Xi blasts ‘clash of civilisations’
China leader reminds US that no society is superior to another
BEIJING: China’s top leader has hit back against the view that his country’s rivalry with United States is one of a clash between civilisations, a view floated recently by a senior US official.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of a summit in Beijing to promote cooperation among Asian countries yesterday, China President Xi Jinping said all civilisations were unique and no one civilisation was superior over another.
“The thought that one’s own race and civilisation are superior and the inclination to remould or replace other civilisations are just stupid. To act them out will only bring catastrophic consequences,” he said to applause.
Xi’s rebuke of US State Department director of policy planning Kiron Skinner, who said at a thinktank event last month that the rivalry with China is the first time the United States is facing a great power competitor that is not Caucasian, is the latest pushback from Beijing against such a view.
Skinner had framed US-China rivalry as “a fight with a really different civilisation and a different ideology”.
“If human civilisations were reduced to one single colour or model, the world would become a stereotype and be too dull a place to live in.
“What we need is to respect each other as equals, and say no to hubris and prejudice,” Xi said.
His comments at the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilisations (CDAC) come amid escalating tensions with the United States after trade talks with Washington broke down last week.
Beijing has framed the reason for the breakdown as unrealistic US terms that harmed China’s sovereignty and dignity.
Calling on countries to come together to promote interaction, dialogue, harmony and economic globalisation, Xi said China was willing to work with them to “protect Asian cultural heritage and better preserve and sustain our civilisations”.
He added that in his travels, he had been fascinated by the diversity of civilisations, listing Egypt’s Luxor temple, the Acropolis in Greece and Sentosa in Singapore as examples.
The inaugural CDAC conference is being held just weeks after the Belt and Road Forum, the summit on Xi’s marquee foreign policy strategy. It is Beijing’s latest effort to position itself as a leader in global governance.
The one-day event, which features discussions on issues including Asian governance, education and culture, is being held alongside various cultural events.
Other world leaders, including Singapore president Halimah Yacob, Cambodian king Norodom Sihamoni and Greek president Prokopis Pavlopoulos, also spoke at the opening ceremony of the summit.
Pavlopoulos echoed Xi’s comments and said it was a “great mistake” to believe that it was possible to have a clash of civilisations.
“Real civilisations by their own nature are not clashing. Real civilisations open a dialogue among themselves,” he said.