On September 27, Pan Yue, deputy director of the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee and director of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, delivered a keynote speech at the 7th Nishan Forum on World Civilization. Photo by China News Service reporter Sheng Jiapeng
Spread Chinese civilization and promote mutual learning between China and the West
——Keynote speech of the 7th Nishan Forum on World Civilization
(September 27, 2021)
Pan Yue, deputy director of the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee and director of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council
First of all, on behalf of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, which participated in the organizers for the first time, I sincerely wish the 2021 China (Qufu) International Confucius Cultural Festival and the Nishan World Civilization Forum a complete success. At the celebration of the centenary of the founding of the Party three months ago, President Xi Jinping solemnly declared that socialism with Chinese characteristics has created a new form of human civilization. This is a very important assertion, which for the first time raises socialism with Chinese characteristics to the level of civilization. This is because the five thousand years of Chinese civilization have shaped the root nature and background of this new form of civilization. It is mainly reflected in five aspects.
First, Chinese civilization contains the path of unity and stability. Chinese civilization has never been interrupted, and the roots are in great unification. Great unification is the first political concern of the Chinese and a collective consensus condensed through countless bloody lessons, and no foreign theory can shake it. The unification has a complete set of systems to support, such as the county system, the examination system, the civilian official system, the township squire system, the supervision system, the historical official system, and so on. As long as it is Chinese, we must recognize Chinese civilization; as long as we recognize Chinese civilization, we must recognize great unity; as long as we recognize great unification, we will inevitably defend the political bottom line that the land is indivisible, the country cannot be chaotic, the nation cannot be dispersed, and civilization cannot be broken. This is obviously not an authoritarian dictatorship in which the West attacks us with only "one voice", but a symphony composed of various voices, which is inseparable from the eight-tone unison of each voice, and even more inseparable from the center coordination of the commander-in-chief. Now that some Western countries have fallen into the predicament of political rifting, it is time to listen to more of our Chinese symphony amid the noise.
Second, Chinese civilization contains the way of pluralism and unity. President Xi Jinping recently said at the ethnic work conference that the Chinese nation and Chinese civilization embody the connotation of "pluralism and unity" everywhere. Historically, China has had many ethnic groups and religions. But no matter how diverse the ethnic groups are, they can always be integrated by fate and commonality; no matter how diverse the religions, they can always coexist harmoniously through mutual learning and exchanges. Because the maintenance of the pattern of pluralism and unity does not depend on race, not on blood, not on religion, but on the identification with Chinese culture. Any minority regime that has established the Central Plains has taken the initiative to inherit the Chinese institutional system and ethical system; any religion that enters China will be integrated into the ideological system of Chinese civilization unless it is one-or-or. You can count in Qufu how many ethnic minority emperors erected monuments for Confucius. All these provide references for today's international community to deal with ethnic, religious and ideological conflicts.
Third, Chinese civilization contains the way of inclusiveness and openness. Chinese civilization has the spirit of learning from the strengths of each family and the grandeur of embracing foreign civilizations. From the spread of Buddhism to the east to the "Yi Confucian Huitong", and then from the "Western Learning to the East" to the reform and opening up, Chinese civilization has always been constantly innovating in eclecticism. The sinicization of Islam was done hundreds of years ago in Nanjing and Yanzhou, Shandong. And the greatest integration in the past hundred years is the combination of Marxism and China's excellent traditional culture. Marxism is the seed of truth for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and China's excellent traditional culture is the cultural soil for Marxism to take root and bear fruit. The deep integration of the two highlights the Chinese characteristics of socialism. The story of socialism with Chinese characteristics strongly proves that history cannot end, and it should be the arrogance and prejudice of Western-centrism that should be ended. China's continuous learning from the West does not mean that it has become The West, and not becoming the West does not mean that it will threaten the West. Chinese and Western civilization should move toward exchanges and mutual learning between you and me and you, and should not fall into a hostile conflict in which you live and die and are either one or the other. In the face of Western civilization, Chinese civilization has always opened the door to dialogue and exchange.
Fourth, Chinese civilization contains the ethics of responsibility. Unlike Western civil society, which emphasizes contractual rights, Chinese civilization attaches more importance to the ethics of responsibility, which is embodied in the dedication of loyalty and filial piety and righteousness and the cultivation of Qi Zhiping. Chinese civilization not only advocates "what should I have", but also emphasizes "what should I bear"; it not only emphasizes that individuals rely on the collective, responsibility precedes rights, but also emphasizes how much power there is to bear. It is precisely out of the ethics of responsibility that Chinese always want to leave the green waters and green mountains to future generations, take "getting rich first and helping later get rich" as a matter of course, and take it as the party's mission to assume unlimited responsibility to the people. Therefore, the Communist Party of China is not the representative of the interests of a small number of people, but the interests of the whole nation; it is not an election machine, but a mission-oriented political party that governs for the people; it is not a political party of an advanced nature that is divorced from the people's elite group, but does not export revolution but constantly revolutionizes itself.
Fifth, Chinese civilization contains the Sino-Zheng way of peace. Traditionally, China handles foreign relations, has always adhered to the middle way to neutralize, and pursued the beauty of each other, the United States and the United States, harmony is precious, and harmony is universal. For thousands of years, even at the height of our national strength, we have never conquered and expanded outwards, but have relied on commerce and trade with people; we have never colonized and ruled our neighboring countries, but have relied on the tributary system to exchange courtesies; we have never engaged in cultural hegemony in foreign missionary work; and in Qufu, successive governments have never organized a Confucian student to go abroad to preach. In a word, in the history of Chinese civilization, there is no external expansion, no colonial plunder, no gunboat policy, and no forced cultural export. This is fundamentally different from the old and new imperialism, which pursues the law of the jungle.
If we understand the way of Chinese civilization, we can understand that socialism with Chinese characteristics, as a new form of civilization, must be peaceful, not a repetition of the rise of Western empires; it must be autonomous, not a modern version of the West; it must be advancing with the times, not the solitude of ancient civilizations. Although Chinese civilization is the only great civilization in the world that has never been interrupted in its national form, many Western politicians and philosophical masters have never read Chinese history for hundreds of years, and of course they do not understand the way of Chinese civilization, let alone enter the spiritual world of Chinese. They will misjudge the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation as the rise of a new empire, the Eastern wisdom of the Pacific Ocean, which is powerful enough to accommodate two great powers, as a struggle for hegemony with the United States, and the mutual integration and mutual learning of Chinese and Western civilizations as replacing Western civilization. Misreading the civilization of others is a small matter, and endangering the peace of mankind is a big thing. It's a critical time for Chinese and Western civilizations to sit down and dig deeper into each other.
Today, many ancient civilizations are trying to explore a path of non-Western modernization rooted in their own civilizational traditions. These countries have all been brilliant in ancient history, and have all been invaded by the West in modern history, and they have all begun to learn from the West in the future, and then they have gradually returned to their ancient civilization traditions after learning from the West after completing modernization. The key to this is to both modernize and nationalize; to learn from the West and not to become the West. Because ancient civilizations contain valuable experience in resolving practical dilemmas in the long river of history, they can better understand how to find a balance between tradition and modernity, pluralism and unity, order and freedom.
Human society has once again reached a crossroads. Rooted in the competition of the development path of different civilizations, it is sliding into the "new Cold War" trap of hegemonic thinking; the development of emerging technologies and artificial intelligence is changing the operating logic of modern society; and the problems of epidemic epidemic, ecological crisis, and the differentiation between rich and poor that mankind are facing are testing the survival resilience of different civilizations. We need dialogue, not confrontation. The so-called universal values advocated by the West are doomed to be only Western values if they do not exchange and learn from Chinese civilization. If the Chinese civilization does not engage in dialogue and exchange with world civilizations, it will also not be able to achieve innovative development. Any zero-sum game strategy based on the "superiority of civilization" will never be a sustainable and growing civilization, but a sign of the gradual closure and decline of this civilization. Only win-win cooperation is the ultimate way out of human civilization, and only diversified civilization exchanges and mutual learning can temper the common values of mankind to meet the common challenges of the world. Let's keep up the good work!
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