BEIJING, Sept. 23,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- As the world faces challenges
from threats, disputes, and misunderstandings, we need to work
together to showcase different cultures, learn about them, respect
them, and learn from each one, said various scholars and experts at
the 2024 Beijing Culture Forum on Thursday.
In his video speech, former French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said that the High-level
People-to-people Exchange Mechanism between China and France has showcased the mutual respect
between the two great civilizations.
As today's world grapples with threats and challenges, Chinese
people, French people, or other people with good intentions "must
ensure that culture powers cooperation. The world must choose
cooperation instead of tension and confrontation," he
said.
With a permanent theme of "Inheritance, Creativity, Mutual
Learning," the forum has "Enhance Culture Exchanges for Common
Progress" as its theme for this year. A main forum, six sub-forums,
and 32 professional seminars and relevant cultural activities will
be held during the three-day event.
Over 800 participants from home and abroad including Raffarin,
Irina Bokova, former
director-general of UNESCO and Yukio Hatoyama, former Japanese
prime minister, held in-depth discussions on topics including
mutual learning between civilizations and common progress,
spiritual life and industrial development, cultural heritage
protection and inheritance, and new cultural business forms and
technology integration.
GCI, a shared solution
China's Global Civilization
Initiative (GCI) has called for the upholding of the principles of
equality, mutual learning, dialogue, and inclusiveness among
civilizations. The initiative advocates respect for the diversity
of civilizations, the common values of humanity, the importance of
inheritance and innovation of civilizations, as well as robust
international people-to-people exchanges and cooperation.
From languages to customs, history… All of these elements make
up cultural diversity, which is the basis for mutual respect among
people of all countries and influences international
relationships.
"That's the reason why France
and China decided to take turns
hosting the Sino-French Cultural Forum," Raffarin explained.
Christine Cayol, French vice president of the Sino-French
Cultural Forum, told the Global Times that she has been expecting
the upcoming forum, to be held in the French city of Deauville in
November this year, which aims to "share our mutual perspective
about transmission."
Thanks to GCI's ideas of mutual learning and exchanges, she
said she had the chance to attend the forum twice together with
other guests.
"It is not a political or financial forum, but a cultural one.
It is very special and even more precious," she
said.
In contrast to some claims of the "superiority of certain
civilizations and a clash of civilizations," China has called for the upholding of the
principles of equality, mutual learning, dialogue, and
inclusiveness among civilizations. It emphasizes the importance of
cultural exchanges transcending estrangement, mutual learning
transcending clashes, and coexistence transcending feelings of
superiority.
Robert Walker, a fellow at the
Academy of Social Sciences in the UK, told the Global Times that
the world "is experiencing enormous tensions. We have to work
together to solve common problems" as well as hosting events like
the Beijing Culture Forum, a platform for people to share and
communicate.
Alexandros Modiano, chairman of
the West-East Urban Governance Institute in Greece said, "Culture is a slippery, but yet
very safe place to invite people from different horizons to be
together [and] understand each other. And when we understand each
other, we appreciate each other. We learn from our differences,
and we are richer every day, because we understand how
complementary our own culture is vis-à-vis Chinese culture."
Positive trajectory
The Report on China's Cultural
Exchanges with the World was released at the forum on Thursday.
Based on publicly available documents, data, and case studies from
various institutions, it is the result of research on China's cultural exchanges with the world in
2023.
The report reveals that, in the face of challenges and
opportunities, cultural exchanges between China and other countries in 2023 showed a
rapid recovery and a positive trajectory, thanks to a focus on
balancing security and development while prioritizing cooperation
and mutual benefit. Such exchanges not only expanded in scale
quickly approaching pre-pandemic levels, but also became more
diverse in form, innovative in approach, and more in-depth in
dialogue, entering a new phase of high-quality development.
As China's cultural center,
Beijing has played an important
role in such exchanges and seen so many foreign visits and
people-to-people exchanges. Irina
Bokova has been to Beijing,
a historical city with a long history, many times. In her speech,
she introduced the city's cultural and creativity
resources.
In 2012, she witnessed the moment when Beijing joined the UNESCO Creative Cities
Network (UCCN) as a City of Design for its sci-tech and cultural
innovation. In July, Beijing Central Axis: A Building Ensemble
Exhibiting the Ideal Order of the Chinese Capital was inscribed on
the UNESCO World Heritage List, becoming China's 59th World Heritage Site.
A series of activities and events to promote Beijing's cultural achievement and
preservation work will be held during the forum.
View original
content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-times-world-needs-dialogue-co-op-instead-of-tension-confrontation-scholars-experts-at-beijing-forum-302255406.html
SOURCE Global Times