Foreign tourists have a group photo taken at the Palace Museum in Beijing on September 5, 2024. Photo: VCG

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." 

A visitor takes a photo at the Notre-Dame de Paris: The Augmented Exhibition at the National Museum of China in Beijing on September 11, 2024. Photo: VCG

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 the Western 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.