Enhancing Mutual Understanding, Learning from Each Other, and Joint Contribution
Yangjiemian 2012/1/13
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Speech by President Jiemian YANG of Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS) at the Fourth Conference on the Sino-Arabic Relations and the Dialogues of Civilizations between China and the Arabic World under the Framework of China-Arab States Cooperation Forum
Both the Chinese civilization and the Islamic civilization are treasures of the world civilizations. They have been learning from each other and drawing on the merits to compensate for the shortcomings of each other’s cultures in the long process of history. Both China and the Arab world want to seize the historic opportunity of development in the new historical period to realize their two great missions, the renaissance of the nation and civilization. Since the launching of the China-Arab strategic partnership confirmed by the “Tianjin Declaration” in 2010, the China-Arab cooperation has stepped up to a new level that not only they will further strengthen political coordination and economic cooperation, but also they will intensify inter-civilization dialogues and advance cultural exchanges.I. External Changes Posed as Challenges and Opportunities to Sino-Arab Strategic Partnership
Over recent years, along with the accelerating globalization and the transition of the international system proceeding more profoundly, the uncertainties in international relations have been on rise, the international situation is increasingly complicated, and various factors and variables are compounded to make the volatile international system even more so. The Sino-Arab strategic partnership in this new historical period is confronting unprecedented challenges, though the latter are in the meantime enshrined with great opportunities, which will make it possible that China and the Arab world will certainly be able to turn challenges into opportunities and make joint effort in cultivating a better future, so long as they adopt pertinent policies.
1. Sino-Arab strategic partnership should meet the requirement emerged from the new situation of global governance and national governance, and meet the requirement of pursuing the political, economic and social developments in a comprehensive and balanced manner.
Against the overall backdrop of the accelerating globalization, the imbalanced developments in political, economic and social realms are looming, which fully demonstrate the relative missing of global governance mechanisms internationally and the relative procrastination of domestic governance mechanisms internally. The year 2011 has witnessed the Arab Spring, London Summer and Washington Autumn, which not only involved the North Africa and West Asia with social unrests, but seriously impacted the developed countries as well. The changes that swept across North Africa and West Asia were caused by various reasons though, they are actually a bout of the bottom-up social changes that commenced with spontaneous social movements. Those changes enlighten not only Arab countries at large, but also other countries including China. In other words, they have to attach as much importance to social governance and political reform as to economic development. From the point of view of Chinese experience, political reform, economic development and social progress are dialectically correlated. They influence one another and none should be overlooked. Only by pursuing comprehensive and balanced development can a country achieve the goal of harmonious society. In face of the change in the Middle East, a new situation, China and the Arab world are even more in need of helping each other, support each other and draw on experiences and lessons of each other to cope with the common challenges emerged from the times.
2. China and the Arab world need to strengthen strategic cooperation regarding ideas and values, such as development models, international order and so on, to meet the requirement of rebuilding the international order now that the Western values wane.
Although the transition of the international system is slow and facing so many problems, the general trend of the international balance of power, in favor of the non-Western world, remains unchanged, and the multi-polarization of the international system is looming. Along with the relative decline of the Western power, comes the weakening of the dominancy of the Western values. The Western values and way of life have been challenged across the world especially in the wake of the global financial crisis in 2008, which brought about two consequences. The first, the decline of the Western soft-power has opened the door for competition over the ideas and norms regarding the future international system and order, hence that debates among various waves of thoughts and models will intensify. The second, as the West is unwilling to see its status decline, it will do its utmost to hold on the dominant position of its values, which is particularly evident during the change in North Africa and West Asia, i.e., the West tried to retrieve its lost ideological battlefield by means of intensifying their intervention in the region. China and the Arab world are big civilizations that have made tremendous contributions to the civilization and progress of the world. The current historical tide has again pushed China and the Arab world to the fore of the times. There are plenty of experiences and lessons in China’s peaceful development road that can be drawn on for the Arab world's reference. The Arab world can be sure to have succeeded in overcoming the temporary difficulties and following a path that fits the conditions of the Arab world. This transitional experience will be equally precious.
3. China and the Arab world need to strengthen their strategic cooperation in coping with global issues and regional issues for making greater contribution to the international and regional security, peace and stability.
Presently, global issues and regional hotspots are mounting, posing a severe challenge to the world. As China becomes stronger and the international community accordingly harbors a higher expectation from China, China is willing to assume the responsibility in commensurate with a responsible power. The Arab world, an important member of the international community, has played, and will be able to play, a greater and independent role in the world affairs as well as in regional affairs. The League of Arab States has played a positive role in promoting the unity and cooperation of the Arab world.
China and the Arab world are both important members of the developing countries. Both share common interests and similar views in respect of coping with global issues and promoting peace and security in the Middle East region. They need to strengthen political dialogue and coordination and step up pragmatic cooperation to substantiate their common political vision with coordinated policy actions, and they can put forward their initiatives on global issues and on the issue of Middle East peace.
II. Three Roles of Civilization Dialogue in Promoting Sino-Arab Strategic Partnership
Civilization dialogue is the foundation of the Sino-Arab strategic partnership, the cohesion of the Sino-Arab friendship and the booster of their pragmatic cooperation. I identify three roles that the civilization dialogue can play in promoting Sino-Arab strategic partnership as follows:
1. Enhance Mutual Understanding and Consolidate the Foundation of Sino-Arab Traditional Friendship
The ancient Silk Road had joined China and the Arab world together. China and the Arab world have played an irreplaceable role in advancing the East-West cultural exchanges in the ancient world. Links between China and the Arab world get not as much closely as they were in the past since the onset of the modern history when the West emerged. China and the Arab world hold friendly feeling towards each other and are free of directly conflicting interests though, they enjoy a modest level of cultural exchanges besides various challenges. On one hand, both China and the Arab world belong to the disadvantaged side in the current campaigns of international opinions. Their right of voice is limited, and they are the targets to the most severely distorted attacks of the Western media. On the other hand, China and the Arab world want the channel for direct communication. They access to the information about each other often second-handedly via Western media, hence knowing little about what is actually going on on the lands of each other.
Therefore, it becomes urgent for China and the Arab world to beef up the civilization dialogue. The civilization dialogue will mainly involve three communities of people and two kinds of subjects. As for the people, on the one hand, scholars and journalists are the main and the most important communities in this regard. International seminars, exchanges of scholars and journalists and other forms of exchanges should be encouraged and made regular and institutional. Ground works shall be laid and designed beforehand. On the other hand, China and the Arab countries shall send more students studying abroad to each other. Chinese and Arabian language training centers shall further increase. As for the subjects of the civilization dialogue, one the on hand, priority should be placed on the subjects that are particularly concerned by China and the Arab world respectively. For example, China needs to introduce the life of the Chinese muslins to the Arab world, which can help to update information and prevent breaking incidents from impacting the normal development of the Sino-Arab relations. On the other hand, China and the Arab world want to strengthen the exchanges involving social aspects, e.g., to further introduce films, TV programs and music to each other and to boost interactions of NGOs.
2. Promote Learning Each Other and Realize Joint Development and Progress of China and the Arab world
China and the Arab world are both great civilizations, with a great wealth of cultural heritages. However, they are not cultural powers. Few of the time-honored cultural heritages have been successfully made known to the world. As China and the Arab world are underway of fulfilling the historical mission of development, they still want to learn and absorb what is good in the cultures of the outside world. They used to look to the West to a larger extent. Now, it is time for them to look between each other and learn from each other.
China and the Arab world want to do more to learn from each other. On one hand, they can translate the classic literatures into the languages of each other to absorb the quintessence from the encyclopedic civilizations of China and the Arab world. On the other hand, they can learn from each other regarding the experiences of modernization construction and state governance. China and the Arab world can try to co-host seminars to make comparative studies on the experiences and lessons of both sides.
3. Boost Joint Contributions, Diversified Civilizations and Common Aspiration
Both China and the Arab world are committed to the mission of rejuvenating Chinese and Islamic civilizations respectively. China and the Arab world will have every reason to make more contribution to the ideas about the future world order. Both China and the Arab world stand for diversified civilizations and for the common aspiration of mankind. “Civilizations can be different, but no civilization is superior to others. Each civilization embodies the common vision and common aspirations of mankind shaped in the course of development and progress,” said Premier Wen Jiabao in his important speech entitled “Respect Diversity of Civilizations” delivered at the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo on November 7, 2009.
Upon the transition of the international system today, both China and the Arab world will join other developing countries in their common efforts to promote inter-civilization dialogue, exchanges, and integration, and advocate the ideas of tolerance and harmonious world, on the basis of developing their own core values of civilizations, to provide the new international system and international order with the wisdoms of the East.