Where East meets West: The value and significance of the Global Civilization Initiative

In his keynote address at the CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-Level Meeting to propose the Global Civilization Initiative (GCI), Chinese President Xi Jinping likened world civilizations to blooming flowers. Just as “a single flower does not make spring, while one hundred flowers in full blossom bring spring to the garden,” so also “mutual learning among different civilizations play an irreplaceable role in advancing humanity's modernization process and making the garden of world civilizations flourish.” President Xi’s sentiment of the essential unity that emanates from our civilizational diversity is timely. At a time of great change and turmoil in international relations, including the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine that are playing out at the edge of civilizational fault lines, the great need of our times is a unifying message of the common oneness of humanity.

He went on to advocate in his address for respect for the diversity of civilizations, for the common values of humanity, for robust people-to-people exchanges and cooperation, and for the relevance of harnessing histories and cultures for creative transformation and innovative development – to modernize, both, societies as well as their fine traditional cultures. Indeed, in China and Asia more broadly, the pinnacle of the state’s development and achievement was measured not in terms of economic strength and military power. It was measured rather in the radiance of one’s culture, civility and heritage and its facility to both awe and tame the faraway visitor peacefully. That a great and rising nation’s - and continent’s - well-being should once again be expressed in terms of such sense and sensibility is only apt.

The uniqueness of Chinese civilization compared to Western civilization derives in multiple ways. Two features stand out in particular. First, Chinese civilization is a very ‘this-worldly’ civilization – it places man, not God, at the center of the universe. It is a philosophy of life, and thereby places great emphasis on the moral rightness of being. If man is supreme, then he is both the greatest creator as well as his own worst enemy. He must write the script of his own life since he, more than any external factor, enjoys the agency to do so. Yet, because life is complex, he must also choose wisely, be patient, stay humble, and seek enlightened compromise. This centering of man within his universe is very different from Western civilizational notions of man and his relationship to the universe. At this difficult juncture in global politics when pessimism and fatalism of future prospects is rife, it is worth re-emphasizing once again this very attribute of agency that human beings possess to shape outcomes and create a brighter future for themselves.

The other stark difference between Chinese and Western civilization relates to how the political unit came to be defined and formed. It was defined culturally, not territorially, in Chinese civilization. The territorial expansion and consolidation that did happen came about fundamentally through a process of cultural assimilation and only peripherally through military conquest. The fringes at which that cultural assimilation reached its limits also became the territorial boundaries of the state. And reciprocally and remarkably, the assimilation within the Chinese way of government and life also enabled non-ethnic Chinese dynasties to rule for extended periods of time in the capital city of the (Imperial) Chinese state – wherever that capital city might be located.

This cultural framing of the political unit, both, runs up against the Western tradition and has been one of the key historical reasons for the relative pacificity of the Chinese state in its foreign relations. It is also the reason why the establishment and consolidation of powerful centralized authority in China has always been the surest guarantor of peace, prosperity and stability in East Asia through millennia, with regional states bandwagoning with this outward radiation of Chinese influence. While, on the other hand, militarily preponderant power in the West typically furnished the operation of the balance of power and invited periodic countervailing alliances against the preponderant power’s expansionist ambitions.

Be that as it may, in the re-rise of China and the relative decline of the United States, international politics is once again witnessing changes unseen in a century. Indeed, one might add, changes unseen in half a millennium, as Western ascendancy gradually gives way to the rise of Asia-centrism in global affairs. Major power transitions have rarely been accomplished peaceably and have in fact involved bitter rivalry and bloodshed, going back many centuries. On the other hand, the notion that major power transitions can only be achieved via blood-soaked rivalry is a Western construct. For many centuries before the entry of the West into its politics and maritime spaces, Asia’s international relations were for the most part pacific, as dynasties sought to consolidate their territories domestically rather than conquer their counterparts externally. They rarely rubbed up against each other with malicious intent and with a quest for domination.

In our hyper-connected day and age though, major powers are inevitably bound to rub up against each other. Yet, it is not inevitable that this rubbing-up must degenerate into rivalry and war at a time of major power transition. As the two foremost powers of the international system, China and the United States share an obligation to initiate a conversation about the philosophical drivers, both national and civilizational, that inform their approaches to international relations and major power politics. This is so that they can learn from each other thereafter how to identify a consensual principle of order and build a mutual consensus on peace, justice and fairness in their bilateral relations and more broadly within the international system at a time of great flux within this system.

To be clear, the U.S. government will not formally support the Global Civilization Initiative. But that does not preclude non-government Chinese and U.S. international relations theorists, specialists and academicians from coming together under the GCI’s umbrella and thinking through and charting out the principles of such a stable and mutually beneficial order at this moment of transition and flux.

The garden of Eastern and Western civilizations will flourish only when its youth flourishes. Youth is indeed the future of the two countries, the two continents, and the two civilizations. Educational and youth exchanges are hence indispensable for the creation of greater amity and cooperation between the East and West. In this regard, China and the United States bear an obligation to increase such exchanges. Furthermore, because there are so many more Chinese students in the United States than vice-versa, it is all the more necessary for the Chinese side to step up and facilitate the arrival and study abroad of greater numbers of American and Western students and youth in China. The program to invite 50,000 American youths to China in the next five years for exchanges and study announced by President Xi is most welcome in this regard. Beyond this program, the hope is that the great universities in China and the United States, individually and jointly, would create a dedicated summer study curriculum that invites students and youth from the other side of the Pacific to spend six weeks in their country, teaching them not just history and culture but also physically introducing them to the great sites and locations where that country’s history and culture, as well as its modern-day achievements, were written into the soil. It would be a deeply touching and learning experience for the youth involved and create lasting respect for the other.

Pathways to modernity are not set in stone. Nor is there a one-size-fits-all model of development and modernization. Pathways to prosperity, rather, are deeply influenced by national circumstances and traditions. Advocating for the diversity of civilizations and the need to transcend notions of civilizational superiority is an important step towards mutual learning among civilizations, so that the pathways to modernity and prosperity can be more widely shared and embraced across ‘the garden of world civilizations’. The Global Civilization Initiative is an excellent contribution in this regard.

(Author: Sourabh Gupta, Senior Fellow at the Institute for China-America Studies)