People from many countries spoke highly of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech at the symposium on cultural inheritance and development

Beijing, 6 Jun (Xinhua) -- Promoting the common progress of world civilization through exchanges and mutual learning -- People from many countries spoke highly of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech at the forum on cultural inheritance and development

Xinhua News Agency reporter

On the 2nd, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee, President of the People's Republic of China and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, attended the symposium on cultural inheritance and development in Beijing and delivered an important speech. He stressed that continuing to promote cultural prosperity, build a culturally powerful country, and build the modern civilization of the Chinese nation at a new starting point is our new cultural mission in the new era. We must strengthen cultural self-confidence, undertake missions, work hard, and work together to create a new culture belonging to our era and build a modern civilization of the Chinese nation.

People from many countries believe that Chinese civilization has made important contributions to the development of world civilization, and also provided rich ideological nourishment for uniting countries to jointly cope with challenges, promote world peace and development, and promote the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind. General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech will effectively promote closer cultural exchanges between countries and promote the world to achieve common progress in mutual learning among civilizations.

Uphold cultural self-confidence and help the development of civilization

General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that Chinese culture has a long history and Chinese civilization is broad and profound. Only by comprehensively understanding the history of Chinese civilization can we more effectively promote the creative transformation and innovative development of China's excellent traditional culture, more effectively promote the construction of socialist culture with Chinese characteristics, and build the modern civilization of the Chinese nation.

Oleg Timofeev, a scholar at RUDN University, who has visited China many times, said that he deeply felt the importance and self-confidence of the Chinese people to traditional culture. "The concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind advocated by Chinese leaders has been nourished by China's excellent traditional culture, and the historical Chinese civilization is not only closely related to China's development and progress today, but also contributes Chinese wisdom to the development of world civilization."

Israeli publisher Pierre RaVé, winner of the China Book Special Contribution Award, said that culture is a bridge connecting different countries and peoples. Only by fully absorbing the nutrients of traditional culture can people create a better future.

Abid Chowdhury, dean of the School of Anthropology at Arid Agricultural University in Rawalpindipil, Pakistan, said that historical experience tells us that a deep cultural heritage helps a country cope with multiple challenges and continue to develop and progress. Today's China can eliminate absolute poverty, has a strong driving force for development, and is closely related to the profound cultural accumulation of the Chinese nation.

Mohsen Farjani, a well-known Egyptian sinologist and said, China's proposal of the "Belt and Road" initiative, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative and the concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind have pointed out the way to build a more just and reasonable world. "These initiatives and ideas have benefited from the Chinese people's inheritance and promotion of valuable Chinese cultural traditions."

Marco Antonio Santos, head of the Chichen Itza Maya civilization site in Mexico, said that President Xi Jinping's important speech reflects China's emphasis on cultural development, and also affirms the creativity displayed by various civilizations. Closer cultural exchanges between countries help promote the development of civilization. American civilization and Chinese civilization have many similarities, and we look forward to more in-depth exchanges between Mexico and China in the field of culture.

Persist in being inclusive and promote exchanges and mutual learning

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that the outstanding characteristics of Chinese civilization include continuity, innovation, unity, inclusiveness and peace. Chinese culture's open-mindedness to the eclectic world civilization resonates with overseas experts.

Choi Changyuan, director of the Institute of Chinese Culture and Art at Cheongun University in South Korea, said that mutual learning between civilizations requires an eclectic attitude to understand and comprehend each other's civilization achievements. Choi Changyuan cited the history of civilizational exchanges between South Korea and China as an example that the two countries are geographically close, and ancient Chinese sayings such as "friends come from afar, they are happy" are widely recognized by the Korean public. The long-term cultural exchanges between South Korea and China have continuously provided nutrients for the innovation and development of their respective civilizations.

According to Mazen Shamiyeh, former assistant to the Palestinian Foreign Minister for Asian Affairs, cultural exchanges are a bridge and bond between different countries, "In recent years, the two sides have translated a large number of excellent Arab-Chinese books and films, and cultural exchanges between the two sides have become increasingly close, which has greatly enhanced the friendship between the people and promoted the development of Arab-Chinese relations."

The Egyptian sinologist Mohsen Farjani translated Chinese classics such as the Analects and the Book of Poetry into Arabic and won the "Outstanding Contribution Award for China-Arab Friendship". He said that Egyptian-Chinese exchanges have achieved a leap in recent years. Nowadays, the number of students studying Chinese in Arab countries, including Egypt, has increased year after year, and many Arab young people are committed to translating Chinese literary and artistic works, and the rich forms of cultural exchanges have narrowed the distance between the two peoples, and also helped the Arab people benefit from China's development experience.

Bringing together the power of civilization to meet global challenges

In General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech, people from many countries have a deeper understanding of the outstanding characteristics of Chinese civilization and the power of China's cultural civilization to develop and prosper. This has allowed them to further identify with China's development path and cooperation philosophy. They expressed the view that the international community should uphold the spirit of inclusiveness and peace, carry forward the common values of all mankind, work together to address global challenges and promote common development.

Kenyan international experts Cavince Adhir said that despite the differences between different civilizations, they still share some common values, which is the key to mankind's ability to jointly address global challenges.

In Adhir's view, China's promotion of the coordinated development of material civilization and spiritual civilization "is the key to creating a balanced, healthy and sustainable development of China's social development, and China's experience is worth learning from other countries."

Mazen Shamiyeh said that to understand contemporary China, we must understand the long and splendid Chinese civilization, which is an important foundation for China to stand tall in the world. As Chinese often say, "a flower alone is not spring", the international community should jointly advocate respect for the diversity of world civilizations, carry forward the common values of all mankind, attach importance to the inheritance and innovation of civilization, and strengthen international people-to-people exchanges and cooperation, which is also an important part of President Xi Jinping's global civilization initiative.

Professor Kostantinos Belhutesfa of Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia said that President Xi Jinping's important speech fully demonstrates the peaceful nature of Chinese civilization, and the global civilization initiative proposed by Chinese leaders will certainly benefit world peace and development.

Chemonil, president of the Cambodia-China Relations Development Society, believes that China's concept of civilization takes into account the characteristics of different civilizations on the basis of consensus. "The new situation of cultural integration and people-to-people exchanges will make new and important contributions to promoting world peace and development and building a community with a shared future for mankind."