by Chen Xuegen
We often complain that Westerners don't understand China as much as Chinese understand the West.
After the two opium wars (1839-42 and 1856-60), the Chinese elite made great efforts to find out about the Western world, but the Western world was not as eager to discover Chinese culture, except for individual scholars and isolated curiosities.
As China rises, the interest from the rest of the world has become as eager as China's desire to be understood. However, if a country only has economic power, it will severely limit itself, as Japan did in the 1980s and 1990s. If China falls into this trap, it will damage its standing.
The "China threat" theory exists not only because of interest and political factors, but also because of the cultural barrier between Chinese and the Western culture.
Therefore, we need to understand each other through cultural communication.
Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, is making a visit to Europe expressly described as a cultural one. The Frankfurt Book Fair he attended, opened Tuesday, has selected China as its Guest of Honor.
This time, cultural communication has been put in the same important position as economic diplomacy.
Diplomacy before reform and opening-up began was largely political, and was then supplemented by economic diplomacy.
Now, cultural diplomacy complements them, and will come to play a more and more important role.
Without opening-up and competition, we would never have developed economically.
The same applies to culture. We can't always show off our cultural traditions, but we shouldn't hold ourselves in contempt and believe that no matter how hard we try, we cannot change the one-way communication between Chinese and Western culture.
This is a two-way communication. If we want to promote our culture to them, we should also know their culture.
Many famous writers in the world have attended the Frankfurt Book Fair, and China is sending a large delegation. Many events are featuring themes around China, and yet it's a pity that Chinese writers are not promoting their newbooks as prominently as foreign writers are.
In the over 2,000-squaremeter Chinese pavilion, themed around Tradition and Innovation, the Chinese display is divided into three parts.
The first is the Chinese Rare Book Facsimile Reprints, in which the copies of the Yongle Encyclopedia (1404) and The Selection of Imperial Collection of Four (1778), will be exhibited.
The second part is the Chinese version of world famous academic books.
The third part is some utilitarian books such as Zhongguo Dabaike Quanshu (Encyclopedia of China), Hanyu Dacidian (The Great Chinese Dictionary),and Hanyu Dazidian (The Grand Chinese Dictionary).
Although culture can eliminate differences and enhance mutual understanding, there are competitions, even clashes, between cultures.
After the Cold War, Samuel Huntington (1927-2008), an American political scientist, proposed his theory of "the clash of civilizations."
His opinion is controversial, because that the ideological clashes are no longer important; most economic conflicts could be settled by multilateral mechanism.
The cultural clash, however, is hard to be settled. People sometimes will sacrifice their lives in order to defend their own values and ideals. We can easily find cultural conflicts in the wars after the Cold War.
Similar conflicts showed up in the Frankfurt Book Fair this year. Small as it was, it gave us a warning that cultural diplomacy is a war without bullets, in which we should use more subtle ways apart from some direct confrontation. We must be proud of our own civilization first, and then we can influence others.
(Source: GlobalTimes.cn)
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