【Commentary】On April 4, the Blue Hall Forum on "Chinese Modernization and the World" was held in Shanghai. At the sub-forum of "People-to-People Exchanges and Mutual Learning, Civilization, Beauty and Harmony", a number of guests spoke sincerely in their respective fields, calling on all countries in the world to put aside their prejudices and jointly promote the unity and progress of human civilization.

【During the same period】Yao Ming, chairman of the Chinese Basketball Association

Basketball was invented in 1891 in Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, and the first thirteen rules are very different from what we are now. But there are three very important rule changes in basketball's more than one hundred years of history. At the time, I jokingly asked some FIBA officials why all three rules were for big men and not very friendly to me. He said something very interesting at the time, he said: "Yao, 99.99% of the world's people do not have 2.20 meters (height), we need to make this sport more people accept it." "Of course we all know it's a fact and we know it's a joke, but between our jokes, I think we're talking about basketball, and I'm afraid it's not just about basketball.

British director Ke Wens bluntly said that he was very worried that some countries' prejudice against China would lead the world to disaster.

[contemporaneous] British director Kovens

When I first came to China, China was still a poor and backward country compared to now. In more than 40 years, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China Chinese people have achieved tremendous transformation. So what I am most worried about is that if the Western world continues to hype up those rumors about China and continue to hold those anti-China policies, I think this will lead us astray in disaster.

In the face of the current severe and complex international environment, Singaporean scholar Ma Kaishuo said that the cooperation between China and ASEAN in the past few years has achieved fruitful results, which is worthy of exchanges and reference among other countries around the world.

【Contemporaneous】Singapore scholar Mahbub Mahbub

In 2000, China's trade with ASEAN was only $400 billion, less than one-third of the size of the trade between the United States and ASEAN. Fortunately, China proposed a free trade agreement to the 2001 ASEAN countries, which was signed and approved in <>, and as a result, trade between China and ASEAN exploded. Especially when you compare it to the trade volume between Europe and North Africa, and between the United States and Latin America. How so? There is a stark contrast to why traditional economic powerhouses such as the United States and the European Union have failed to share the fruits of their economic development with their neighbors, while China has done so. Therefore, I would like to say that in today's troubled world, when we are looking for good news, we may wish to study what is happening in ASEAN, especially the positive relationship between China and the <> ASEAN countries.

At the opening ceremony of the forum, Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang said in his speech that modernization is an inalienable right of every country, not a monopoly privilege enjoyed by a few countries. Just because we have reached the other side of modernization, we should not cross the river and tear down bridges and set up roadblocks for other countries to realize modernization, still less should we suppress, contain, and block other countries because they take different modernization paths. China actively advocates that all countries in the world promote the common values of peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy and freedom for all mankind, and adhere to the principle of transcending civilizational barriers through exchanges among civilizations, transcending civilizational conflicts through mutual learning among civilizations, and transcending civilizational superiority through civilizational coexistence.

Reporting by Zhou Sunyu from Shanghai

Responsible Editor: [Ji Xiang]