology with China’s reality and the excellent Chinese traditional culture, the CPC has scored a series of major theoretical achievements and led the Chinese people of all ethnic groups to create a form of civilisation featuring coordinated development of material, political, cultural-ethical, social and ecological advancement, providing valuable experience and useful reference for the development and revitalisation of civilisations in other countries.
China remains firm in pursuing an independent foreign policy of peace, vigorously advocates the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and continuously expands friendly exchanges and mutually beneficial cooperation with countries around the world with different cultures and ideologies.
Unlike some Western scholars and politicians who vigorously advocate the theory of the clash of civilisations in the international community, the Chinese people are not only deeply aware of the differences between the Chinese civilisation and other civilisations but also committed to promoting broader and higher-level dialogues among civilisations, striving to transcend collision of civilisations through mutual learning among civilisations.
Let inclusion transcend alleged superiority. As another old Chinese saying goes, "diversity in harmony generates while sameness stifles vitality". There is no superiority or inferiority of civilisations, only differences in characteristics. All civilisations deserve respect, and this is the necessary broad-mindedness for dealing with different civilisations.
History has shown that only through inclusiveness can human civilisations have the impetus to exchange and learn from each other, and only by transcending the alleged superiority of some civilisation can all civilisations achieve progress and everlasting development in exchanges and mutual learning.
Drawing on their economic, technological and military advantages since modern times, some Western countries have alleged superiority of Western races, cultures and civilisation, claiming Western civilisation as the end of human history.
This view of civilisation, with its distinctive feature of capitalist ideology, not only makes Western culture suffer from increasing narrow-mindedness and seclusion but will also inevitably intensify the clash of civilisations, inducing hatred and unrest among nations.
Throughout its 5,000-year history of civilisation development, the Chinese people have always followed the principle of “diversity in harmony”, and have made an indelible contribution to human advancement by understanding and respecting the civilisations of other countries while maintaining their cultural self-confidence.
Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese Government and people have firmly advocated that civilisations should respect and learn from each other and that each country should follow the path of civilisation development that is consistent with its reality and the needs of its people.
China will never engage in cultural colonialism or ideological export, nor will it seek to change the political systems and development models of other countries, and even less interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.
China stands firmly against all forms of alleged superior civilisation and all obsessive attempts to transform or even replace other civilisations, striving for harmonious coexistence of different civilisations with mutual appreciation.
The practical logic of progress
The Global Civilisation Initiative not only provides ideological guidance for the progress of human civilisations but also clarifies the pursuit of values, indicates the direction of advancement, and points to a practical path for the progress of human civilisations from a rational and pragmatic perspective, thus becoming a guide for action in advancing humanity’s modernisation process and making the garden of world civilisations flourish.
The Global Civilisation Initiative upholds the pursuit of values for the progress of human civilisations. In thousands of years of development, human civilisations have gradually absorbed the values of peace, development, equity, justice, democracy, and freedom, which are shared by all of humankind and constitute distinctive marks of advanced civilisations.
Peace and development are the common cause of humankind, equity and justice are the shared ideals, and democracy and freedom are the common aspirations. In the face of a complicated world, humanity’s shared values serve as the largest concentric circle for humankind to build a broad consensus, arriving at the greatest common divisor for all peoples in aspiring for a better future, and leading the value orientation to work together for a better world.
To advocate the shared values of humankind, countries need to uphold a highly responsible attitude towards the future and destiny of humanity, keep an open mind in appreciating the perceptions of values by different civilisations, and respect the exploration of the path to values by people of all countries.
Countries should not be imposing their values or models on others or stoking ideological confrontation, countries should adhere to the shared values of humankind concretely and realistically in fulfilling the interests of their people.
The Global Civilisation Initiative makes clear the direction of progress of human civilisations. Throughout history, humankind has progressed towards the development of productive forces, political equity and justice, and well-rounded development of individuals, and towards peace, cooperation, development, and win-win situations. However, this progress is not about setting the divide of history, but continuously innovating in the inheritance of civilisations.
At the practical level, it is about fully tapping into the historical and cultural values of each country and promoting the creative transformation and innovative development of its fine traditional culture in the modernisation process. As the foundation for the development of a country, traditional culture not only needs to be protected and passed on from generation to generation but also innovated for modern times.
In the process of its formation and development, traditional culture is inevitably subject to the limitations and constraints of people’s understanding, historical conditions, and social systems at different times, and inevitably contains obsolete things. That requires making correct choices for modernisation requirements while studying, researching, and applying traditional culture.
Adhering to the principle of making the past serve the present and learning from the past, we should carry forward traditional culture in a discriminative way. We should promote the integration of traditional culture and contemporary culture in innovative development.
All countries around the world should respond to the new requirements of the times, strengthen the harness of the relevance of their histories and cultures to the present times, carry forward the spirit of fine traditional culture that transcends time and national boundaries, that is full of eternal charm and values for our times, and make the most basic cultural genes of our countries adapt to today’s trends, harmonise with contemporary society, and co-exist with the rich and colourful civilisations created by people all over the world, to provide correct ideological guidance and push forward the progress of human civilisations.
The Global Civilisation Initiative provides a practical path to the progress of human civilisations.
Countries around the world have nurtured their respective brilliant civilisations, complementing each other, thus laying a solid foundation for international people-to- people exchanges and cooperation, which not only are important ways to promote mutual understanding among peoples of different countries and jointly advance the progress of human civilisations but also more significantly serve as important pillars for building a new type of international relations.
To this end, the Global Civilisation Initiative proposes a practical path to strengthening international people-to-people exchanges and cooperation, with a focus on exploring ways to build a global network for cross-civilisation dialogue, enriching the content of exchanges and expanding avenues of cooperation, to promote the development of diverse human civilisations through these rich exchanges.
As long as the international community continues to strengthen people-to-people exchanges and cooperation, and carry out in-depth exchanges of ideas and emotions, a new prospect will be opened up for enhanced understanding among different peoples, and better interactions and integration of diversified cultures. Together we can make the garden of world civilisations colourful and vibrant.
A positive response to the real challenges of humanity
Today’s world is undergoing unprecedented changes. One important manifestation is the serious harm caused by deeply harmful hegemonic bullying practices. The peace deficit, development deficit, security deficit, and governance deficit are aggravated, and humankind is facing challenges never seen before.
The fundamental solution to these severe challenges lies in promoting humanity’s modernisation and jointly building a community with a shared future for humankind. The Global Civilisation Initiative is dedicated to overcoming the common challenges that hinder humanity’s modernisation and profoundly reflects a real concern to care for the achievements of civilisations.
In the face of a growing global development deficit, China adheres to the path of peaceful development, open development, cooperative development, and common development, striving to achieve a development higher in quality, efficiency, equity, and sustainability, actively facilitating economic globalisation towards a more open, inclusive, balanced, and win-win direction that will benefit all. This is in hopes that the development achievements of China’s path to modernisation continue to consolidate the foundation of the progress of human civilisations and produce a new driving force for modernisation.
The Global Civilisation Initiative cracks the security deficit and strives to build security guarantees for the modernisation of humankind in an all-round way. At present, there is a complex and serious global security situation with intertwined traditional and non-traditional security threats. In the sphere of traditional security, the geopolitical games among major powers are becoming increasingly fierce. The world sees more blocs forming and increasingly apparent confrontations among them, as well as an increased threat of nuclear war.
In the sphere of non-traditional security, issues in areas such as climate change, the environment, food and energy, information networks, and public health are becoming increasingly prominent. However, the lack of mutual trust makes it difficult for the international community to build consensus and take action for cooperation. In response, China insists on mutual consultation and understanding, winning respect with respect, resolving suspicions with frankness and honesty, and promoting common progress through cooperation.
The Global Civilisation Initiative proposed by China draws experience and wisdom from the history of civilisation development and is committed to providing more comprehensive, long-term, and thorough security guarantees for humanity’s modernisation.
In contrast to the modernisation path of developed Western countries, the new Chinese modernisation path not only breaks the myth that modernisation can only be achieved by following the capitalist model, but also expands the avenue for developing countries to move towards modernisation, providing a new option for modernisation for many countries and peoples in the world who aspire to develop independently, and contributing new solutions to the problems arising from humanity’s modernisation and to the challenges of human civilisations.
The Chinese path to modernisation steadily develops a new system that promotes human advancement. The great practice of the Chinese path to modernisation as a new form of human advancement is a historical process of exploring, creating, consolidating, and developing its own brand of political, economic and social system.
The Chinese path to modernisation promotes the building of a new order that promotes the progress of human advancement. The new form of human advancement created by this path advocates openness, inclusiveness, cooperation, and win-win outcomes. Internationally, it calls for promoting the building of a more just and equitable international order, and the creation of a new world of lasting peace and universal prosperity.
As a party striving to achieve social justice and equity, the CPC has always supported the efforts of the vast number of developing countries to build a new international order and advocated that the new order should reflect the general aspirations and shared interests of people all over the world, and should reflect the requirements of historical development and progress of the times.
This new order is about putting an end to hegemony and power politics, pursuing democratic international relations, and giving every member of the international community a voice in international affairs. China will continue to practice true multilateralism, advocating that international affairs should be handled by all countries through consultation. China will continue to act as an advocator and defender of the international rule of law, a firm guardian of international fairness and justice, and a contributor to and builder of the global governance system.
The Global Civilisation Initiative follows the trend of historical development, gives Chinese answers to the question of humanity’s modernisation, and provides ideological and action guidance for the progress of human advancement. As more and more countries actively answer the call of the Global Civilisation Initiative and facilitate its implementation, humanity will inevitably embark on a new journey of modernisation and build a more prosperous garden of world civilisations. – Contemporary World
Gao Xiang is Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) president and Leading Party Members’ Group of CASS secretary.
