The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a multi-dimensional global crisis. However, it would be unwise to forget the long-term trends and problems defining the relations between China and the world, more specifically between the Middle Country and the West.
Since the Industrial Revolution, Europe and its younger extension across the Atlantic, the United States of America, have been ascending and dominating forces. Nonetheless, the gradual consolidation of the Chinese renaissance radically alters the West’s relative weight in global affairs.
The 21st century is not only multipolar, but also multi-conceptual. In a global village where the advancement of transportation and communication has abolished geographic distance, powers continue to interact, while the most ancient civilizations have to coexist.
Looking at China’s recent transformation, especially since Deng Xiaoping’s “Reform and Opening-up”, the West was expecting a profound Westernization of the Far East’s largest country. It will have to adjust, instead, to a much more complex reality: a Chinese modern China as one of the components of a multi-conceptual world in which modernity is taking different forms.
In this context, the most regrettable characteristic of the political period that Donald Trump’s election as President of the US has opened is the notion of an absolute antagonism between Chinese and Western values. That the Chinese and Western identities would be structurally in opposition constitutes a false, and dangerously misleading, narrative.
The West and the Far East met in significant intellectual encounters throughout the previous century: the interactions between Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and Kuki Shuzo (1888-1941) or Tesuka Tomio (1903-1983); the dialogue between Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) and Daisaku Ikeda; and the conversations between Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) or Ezra Pound (1885-1972) with the richness of the Chinese tradition, are all occurrences of this cross-cultural exchange.
In fact, a seriously renewed intercultural dialogue between the West and, especially, China can only reveal that there are some profound elements of convergence between the two traditions which, contrary to what the considerations of Samuel Huntington (1927-2008) could suggest, are not destined to clash.
Economic and financial cycles, the spectacular stories highlighted by the media, the vicissitudes of business, the endless struggles for power, and the enormous resonance of social media, are part of a multi-dimensional reality. Regardless, any credible consideration of relations between civilizations implies a reflection upon history, philosophy and art.
The military confrontation in the Pacific between Japan and the US that ended with the use of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki constitutes one of the darkest chapters in the Second World War. However, the deeper roots of these insane destructions originated in the 19th century. Aggravated by the unification of Germany, Western nationalism and rivalries among the European powers led to the First World War.
In the aftermath of the two world wars whose main origin was the fight of Europe against itself, and certainly not a clash of civilizations, the Cold War has been also opposing, from a cultural perspective, two pillars of the Western civilization, the US and the USSR since Russia’s identity is inseparable from Christianity and its profound connections with the European history.
Beyond the ubiquitous discourses on Sino-Western strategic rivalries or the theoretical debates on the “Thucydides trap”, the real pattern that a long-term view of history shows is a surprising compatibility between the Sinic and Western civilizations.
It can certainly be said that, for a long period of time, it is geographic distance which prevented China and the West to directly clash on a massive scale. When European imperialism forced the declining Qing dynasty (1644-1912) to comply with its rapacious demands, the two sides collided in what were limited conflicts. More importantly, it was not in the difference between cultures, but in the West’s violent expansionism that laid the cause of these confrontations.
Sino-Western compatibility is also explained, to a certain extent, by the fact that both civilizations are, above all, humanistic; they have evolved and persisted under different forms, but they both essentially put the dignity of Man at the center of their preoccupations, a dignity nurtured by objective social mechanisms and self-cultivation.
Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), who is interestingly better remembered in China than in Europe, was able to articulate Confucianism and some of the key principles of Christianity by using their connection in the context of Man’s dignity. The principle of accommodation, wisely put into practice by the Jesuits, would have been less easy to implement in a context of a greater cultural estrangement between the two traditions.
More generally, those whose choice is to live for a long period of time within a cross-cultural experience and not only speculate on it as an object of academic study, are more able to comprehend the dynamics and implications of accommodation. They experience a difference which is never absolute; they are well aware of the difficulty to translate while, at the same time, they know that translation and mutual understanding are always possible.
Be it in the West, François Jullien for example, or in China, with the important contribution of Gu Zhun (1915- 1974), some theorists look at China’s Zhou dynasty, especially the Eastern Zhou (771-221 BC), and at Greco-Roman Europe as the sources of an essential divergence between two traditions. Such an approach has to be nuanced.
Obviously, Greek philosophy and Chinese traditional thinking operate differently, but there are also some major correspondences between the Greco-Roman intellectual environment and classical China; the meaningful similarities between Confucianism and Stoicism, between the historians Thucydides (460-400 BC) and Sima Qian (145-86 BC), or between the Cynics and Zhuangzi (369-286 BC), have all been studied and commented.
The notion of an “Axial Age” would not have been conceptualized by Karl Jaspers (1883-1969) without commonalities existing between the Zhou dynasty and Greco-Roman Europe.
With the construction of Western modernity, the affinity between China and the West became even more evident. More concerned by temporal realities than by the supernatural, separating religion from public affairs, the European Enlightenment took the West even closer to China.
In L’Europe chinoise (1988), the French literatus René Etiemble (1909-2002) showcased the deep impact that the Chinese tradition had upon France in the 18th century. There is, indeed, a relative conceptual alignment between the secularism of Western modernity and the immanence of Confucian ethics.
The rich phenomenon of cross-fertilization can also be interpreted as the mark of a certain closeness between Sinic and Western traditions. The echo of the notion of the “Silk Road” sounds almost infinite, not because it describes material transactions along routes crisscrossing Eurasia, but because it is a powerful metaphor for the cross-fertilization between the West and the East beyond the passage of time.
On the one hand, Leibniz (1646-1716) and Voltaire (1694-1778) were deeply inspired by Chinese culture, while, on the other hand, in the 20th century, it has been possible by post imperial China to adopt republicanism and socialism, conceptualized first by Western minds, because they were not in total contradiction with Chinese culture. For socialism to be Sinicized, it was necessary for Chinese intellectual circles to first articulate it with some of the organic patterns of Chinese tradition.
To use Etiemble’s terminology, if one can certainly reflect upon what has been a Chinese Europe, L’Europe chinoise, we could also discuss the multiple dimensions of a European China.
The magnum opus of Qian Zhongshu (1910-1998) is built around the notion of 打通 (Da Tong), the very possibility of “striking connections” between the Chinese and Western traditions. Qian’s Limited Views (管锥编, Guan ZhuiBian), a rare expression of intelligent erudition, illustrates through literary criticism that, despite the differences between the West and China, they remain at a distance which allows mutual elucidation and illumination. Limited Views is, in that sense, one of the most remarkable expressions of the Silk Road effect as a metaphor for cross-fertilization between different intellectual traditions.
Qian Zhongshu’s masterpiece is a demonstration that a pure sameness and an absolute otherness are simply myths. In this perspective, in which thoughtful nuances are what matters, China and the West are in a relation reminiscent of the Yin and the Yang; they are two poles simultaneously within and outside each other in a mutually transformative articulation.
The art of Zhao Wuji (1920-2013) is the visualization of this transformative articulation; but it also makes the value of Olivier Debré (1920-1999) or Pierre Soulages’ paintings unique. The aesthetic emotion that can be felt in front of their creations is the most direct intuition of the forms that Sino-Western transformative relations can take.
Representing only one of the dimensions of a global network connecting civilizations, the relations between the West and China are, nevertheless, of the highest significance.
Their importance is not determined by their quantitative exchanges, but rather derives from the solutions to global problems that their synergies can offer. It is a “creative minority”, to reinterpret Arnold Toynbee’s terminology, much more than a “global elite”, which can better extract from the Sino-Western relationship some of the solutions to the issues of our time.
While the “global elite” rejoices in a globalization which flattens cultural differences, and by doing so acts as a generator of conservative populisms, the “creative minority”, concerned above all by culture, finds in differences the resources to reach new equilibria.
The socio-political realities of the 21st century raise two fundamental questions. How to make sure that economic globalization remains a fair, sustainable and balanced process? How can its powerful but morally blind engine, the unstoppable advancement of technology, stay at the service of mankind? Mankind has hitherto survived its entry into the atomic age; it will also have to wisely manage Artificial Intelligence and the applications of quantum physics, among other technological disruptions.
The nature of the answers that the West and China will formulate depends on their capacity to reinterpret their humanisms and on their ability, in a world of growing interdependence, to make full use of the fundamental compatibility between the two traditions. In that sense, China’s opening up to the West and the West’s opening up to China are vital for both sides.
The narrative in which there would be an inevitable clash between China and the West is a construct which has to be countered since they happen to be the most potent co-architects for the building of “a community of shared future for mankind”.
With the proposal of “a community of shared future for mankind”, the Chinese President Xi Jinping reinterprets the Chinese classical cosmopolitanism, the Confucian notion of Da Tong (大同), and he puts China on a path which is reminiscent of Western universalism.
In the vision of a new humanism ushered by Sino-Western synergies, it is mankind, and not a part of it, which stands as the highest goal.
Some commentators would look at a strategic cooperation between China and the West as a mere fantasy, arguing that their political systems have different features.
A fantasy it is not. The legitimacy of the Chinese political system, which is real, should not be measured by its
level of imitation of the modern Western political forms. Its legitimacy takes its source in its capacity to maintain China on a path of quantitative and qualitative development.
Moreover, it is with the Communist Party of China (CPC), the force behind the emancipation, the opening-up, and the growing prosperity of Chinese society, that the West is de facto working to organize a better globalization. The reality is that the West, and beyond, the world, have accepted the current form of Chinese governance since they are both contributors to the global order. The Chinese renaissance that the CPC sets as its main objective allows the West to have a solid partner with whom to work for global growth and security.
Besides the objections linked to political science, some observers would deny the possibility of long-term Sino-Western strategic synergies for geopolitical reasons.
Assuming China’s rapid progress in every dimension of power, and by doing so, systematically underestimating the internal challenges that are congenial with a country of China’s size, they are concerned by the geopolitical trends conducive, they believe, to a confrontation between China, the rising power, and the US on a mission to maintain the status quo.
Such an interpretation ignores that China is less concerned by leadership than by centrality. That China’s ultimate intentions do not exactly correspond to Western strategic objectives is highly reassuring, since violence erupts when both parties are in a race for the same position.
This is a crucial point. It is the difference between the two cultures which could be the best guarantor of peace. If China follows the path that the West took when it modernized, if she adopts the West’s missionary spirit, a conflict between the two might be unavoidable. If China behaves in a way which is more conformed with her history and culture, compatibility and complementarity might prevail. The analysts should remember that it is an imitative China, a China mirroring the West, which would be the real threat to world peace.
It is, therefore, fortunate that the Chinese renaissance does not equal Westernization. Having said that, while the
West should not fear a dominant China, it will certainly have to adjust to a world where China is relevant and influential, for this is what China wants to achieve.
However, it is reasonable to assume that China’s influence will be put at the service of a cooperative internationalism, as demonstrated by Xi’s emphasis on “a community of shared future for mankind”.
In order to fully realize the enormous potential of Sino-Western synergies, a constant dialogue aimed at increasing mutual understanding is necessary. Unfortunately, the level of mutual appreciation between the two civilizations remains low, and proponents of cosmopolitanism should be concerned by the regression that Donald Trump has triggered.
The sad symbols of this regression are the narratives around Chinese students in American universities, depicting them as threats or even active spies. Such a portrayal constitutes an insane reversal. Young and engaged students are connectors; they embody the effort to better comprehend the other and are vectors for cross-fertilization.
Wise decision-makers have to create the conditions for having more Chinese students in Western universities and for Western students to make Chinese universities more pluralistic. Some of them will keep renewing the “creative minority”, able to see in each threat an opportunity: the rich notion of crisis “weiji” in Chinese, or in the words of Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843), to understand that “where the danger is, also grows the saving power”.
There is currently danger in the relations between China and the West, but, at the same time, a way to save mankind can also be found. One certainly does not have to choose one of them at the exclusion of the other; we, subjectively and to varying degrees, live with both, as, objectively, our world is a laboratory for their transformative coexistence.
One of the expressions used by the Chinese anthropologist Fei Xiaotong (1910-2005) indicates a higher level of wisdom: “各美其美, 美人之美, 美美与共, 天下大同” (“gemei qi mei, mei ren zhimei, meimeiyu gong, tianxiadatong”). An acceptable rendering of Fei’s insight into English could be: “Appreciate one’s own beauty and those of others, so they can coexist, and harmony can prevail”.
Through the confident acceptation of their respective traditions, with the promise of their mutual illumination, China and the West are the demonstration that progress towards a greater unity in the world started long time ago. Such progress has to be clearly recognized and unrelentingly continued.
Mr. David Gosset, Sinologist, is the founder of the Europe-China Forum. He is the author of Limited Views on the Chinese Renaissance (2018).
China has been a key participant in the work of our organization and has played a central role as a pillar of international cooperation and multilateralism. China and the United Nations are continuing to work together to address pressing global issues.
China has also been a pioneer in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. Your country has shown a strong commitment to sustainable development, most notably the goal of ending poverty, and to South-South cooperation.
Antonio Guterres,
United Nations Secretary-General
Congratulatory Address on the 70th
anniversary of the founding of the
People’s Republic of China, Oct. 1st, 2019
At present, one cannot seriously analyze geopolitical changes without talking about China. Chinese foreign policy has undergone a shift from “keeping a low profile” to “striving for achievement”, or a combination of both. In the last few years, China has strengthened its commitment to the United Nations (UN), to sustainable development, to globalization, to multilateralism, to free trade and to economic cooperation.
As Director-General of UNESCO for 8 years, from 2009 to 2017, I have seen the rise of the influence of China within the UN and within UNESCO more specifically.
In March 2014, President Xi Jinping visited UNESCO and affirmed that “we live in a world with different cultures, ethnic groups, skin colors, religions and social systems, and the people of various countries have become members of an intimate community of shared destiny”.
Later developments demonstrated that this was indeed a historic visit and the first visit ever of a Chinese President to a UN Agency. This was not done by chance and served as a testament to the importance President Xi attached to UNESCO’s mandate “to build peace in the minds of women and men” through education, culture and science. President Xi spoke powerfully and persuasively about the growing interdependence of our world that has transformed into everyday reality. Every day we see new skills and competences emerge that are needed to live together in a world of diversity, complexity and rapid change.
It was during this visit that I appointed the first lady of China, Prof. Peng Liyuan, UNESCO Special Envoy on the Education of Women and Girls, which led a year later to the establishment of a UNESCO-China Prize on girls’ education – another strong message of support and commitment to UNESCO, the UN, and to multilateralism.
In recent decades, China’s overall support for the UN has undergone a profound change in many areas, including on issues of peace and security. While China has been reluctant to take an active role in the organization in the past, it is now the second largest contributor to the regular UN budget. In 2000, China contributed a total of $ 12 million to the UN’s regular budget, accounting for just 1 percent of total contributions. By 2019, this number had surged to $ 367.9 million, or 12 percent of the total budget, making China the second largest contributor after the US.
China also profoundly changed its position towards one of the most notable and important UN missions: peacekeeping operations. It has become the second largest contributor to the peacekeeping budget and provides more personnel for peacekeeping operations than any other permanent member of the Security Council. In 1990, China only had five soldiers deployed in peacekeeping operations. Today, China has over 2500 peacekeeping soldiers, the highest of all P5 members.
In September 2015, China committed itself to creating a reserve force of 8,000 peacekeepers and a permanent police brigade responsible for peacekeeping. China kept its promise two years later with the registration of the peacekeeping force with the UN.
China supplemented this effort by committing to a China-United Nations Peace and Development Fund for peace and development in the amount of $ 10 billion over 10 years. This initiative was hailed by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who expressed his gratitude for “the political and financial support China has provided to help us create a stronger coordination function for sustainable development”.
The Sustainable Development Agenda is a fundamental contribution by the UN to engage the international community in the promotion of shared goals in confronting economic, social and environmental challenges.
For the UN, the big questions nowadays are: how can this strategic vision for humanity and the planet, which represents the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development, be implemented? What kind of national and international policy frameworks are needed so we can achieve sustainable growth, tackle environmental issues, reduce inequalities, and increase social inclusion?
Many answers have been given by China. China has made significant contributions in advancing the 2030 Agenda and the agreement on the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs). But before that, China made impressive progress on achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
With one fifth of the world’s population, China has become the first developing country to realize the UN Millennium Development Goal, reducing the ranks of its poor by 50 percent, ahead of schedule, as was emphasized by the UN in 2015.
Highlights of China’s progress in the 25 years between 1990 and 2015 include: lifting over 439 million people out of poverty; reducing the under-five mortality rate by
at least two-thirds; cutting the maternal mortality rate by three quarters; halving the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation; and actively engaging in South-South cooperation and providing help to over 120 developing countries in their efforts to attain the MDGs.
In September 2015, during the UN Sustainable Development Summit, President Xi Jinping announced the “Six 100s” international cooperation pledge: 100 poverty alleviation programmes;100 agricultural cooperation programmes; 100 trade facilitation programmes; 100 programmes for ecological protection and combating climate change; construction of 100 hospitals and clinics; and construction of 100 schools and vocational training centres.
The next year, 2016, China’s Premier Li Keqiang presented to the UN China’s national plan for implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which translates each target of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into “action plans” for China. The plan emphasized China’s overarching approach of “innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development”.
China’s SDG Plan is strongly linked to China’s 13th Five-Year Plan 2016-2020 and represents a substantive effort to connect the SDGs with domestic mid-and long- term development:
–eradicating poverty;
–improving people’s livelihoods;
–defusing social problems;
–achieving common prosperity;
–improving national governance system and capability;
–achieving coordinated development among different regions, at all levels, and in all fields.
In response to the adoption of the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs), China launched an impressive policy campaign called “Targeted Poverty Alleviation” aimed at complete elimination of extreme poverty in rural China by 2020, 10 years ahead of the agenda of SDGs.
President Xi Jinping has identified the anti-poverty effort as one of three “tough battles” for the period from
2017 to 2020, launching thus “the largest poverty alleviation campaign in history”. It has yielded astounding results.
The last Human Development Report, issued by the UN at the end of 2019, which coincided with the 70th anniversary of People’s Republic of China, recognises the remarkable changes that have taken place in China, not only in terms of economic growth, but more importantly, the wider range of sustainable human development progress.
China’s advances in this regard have been uniquely impressive. It is the only country in the world that progressed from a “low human development country” in 1990 to a “high human development country” today.
On the basis of the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development, China aspires to transform into an innovative country with a national innovation system with Chinese characteristics, and by 2030, a leading innovative country. This is a remarkable level of ambition when combined with strong policy commitment at different levels of Chinese society: the Government, the private sector, and the academic world.
China sees sustainable development as a trend that stimulates innovations in the fields of renewable energy, radical resource productivity, green chemistry, industrial ecology, green nanotechnology, and smart cities.
In doing so, China followed a centuries-long tradition of mutually beneficial international exchange and intercultural dialogue.
In 2017, during the Belt and Road Summit, President Xi Jinping presented the “project of the century” and said in his opening speech: “Spanning thousands of miles and years, the ancient silk routes embody the spirit of peace and cooperation, openness and inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefit. We should foster a new type of international relations featuring win-win cooperation. We should forge partnerships of dialogue, not confrontation, of friendship, not alliance”.
This aspiration resonates deeply with my experience as UNESCO Director-General. I was privileged to open the session on the People to People Exchange. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its focus on cultural exchanges
and cooperation in education and the sciences should be seen as a renewal of the Silk Road, which seeks to build trust, confidence, and understanding between peoples and countries along its route, as another “soft power instrument” – to shape more inclusive and peaceful societies and to respect diversity.
In 1988, UNESCO launched its Integral Study of the Silk Roads: Roads of Dialogue project to highlight the complex cultural interactions which arose from the encounters along the Silk Roads. It was an important corridor for trade and cultural exchanges from the 2nd century BC to the 16th century AD.
Over the millennia, the wondrous story of the Silk Road has been one of encounters: between people, between cultures, between religions, and between branches of knowledge. It linked multiple civilizations and facilitated far-reaching exchanges of activities in trade, religious beliefs, scientific knowledge, technological innovation, cultural practices and art.
These encounters have shaped civilizations over the ages, catalyzed inventions, and fertilized intellectual scholarship. They have given birth to literary and scientific treasures and to traditions and artistic practices that have been passed down through the generations.
These interactions are preserved in the hundreds of World Heritage Sites that lie along the Silk Roads, from Xian to Venice, passing through Samarkand, Balk and Baghdad.
I am proud that during my tenure as Director-General of the UNESCO, in 2014 one of the largest World Heritage Sites, “Silk Roads: The Routes Network of Chang’an- Tianshan Corridor” was inscribed on the World Heritage List. About 5,000 kilometres long, thirty-three components lie in China, 8 in Kazakhstan, and 3 in Kyrgyzstan. The components of this site include: capital cities and palace complexes of various empires and Khan Kingdoms, trading settlements, Buddhist cave temples, pagodas in cities, ancient paths, postal houses, passes, beacon towers, sections of the Great Wall, fortifications, tombs and religious buildings, and ruins in remote, inaccessible deserts.
The Tian-Shan corridor is an extraordinary example of world history of how dynamic channel linking civilizations and cultures across the Eurasian continent realized the broadest and most long-lasting interchange among civilizations and cultures. It also shows the profound influence of trade on the settlement structure of the landscape, through the development of towns and cities, through intermittent water management systems, through an extensive network of forts, beacon towers, stations and caravanserai that accommodate travelers, through the sequence of Buddhist shrines and cave temples, and through the manifestations of other religions such as Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity, and Islam, that resulted from the cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic communities that organised and benefitted from high-value trade.
All these are reasons for the decision of the World Heritage Committee in 2014, after 7 years of hard work by multinational experts, to inscribe this extraordinary serial site on the World Heritage list. I could see for myself the important work done by the Chinese experts when I visited the Shaanxi Provincial Historical Museum in Xi’an, which hosted the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) International Conservation Centre, in August 2015.
The Silk Road tells a story of human progress driven by mutual learning, reminding us that no culture has ever flourished in isolation. Civilizations influence and enrich each other, growing stronger as they become more inclusive.
The Belt and Road Initiative taps into this heritage, opening up new opportunities for development and prosperity. It builds on China’s strong commitment to the protection of heritage and to the promotion of culture as a force of development and social inclusion.
Since joining the International Convention Concerning the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage in 1985, China has 55 world heritage sites to date, ranking among the first in the world. Of these sites, 37 are cultural heritage sites, 14 are natural heritage sites, and 4 are cultural and natural (mixed) sites.
Among them are some of the most emblematic places in China: the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven and the Imperial Places of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in Beijing, and the Great Wall.
I see this commitment as part of the 39 items inscribed in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, which includes the Peking Opera, Chinese shadow puppetry, Chinese calligraphy, Chinese paper cutting, etc. It is not by coincidence that the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the UNESCO Intangible Heritage Convention was held in China in June 2013, occurring alongside the Chengdu International Conference on Intangible Cultural Heritage, which I was honoured to attend.
These were milestone events in shaping a new vision of the importance of culture in the debate that lead to the adoption of the UN Agenda for Sustainable Development 2030.
Twelve Chinese cities have already joined, with much enthusiasm, the UNESCO Creative Cities’ network, with Beijing, Shenzhen, Shanghai, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Qingdao and others. I am proud that during my tenure I could declare eleven of these twelve cities as members of this important network of creativity and urban development, effectively giving a human face to social inclusion and growth.
All of this shows China’s leadership in crafting new approaches to culture, along with its role as a powerful driver of creativity and sustainable human development.
China has shown us once again that when a nation wakes up, it always starts with cultural awareness. China has found that culture is now an important source of national cohesion and creativity, a pillar of socio-economic development.
China’s cultural industry has accelerated its expansion, driven by the rapid growth of information transmission services. The growth rate was higher than the 7.5 percent recorded in 2016 and 6.9 percent in 2015. The combined revenue of the sector increased by 10.8 percent in 2017 to 9.2 billion yuans (about $ 1.500 billion).
These are impressive figures that show the power of culture in contributing to socio-economic development and
in encouraging creativity and innovation. China has shown the world that culture is not a luxury, but a democratic force for social cohesion and social inclusion.
Equally as important is China’s strong commitment to the scientific and engineering programs within UNESCO. China has 33 biosphere reserves and, to date, it has 38 Geoparks, the most numerous among the 147 UNESCO Global Geopark networks spread across 41 countries.
I can hardly enumerate all the joint initiatives and the huge support for UNESCO: from holding conferences on different aspects on education, to establishing UNESCO Chairs and Institutes under its auspices, linking education, technologies and science.
In 2012, there was the Conference on Technical and Vocational Education in Shanghai; in 2014, the International Conference on Language: Enhancing Language Ability and Language Education; in 2015 the Conference on ICTs in Education in Qingdao, etc.
There are currently 24 UNESCO Chairs in Universities all over China and 15 centres under the auspices of UNESCO. These centres cover the areas of science education and engineering, protection of cultural heritage, and education in rural areas, among others, contributing to UNESCO objectives and the achievement of SDGs within China, as well as exchanging good practices with others.
As Director-General of UNESCO, I have witnessed the emergence of a strong Chinese commitment to share experiences and to promote South-South cooperation for the achievement of important sustainable development goals. Once a country with a huge, illiterate population, China succeeded not only in overcoming this serious problem that deprived people of their dignity, but motivated China to lend a hand to others, mainly the least developed countries in Asia and Africa. China aided these countries in bettering their education systems, making them more relevant, along with increasing access to new technologies for achieving a higher quality of education.
This was the meaning of another strong partnership with China that we have built, based on UNESCO’s global
priority: Africa. In 2012, a flagship programme was launched, marked by $ 8 million UNESCO Funds-in-Trust for education in Africa. This programme addressed the core needs of African countries, which included supporting teacher’s education in 10 Sub-Saharan countries in Africa, benefiting more than 10,000 African teachers who have honed their skills in harnessing modern ICTs in service of literacy and professional training. It has been widely recognized as a successful example of South-South cooperation in a mul tilateral context.
Confucius had many great ideas, but I have always retained three, which epitomize the Chinese view of nature and the world: “Harmony is most precious”, “To seek harmony in diversity” and “In a gathering of three, there must be one whom I can learn from”. These ideas are still endlessly relevant to us all.
In this world, there are huge advancements and opportunities in science, communication and technology, but a simultaneous rise of inequality, xenophobia, discrimination, and confrontation. We need to learn from the ancients’ wisdom. We need to put human development into the center of public policies and international exchanges. We need a new moral compass to guide our tightly globalized, but troubled world.
As it is written in UNESCO’s Constitution:
a peace, based exclusively upon the political and economic arrangements of governments would not be a peace which could secure the unanimous, lasting and sincere support of the peoples of the world, and that the peace must therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind.
We need this moral and intellectual solidarity more than ever before; we need a “new humanism” to advance all our efforts now more than ever before.
Mrs. Irina Georgieva Bokova has been the 9th Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) from 2009 to 2017.
As I was writing this paper, the COVID-19 virus was spreading across the world to such an extent that the World Health Organization called it an “enemy against humanity”. Of course, the COVID-19 crisis and the fight against climate change are different. The former appeared abruptly and concerns mankind, while the latter is a continuous phenomenon affecting both humans and the environment. However, the two have several commonalities, from which there are many lessons to learn. Both the health crisis and the climate emergency illustrate that the destiny of humankind is inextricably linked to its environment and that it is a mistake to consider people as separate from nature. They demonstrate that our present process of globalization is accompanied by global risks and that, in the same way as customs officers cannot stop viruses, state borders cannot stop pollution and environmental disasters. In such situations, it is a question of life or death for states to join forces to protect people. Let us add that in both situations, the global catastrophe that ensues will lead to thousands of deaths and threaten the health of humanity. As a result, social disasters and economic recessions around the world are not science fiction for a distant future, but a current reality.
Unlike Western philosophy, where the environment has long been considered “property”, in accordance with the thought of the famous French philosopher Descartes, for whom “Man is a master and possessor of nature”, Chinese ancestral wisdom promotes a fundamental balance between Heaven and Earth through the mediation of Man. In this
paradigm, there must be no place for domination of Man over nature, but only respect and harmony. However, from the 1970s onwards, at the same time as China’s reform and opening up policy led to rapid industrialization and urban development, environmental pollution problems became prominent. This development model encouraged the conquest of nature, eroding the ancestral Chinese philosophy of harmony between Man and the environment.
Aware of these serious degradations of the environment, China has made efforts to rebalance man’s relationship with nature. As early as the 1980s, it established a comprehensive legal framework providing environmental protection and resources conservation. This legal framework has played an important role in fostering a better living environment for the population. However, nobody can ignore that it was not satisfactory in regards to the quality expected to resolve the various and prominent environmental problems in China, which are also related to health, economic, and social problems. Faced with the necessity of adapting its legal system and with a growing popular demand for a better environment, the new leadership decided to move to a more ambitious stage by making environmental protection a national priority. In 2013, President Xi Jinping put forward a new policy idea of building an ecologically sound civilization that highlighted the importance of sustainable development. In 2017, he pledged to build a “beautiful China” based on a balance between economic development and environmental protection that could be attained by 2035, where the toxic levels of air, water and soil pollution that have plagued China for years will be fixed. The Chinese Constitution was amended in 2018 to include the concept of “ecological civilization”.
At the national level, China has put in place sectorial domestic policies, particularly within the framework of five-year plans (FYP) that do not only focus on economic measures, but also take into account sustainable development issues in order to build a more ecologically friendly society. From this perspective, the 13th FYP (2016-2020) underlined the prevention of pollution, the implementation of better waste recycling, and the creation of a financial, institutional
and judicial framework in favor of better environmental protection. In order to enforce these goals, inspections of the main polluting companies have been reinforced. China considers that “prevention in the first” should play an essential role, whereas for a long time the rule of “treatment in the end” prevailed. For cases of environmental violations, it has created over 600 environmental courts that do not hesitate to apply severe punishment to those who violate environmental rules. According to the 2018 OECD report, entitled China’s progress towards green growth, these environmental policies have enabled China to achieve great strides towards improving the environmental productivity of its economy. The OECD indicates that more opportunities can be exploited for greater efficiency gains that are vital to the shift towards low carbon levels, resource efficiency, and a competitive economy. This justifies why China’s 14th FYP for economic and social development, that is to be finalized and approved in 2021, is so crucial.
At the international level, China has gradually adapted its strategy and exhibited more determination and commitment to defend and promote existing multilateral environmental frameworks. This is reflected by the organization of major international conferences related to environmental issues. In September 2017, China hosted a global environmental summit with the COP 13 of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. In 2021, COP 15 on biological diversity, initially planned in 2020 but postponed because of the COVID-19 crisis, will take place in Kunming and should have a big impact on our collective fate by helping to fight against biodiversity loss.
China is also involved in global environmental governance as presidential positions of international organisations, such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), are filled by Chinese. Mr. Zhang Xinsheng served as President of the IUCN from 2012 to 2020. In the same field of biodiversity protection, China underlines the necessity to fight against international wildlife trafficking, which leads to significant risks both for the environment and for humans. In a 2015 common report, UNEP and INTERPOL demonstrated that in a few decades, transnational environmental crime became the world’s fourth largest crime sector, “jeopardizing the very foundation of health, development, peace and security”. Illegal animal trade increases the risk of serious diseases transmission. After the explosion of COVID-19, China announced that it decided to impose a “comprehensive ban” on illegal wildlife trafficking and the consumption of wild animals.
China’s stance toward international negotiations on environmental issues has evolved concurrently with some changes in domestic and international contexts. This is particularly true in the field of the fight against climate change, which has dramatic consequences for human health, environmental balances, economy, security and justice. Being the largest emitter of carbon in the world, particularly through the production and consumption of coal causing important damage, China plays an increasingly crucial role. Suffering severe smog, the Chinese government initiated a national action plan aimed at halting the growth of coal consumption and helping the country make a transition towards a greener economy. In terms of international cooperation to respond to climate change, as a Chinese leader said: “China has become an important participant, contributor, and torchbearer in the global endeavour for ecological civilization”. I can personally confirm it. In 2015, the adoption of the Paris Climate Agreement, which I had the honour to chair, beard witness to China’s involvement. Since then, the international context has changed. The Trump Administration withdrew from the Paris Agreement and the COVID-19 crisis caused a worldwide economic depression, which invites to underline the role of China in the global climate governance. In other words, looking back, one can easily identify the key role played by China, in a close relationship with the US and France, for the success of COP 21 in 2015. Looking forward, one can perceive that in a renewed international context, the role of China will be decisive, with, hopefully, a new dynamic between China and developed countries as France, and more largely the European Union (EU), to effectively fight climate change.
The adoption of the Paris Agreement in December 2015 was a turning point in environmental history, where 195 countries decided to adopt the first universal climate pact. This success is the result of meticulous preparation and strong multilateralism. The Paris Climate Agreement in order to limit climate warming in 2100 to 2 °C or, better, to 1.5 °C, was favoured by close and early cooperation, in particular, between China, the US, India, France and Europe. One year before the COP 21, Chinese President Xi Jinping and American President Barack Obama made a Joint Announcement on Climate Change. They expressed their conviction that climate change was one of the greatest threats facing humanity and their commitment to a successful agreement in Paris the following year. In November 2015, (i.e. four weeks before the very beginning of COP 21) China and France issued a Joint Presidential Statement on Climate Change, calling for all countries to work together for the common good in the context of sustainable development. On the opening day of COP 21, Chinese President asked for the Paris Agreement to “chart the course for green development”, to create “a future of win-win cooperation”, and “a future of the rule of law, fairness and justice”. All these commitments largely paved the way for the success.
During the Paris negotiations, China actively promoted the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities”, a cardinal concept. According to this principle, which reflects a concern for justice, different countries hold different legal responsibilities based on their state of development and contributions to climate change. Its inclusion in the Paris Climate Agreement was challenging but also decisive in bringing conviction from developing countries to the Agreement, and thus a key to success.
As much as climate justice is relevant between states, it is fundamental within each state. In this regard, all 195 signatories of the Paris Climate Agreement recognize the importance of “taking into account the imperative of a just transition”. Originally, in our minds, the concept of “just transition” was focused on the situation of workers hit by
economic changes linked to combating climate change. Since then, we can understand it more broadly as encompassing and addressing society as a whole, in particular the most vulnerable. Indeed, the necessary transition from a carbon-based to a low-carbon economy is not without producing serious impacts on society. Some states, some regions, some companies, and some people, will be more affected than others. It is important that no one is left behind. Otherwise, this can lead to major social protests, as was the case in France with the “Yellow Vest” movement in 2018 or in Chile in 2019. Aware of such issues, China’s government announced that pursuing green development implies upholding the principle of “putting people first” and “tackling the problems of social concern”. In November 2018, France and China signed a common declaration in which they expressed that “just transition” is crucial in reaching the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement in an efficient and inclusive manner. During COP 24 in December 2018, states also signed the Solidarity and Just Transition Silesia Declaration in which they recognize that certain sectors, cities and regions are more vulnerable in the transition to a low carbon society and that extra attention must be paid to them and to social justice.
Despite the success of the 2015 Paris Agreement and global efforts, the overall climate situation is critical and, in some aspects, worsening.
The decision of President Trump to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement was a heavy setback in the fight against environmental disruption. It gave some other states a kind of license to do the same or ignore the international treaty. Countries might feel justified in ignoring the commitments they made officially in Paris, and, through a predictable “cascading effect”, decide that they would also prefer to lower their national contributions. Even though subnational actors can, and must, drive effective action, states retain a central role. That’s why the words of China’s Premier Li Keqiang announcing that China would “stand by its responsibilities on climate change” were welcome. In practice, China’s investments in domestic renewable energies or the creation of a national carbon market are evidence of China’s involvement.
Today, scientists are unanimous about climate change: the situation is critical. The most recent models predict that global warming could even reach 5 °C to 7 °C by 2100, while biodiversity declines at an equally alarming rate. The origins of climate change are diverse, but the main one lies in greenhouse gas emissions, particularly from fossil fuels. A major challenge is the use of coal and coal-fired power plants in Asia. China has a key role to play in that domain, as it invests more and more in energy saving and renewable energy at home and to neighbouring countries. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which is aimed at improving connectivity and cooperation beyond China’s borders, on a transcontinental scale, is a unique occasion to do so and to evolve in the right direction. It is desirable that this ambitious initiative would be connected to the concept of an “ecological civilization” promoted by Chinese leaders becoming for a worldwide benefit, a veritable “Green Belt and Road Initiative”.
Now and into the future, nationally and internationally, a continuous commitment of China is vital in complying with the Paris Climate Agreement and in raising the ambition and success of the worldwide fight against climate change.
While multilateralism is unfortunately criticized by some countries to the point of upsetting the fight against climate change, the COVID-19 crisis has shown the importance of cooperating and uniting in the face of global emergency.
Such a context makes it all the more necessary to strengthen joint action between states and have the active participation of non-state actors. It is crucial that China be ambitious in its commitments. This implies that major developed states such as France, and more broadly the European Union, go down the same road through close partnerships.
In the coming years, there will be many opportunities to enhance Franco-Chinese cooperation in favor of the environment. France intervenes in support of Chinese projects dedicated to the fight against climate change.
Because of COVID-19, both COP 15 on Biological Diversity and COP 26 on climate change have been postponed from 2020 to 2021, but they remain essential. A strong political will must be deployed jointly by France and China to maintain COPs on the climate, as well as on other environmental issues, and to act ambitiously for their success. These are institutional fora which are relevant for sharing assessing, reporting, comparing commitments, and improving them. COPs should be well coordinated with scientific reports (IPCC and IPBES) to leverage effects of these works on public opinion and political leaders. Their core should be largely open to non-state actors. They should highlight benefits and opportunities of climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts, as well as biodiversity conservation efforts for states.
Concerning COP 15 on Biological Diversity, the Beijing call from November 2019 is extremely welcome. Indeed, COP 15 on Biological Diversity takes place under the theme of Ecological Civilization: Building a Shared Future for All Life on Earth. The Chinese President’s visit to France in 2019 was an opportunity to recall that biodiversity loss, like climate change, threatens international peace and stability, food security, sustainable development and human health, and that they are closely linked to the degrading state of the oceans, forests, and land. The Presidents of China and France urged countries, but also international organizations, businesses, NGOs, and citizens, to value, conserve, restore and use biodiversity wisely. They called for an active commitment by political leaders at the highest level to protect biodiversity and to achieve the ambition of living in harmony with nature by 2050.
Concerning COP 26 on climate change, we should make it possible to speed up action, increase ambition and mobilize the necessary financial and technological resources. Every country has to disclose new national pledges (NDC) every five years that set clear targets to keep temperature increases below 1.5 °C. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres rightly highlighted the importance on getting all states on board, in particular the largest emitters. The French
President recalled in November 2019 that, thanks to their common commitment, France and China want to be able to raise the level of ambition, define long-term strategies to achieve carbon neutrality and align their external financing with the objectives of the Paris Climate Agreement before the beginning of COP 26. The development of convergent carbon pricing systems will be decisive.
Besides COPs on climate and biodiversity, France and China promote a Global Pact for the Environment as a response to the global environmental crisis. This Pact, which is at present discussed internationally, aims at an international codification of the principles of environmental law with legal force. It is in line with the multilateralism that both China and France rightly support.
In the context of an international situation characterised by the crisis of multilateralism, the US retreat from international climate negotiations and the wait-and-see attitude of several states regarding climate change, the EU and China must lead the way in maintaining the integrity and momentum of the international climate effort, and stepping up national climate targets.
Many will be tempted, in our socially and economically difficult times, to say: “COVID-19 is the top priority. Let us focus on a quick and high carbon recovery and forget the climate”. I am convinced that it would be a short-term view and a mistake. With the Green Deal presented by the European Commission in December 2019, the EU proves that it wants to fight climate change in an ambitious but realistic way, in the service of the common good. In the 1950s, the EU was built on the coal and steel market in order to assure peace. Today, the challenge is to get away from coal and to use energy sources that emit less CO2. Sending a positive signal to other states, the Green Deal provides for a new vision of the economy and an environmentally just transition. Its measures are a way of moulding a fair and peaceful world. According to the International Agency for Energy head, the COVID-19 crisis is a “historic opportunity” for the world to accelerate the energy transition through the creation of “sustainable stimulus packages” that will enable
economic recovery. China, for its part, announced new infrastructure investments as a way to stimulate the economy after the COVID-19 crisis. Acknowledging the difficulties and the challenges, China and Europe might set the tone on the consistency of the necessary economic stimulus and the climate agenda. The stimulus should be made an accelerator for climate action and become a green stimulus. In the long term, good health and a low carbon society are linked. Nations and the international community must work together to achieve these two fundamental objectives.
The global health crisis of the COVID-19 virus proves how much international cooperation is crucial, particularly when it comes to saving lives. Though appearing more distant in time, climate change affects life as much as viruses and should be taken as seriously. Many citizens already die due to air pollution, flooding, drought, and tornados. To act more ambitiously than today, it is crucial to listen to scientists. Here and now, states have the opportunity to build the foundations of a resilient and sustainable society in respect to cultural diversity and different levels of development. I remember the words of President Xi Jinping at the opening day of the COP 21 in Paris, when he quoted the famous French writer Victor Hugo who once observed in Les Misérables that “supreme resources spring from extreme resolutions”. In line of this thought, China, the EU, France, and all countries of the world should strive for better environmental and health protection and concrete actions against climate change to build a resilient, fair, balanced and sustainable world.
Mr. Laurent Fabius served as Prime Minister of France (1984-1986). He chaired the COP 21 and is currently the President of the French Constitutional Council.
Going back in history, we are obliged to conclude that relations between China and Europe have not always been easy and smooth. For centuries, contacts were limited to adventurous travelers, like Marco Polo, who helped develop trade initiatives, or Matteo Ricci, who fostered deeper cultural ties. Things went in a different direction when technical and political events multiplied the points of contact. As a result of this increased contact, tensions and rivalries prevailed over friendly cooperation.
For a long period of time, a concerted strategy of competition between the main European powers created instability and divisions inside of China. The decline of the Middle Country ended only after the Second World War. In a period of two generations, reality changed again, leaving no trace of the past.
China has come to be one of the two most influential world powers. The other player is not Europe, but the United States. However, it must be noted that Europe is still an impressive economic giant.
In order to understand the existing and potential relations between Europe and China we have to start from today’s context: the American military, technological and financial leadership, the unprecedented rise of China, and the fascinatingly difficult project of rebuilding and maintaining an economically strong Europe. Despite its political weakness, Europe has a great potential to build a new world equilibrium.
In 1975, when the European Community, as it was then called, established diplomatic relations with the People’s
Republic of China (PRC), the world was different and so were the expectations. The world was divided between the US and the USSR, Europe consisted of nine members, and China was a rising power. But very few were betting that in the space of one generation China could have become both a new economic power and a shaper of global politics, while the European unity project progressed slowly and faced numerous pitfalls.
In any case, from 1975 until the present-day, EU-China relations improved year-by-year, both from an economic and political aspect.
It is still clear in my mind when, in the beginning of this century, I could take part, as President of the European Commission, in regular meetings with the Chinese President and the Chinese Government in which the main issue was the introduction of the Euro and the consequences on the world stage. The Euro was the prevailing interest of the Chinese authorities and they were in favor of this great European achievement, expressing their approval with these very simple words: “If the Euro can exist alongside the dollar, there will be room for the Renminbi in the future”.
This is the clearest expression of the Chinese point of view concerning the potential role of the European Union in the future of global policy: to be the mediator between China and the United States, not from a military angle, but as an instrument in the preservation of global trade and international cooperation.
From the Chinese point of view, Europe has been considered a mechanism to avoid direct confrontation with the United States and, at the same time, a way to give China sufficient time to implement its transformative domestic reforms.
In the eyes of the Chinese, the link with Europe was an instrument in accelerating its economic growth and, from the European perspective, it was a necessary step in increasing the process of diversifying trade. The result has been a progressive increase in the political and economic relations between Europe and China.
Trade improved at an incredible speed. Investments between the two partners multiplied and China became
the first largest exporter to Europe, while Europe was the second largest exporter to China. This was a level of economic interdependence never seen before.
The development of economic interactions was accompanied by an increase in political dialogue, with regular bilateral meetings between the EU and China and official dialogues covering a wide range of issues. These issues included: the delicate aspects of trade rules and intellectual property rights, environmental issues, and cultural exchanges.
Of course, this wasn’t an easy process, due to the divergence in interests and the different forms of governance, but with the shared view that with an increase in relations we could have a win-win outcome.
This shared view started to decline when it became clear that the distance in governance style and rules were increasing. Subsequently, the international link became weaker and the trade imbalance became a political problem.
A formal, visible divergence started in 2005 when the EU voted on a textile importation tax, starting a long process of mutual accusations of unfair trade practices, dumping, and illegal state aids. Clearly no tariff can be unilaterally enforced without a response: wine, pottery tiles, and solar panels were all subject to reciprocal tariffs.
The Great Financial Crisis has made the process of convergence increasingly more difficult. Trade with China has become a major issue in the political game of a growing number of European countries, where China has been accused of causing rising unemployment and bankrupting manufacturing companies with its “unfair trade practice”.
For the same political reasons, a symmetrical uneasiness has grown on the Chinese side. Many Chinese leaders have become more worried about the increasing difficulties Europe has had in elaborating a coherent long-term policy: too many long-term policies have been put forward by the various countries and interests within the EU.
Step-by-step, it has become more convenient to deal with each individual member country rather than Brussels. Sino-German relations have gained a special relevance due to the fact that mutual trade has been around one-third of total trade between Europe and China.
It was the only case where there was a tangible surplus on the European side and a high level of high-tech investments in China. Even if we cannot underestimate the dimensions and the quality of Sino-German relations, it is nevertheless obvious that these links could not be upgraded into a comprehensive and shared European policy.
The goals and interests of other European countries were too different due to the fact that their national economies had different qualities. Substantial progress has been made in building links between the entire EU area and China. However, failures to move forward on common projects in advanced science, like the Galileo satellite navigation system, have emerged as potential obstacles in building further links.
Over time, it has become clear that having a Brussels-led EU is going to be difficult. In a period of time when the EU has limited its strategy, the “magic” of the European project has, of course, experienced a decline in both the Chinese media and in the overall Chinese society.
I can testify how the vision of Europe started to decline during the second decade of this century, even among my students of the China-Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai, in spite of the name of this top global institution. Europe, as a great political experiment, gradually became a simple, yet very important, influencer of trade.
A change in gear could start with the new and fascinating project of the New Silk Road – the Belt and Road Initiative –, and of the correlated Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB). These two innovative proposals were launched at a moment where it was absolutely necessary to find new tools to renew the bonds of international cooperation.
When, in 2013, Xi Jinping proposed the institution of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the basic idea was to enhance Chinese influence in Asia, but also to propose a new set of cooperation policies with Europe. The first European reaction was one of open approval. This approval was strengthened by the parallel decision taken by Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom to become members
of the AIIB. This was a bold and important decision because it was made with the disapproval of then-American President Barack Obama, even if his disapproval was not expressed in a wholly official manner.
Since so many countries became members of the AIIB, this was rightly interpreted as a clear success of Chinese diplomacy and a signal that America’s allies could have dual relations with China.
This shift happened in 2015, a time not long ago, and set in a period in which the great competition between the US and China was clearly emerging, but could still maintain the rules of globalization and multilateralism. However, it feels like this period occurred a century ago!
With the dawning of radical political shifts starting in 2015, it has been difficult for the AIIB to play more of a role in the multilateral banking competition against the World Bank. It must be noted that this is changing, as China is becoming a more dominant player, and that Chinese banks are the suppliers of much of the world’s financial resources.
The bank, born mainly as an arm of the BRI, has been side by side with the other Chinese financial institutions, instrument of a number of investments in Asia and has also improved the links with European countries, enabling investment in infrastructure dedicated to the facilitation of trade by both land and sea.
Clearly, in spite of popular opinion, the sea route remains dominant, represented heavily by the maritime links of the Mediterranean and Northern European ports, while the rail link gains in strength. The Belt and Road Initiative is the most important economic and political proposal for enhancing Asian development and Asian cohesion under a unitary goal, albeit under Beijing’s leadership.
China’s leadership is the natural consequence of the fact that financial and technical efforts to implement this colossal project have largely fallen on Chinese shoulders even if many sources underline the danger of the increasing debt of many poor countries. At times, it would appear that this effort exceeds the robust capabilities of China’s shoulders. In any case, the BRI project has had a positive effect in the enhancement of Sino-European trade and investments, in addition to improving the economies of countries falling outside this relationship. In spite of this unquestionable success, the BRI, from a European perspective, is still primarily considered a Chinese initiative, explaining why it is not entering into the decision-making processes of many European governments.
Another Chinese initiative that is starting to emerge as a prominent political issue among European countries is the proposal to set up special institutional relations between China and a number of European countries, both members and non-members of the European Union, but mostly those countries who fell under the USSR’s influence.
The creation of the 16 + 1, now 17 + 1, means that China intends to have a special relationship with a selected number of European countries. These relationships will not be established through traditional, bilateral means, but through the creation of a new institution, one with its own specialized structure and formalized meetings. Naturally, this decision has created an intense malaise within the ranks of the EU’s founding Member States, one that still exists and has increased the level of non-confidence between the EU and China. It is no surprise that, as a consequence, some European states reacted by increasing obstacles against the financing, or advancement, of building infrastructure that would link the various 17 + 1 projects. Disappointment followed in the 17 European states which can be also attributed to the slow increase of Chinese investments in the area, the disappointing growth of their exports to China, and the huge deficit that occurred as a result.
Many efforts have been undertaken in order to inject new life into the 17 + 1 project, but the basic objections raised by the main European countries are still a reality.
Since 2013, we have come to live in a paradox: we have multiplied the number of institutions linking Europe and China; we have increased trade and investments; and we have also vastly expanded the divergence and the tensions between the two primary political entities.
This is, of course, mainly a consequence of worsening Sino-US relations, but we must also take into consideration
some specific peculiarities among the rising difficulties of Sino-European relations.
With the rise of China, there has been an uptick in the competition between the middle and high-technology sectors, which has contributed to a further split in the common interests of European nations.
On the Chinese side, it has become more difficult to define a European counterpart, as foreign policy-making powers have been more widely split between the President of the Commission, the president of the Council, and the Commissioner. In the face of unclear power distribution between the various European leaders and the possibility of adopting the well-known “divide and rule” tactic, the Chinese choice has been to increasingly rely on a bilateral approach with their European counter parts, rather than the centralized authority of Brussels.
In the last few years, the deterioration in global competition has gone so far that even relations between individual countries have become progressively difficult. Let’s consider the example of Germany, by far the best placed country, both in terms of trade and of crossed investments. Both the German government and German public opinion supported an increase in China-EU connection up until the point where China acquired Kuka, a company with a strong presence in robotics production.
Starting from the acquisition of Kuka, long-term agreements with Chinese companies or entities have come under attack, both from the political and the economic communities. This new attitude has become common practice amongst the majority of European governments. The result has been the institutionalization of control measures on foreign investments, mainly aimed at China.
The main explanation for the increasing fracture between China and Europe is the existing tension between the US and China, a rivalry that has evolved into a global confrontation. In the first stage, the most visible aspect was a trade war with dangerous ups and downs, but without a total breakdown of the long-lasting, deep relations founded on the connections between the two economic systems. Now, as everybody knows,
the main battlefield is the technological sector, with the Huawei case being the most visible sign of this new chapter.
In theory, this should not require Europe’s involvement, but the stakes are too high in the tech field, causing the current American administration to put pressure on its European allies to take action against Huawei. As usual, the policies of the myriad European governments differ on this issue, which has extended to the policies of many European institutions.
To complicate matters, gradually, the desire for anti-China policy permeated throughout American society both in the Republican and Democratic sides, proliferating to the point where it was widely acceptable as a primary issue in current and future electoral campaigns.
Let us look at the consequences of the existing situation and seriously reflect on its possible evolutions in the future.
It is clear that Sino-European relations are presently becoming more difficult as a result of international political tensions, exacerbated by the creeping conflict in the Sino-US relations, on one side, and US-Russian tensions, on the other one.
The Atlantic Alliance is perceived as a strategic choice, with an increased intensity, by an increasing number of European countries, including many 17 + 1 countries.
Instead of an occasion that would bring mutual cooperation, the COVID-19 outbreak has only resulted in more fighting and accusations. Consequently, the current COVID-19 outbreak has produced an environment in Europe where the necessity of political alliance and comprehensive economic interests have become incompatible.
European exports to the US are still prevailing in comparison with sales to China, while the Atlantic surplus compares with a huge deficit with China. However, in a short period of time, the balance will be different. China’s growth is more than 30% of the world’s total growth, with positive signs that China’s role will not decrease after COVID-19 ends.
No one knows how competition will change after the COVID-19. It is my personal guess that globalization will not disappear because the economic and financial links are too strong. Nevertheless, the experience of masks’ procurement and other products indispensable in fighting against the pandemic, but not easily available because of a dearth of at-home manufacturing, are pushing many towards a trend of repatriating a share of the manufacturing capacity currently stationed abroad.
Now it seems that traditional multilateralism is, at least inside the US, a reality of the past. European values and interests are more complex: broadly speaking, free trade is still favored, strengthened by the WTO’s heritage, but with the necessity for some major reforms.
To be objective, even Europe’s traditional preference for the free market is now facing more challenges from within Europe itself. A non-negligible part of American complaints against China are shared by an increasing number of European citizens, even beyond the members of more populist-leaning parties.
The main issues raising concerns are the systemic differences between our economic rules, mainly about state-owned enterprises, intellectual property rights, state subsidies, legal protections, and equal treatment of access.
In spite of the flurry of conferences and meetings, there have been few signals that these complaints will be corrected. As a logical consequence of “America First”, there is no US perspective to back reforms of the WTO, while, in the meantime, European and Chinese proposals for reforms are now mutually incompatible.
Tensions are even rising between the US and Europe, as it is the case of the car industry or, even more intensely, the internet-related sectors.
It is self-evident that, even without any change in the existing political environment, there are possible advantages for European exports as a consequence of the increasing level of tariffs between China and the United States. Unfortunately, these advantages will never offset the loss because of the decline in multilateralism, and the increasing costs of value-chain disruption.
There are also good reasons to think that in the case of an increase in European exports to the US, an immediate
American reaction would follow in order to avoid an increase in the American deficit.
The only possible way out of this negative scenario would be a “Great Deal” designed to change the rules of economic relations between Europe and China. If our goal is to improve the existing relations between China and Europe, we need to reduce the main differences of governance between the two systems.
A Great Deal would be needed, but this is not easy in an environment where the smallest deal can be hard to reach. Regardless, we must try.
In the short term, in order to calm the storm, we could at least start moving towards positive, concrete results in the area of mutual cooperation. I am of the opinion that implementing the initial Belt and Road Initiative would help prepare the EU and China for a few projects where they could collaborate.
There are many possible initiatives of common interest that could be pursued to keep the spirit of cooperation. Hopefully these initiatives will mitigate the likelihood that increasing tensions will trend towards open conflict.
Why not to share a great public investment in Asia and Europe or jointly build a network of hospitals or schools in Ethiopia or any African country?
Europe and China are both engaged in Africa. Both of us often accuse the other of utilizing African engagement to increase our political power. This negative sentiment would certainly decrease if we could work together for a shared, positive purpose, as it was stated in the New Silk Road’s fundamental proposal.
I understand that the concrete horizon of great progress of EU-China relations is not for the present time, but are only modest steps that make our common obligations possible in this historical period.
Common steps will serve as a concrete contribution in the preservation of peace for today and for the preparation of cooperation tomorrow.
Mr. Romano Prodi has been Prime Minister of Italy and President of the European Commission.
The renaissance of China provides a golden opportunity for the world. For the past two hundred years, the world has been dominated by one civilization, the West, in one way or another. In this period, the West has done both harm and good. It harmed the world with its brutal policies of conquest and colonization. China experienced it too with the Opium Wars and the savage sacking of the Summer Palace in 1860. Yet, over time, the West also shared some of the pillars of Western wisdom with the world. These included free-market economics, science and technology, meritocracy, pragmatism, culture of peace, rule of law, and education.
For most of human history, especially over the past 2,500 years, we have seen many successful civilizations, including the Chinese, Indian and Islamic civilizations, to name a few. Each successful civilization contains within it many rivers of wisdom. The rivers of wisdom of Eastern civilizations have not been tapped in the past two hundred year “artificial” period of Western domination of world history. This was “artificial” because from the year 1 to 1820, for eighteen hundreds of the past two thousand years, the two largest economies were always that of China and India. Now as both countries return once again as two of the world’s largest economies, it provides a golden opportunity to tap the wisdom of non-Western civilizations.
Since Chinese civilization is the first non-Western civilization to bounce back in strength, it can now begin to share once again its many rivers of wisdom with the rest of the world. This essay will suggest three areas in which China can begin to do so: war and peace; individual and society; and humans and nature. In each of these three areas, Chinese wisdom can help to create a better world for all of humanity.
Humanity has been fortunate that the past few decades of history have been among the most peaceful that it has experienced. The Harvard Professor, Steven Pinker, has documented this. He says,
... today we may be living in the most peaceable era in our species’ existence... since the end of the Cold War in 1989, organized conflicts of all kinds – civil wars, genocides, repression by autocratic governments, and terrorist attacks – have declined throughout the world” (The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence has Declined, New York, Penguin, 2011).
Why have we entered a relatively peaceful era? The causes are many. Most Western societies are exhausted from fighting wars, especially after the enormously destructive wars of World War I and II, which killed more humans, both military and civilian, than any other previous war in human history. Niall Ferguson confirms this,
The hundred years after 1900 were without question the bloodiest century in modern history... Significantly larger percentages of the world’s population were killed in the two world wars that dominated the century than had been killed in any previous conflict of comparable geopolitical magnitude” (The War of the World: History’s Age of Hatred, New York, Penguin, 2006).
Indeed, if the West had not exhausted itself fighting these wars, the Western colonial domination of the world could have continued longer. Fortunately, it ended.
There is also another powerful reason why the world is experiencing peace. The first non-Western power to return in strength after the end of the period of Western domination of world history is China. Given the painful century of humiliation that China suffered from 1842 to 1949, it would have been perfectly reasonable for China to emerge as an angry country determined to avenge past misdeeds against China. Instead China wisely committed itself to a “peaceful development”. In 2019, the annual gathering of the National Peoples’ Congress (NPC) and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) declared, “China has once again renewed its pledge to the rest of the world that it will always take the path of peaceful development and stay committed to promoting common prosperity for all countries”.
Many in the West are skeptical of these claims that China has committed itself to a peaceful return. Yet, the data backs up this claim. There are five permanent members in the UN Security Council, namely, China, France, Russia, UK and USA. The only power among these five powers that has not fought a war in over thirty years is China. Indeed, the Chinese military has not fired a shot since its naval skirmish with Vietnamese naval forces in 1989.
It takes great strategic discipline to avoid fighting wars. China has been able to exercise this strategic discipline because it springs from many sources of Chinese wisdom. Many great Chinese thinkers have counseled against fighting wars. Sun Tzu, the greatest Chinese strategic thinker, has wisely said, “For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill”. However, this commitment to avoid wars was also expressed by other Chinese philosophers. A popular proverb says that a country should not send its best people into the military: “Good boys do not become soldiers; good iron is not used to make nails”. Confucius also de-emphasized the importance of weaponry. As he said, when asked about what was required of the government, “Enough food, enough weapons and the confidence of (trust from) the people”. When asked, “Suppose you had no alternative but to give up one of these three, which one would be let go of first?” the Master said, “Weapons”.
Despite China’s impressive track record of avoiding war and conflict in recent decades, many in the West remain skeptical. They continue to claim that China is becoming militarily expansionist. For instance, The Economist wrote in 2019,
Not so long-ago China called America imperialist for operating foreign military bases. In 2017 China opened an overseas naval base of its own, in the African country of Djibouti (...) Hawkish Americans (...) point to such acts as China’s construction of air-bases and missile batteries on disputed reefs in the South China Sea and see aggression and swaggering confidence.
Future historians will be puzzled by this claim of Chinese aggression. If China had a militarily expansionist gene, it has had many opportunities to exercise it before.
Over the past two thousand years, China has often been the single strongest civilization in the Eurasian landmass. If China was inherently militaristic, it would have and should have conquered territories overseas, as the European powers did. Future historians will, for example, marvel at the fact that even though Australia is geographically close to China, it was physically occupied and conquered by far more distant British forces. This Chinese reluctance to conquer Australia and other overseas territories is not because China always lacked a navy. Before the Portuguese and Spanish began the ruthless European policies of colonizing the world in the sixteenth century, the Chinese had by far the strongest navy in the world. At the start of the fifteenth century, nearly a hundred years before Christopher Columbus tried to find a route to the so-called Spice Islands, China sent out seven naval expeditions, under the remarkable leadership of Admiral Zheng He, a legendary Chinese figure. Yet, quite remarkably, China did not conquer or occupy any overseas or distant territories.
China’s peaceful record stands out when it is compared to the US. The US has been involved in military conflicts every year from 1990, at least. It has dropped bombs on many countries. In 2016, in the last year of the Obama Presidency, the US dropped 26,172 bombs on seven countries, according to research by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The record shows that Western countries have unwisely become trigger-happy in recent decades, opting for military solutions over diplomatic solutions for conflict situations. Sadly, such military solutions rarely work.
Fortunately, there are also oases of peace in the West. When it comes to issues of war and peace, the European Union may well provide the gold standard for the world to follow. Given the many wars that European countries have fought against each other, including major European countries like France, Germany, Spain and UK, it is amazing that these European countries don’t just enjoy zero wars among each other. They also enjoy zero prospect of war between any two members of the European Union. No other region in the world, not even the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), comes close.
Given the recent peaceful record of China and the European Union, an opportunity presents itself for a deep dialogue between China and Europe on the deeper sources of peace. Both Chinese and European contemporary philosophers should sit together to compare notes on the wisdom contained in the ancient writings of their great philosophers. They should search for and share the common strains in both Chinese and European philosophical writing on issues of war and peace. The rest of the world would be happy to see the fusion of Eastern and Western wisdom on the current issues of war and peace. Undoubtedly the sharing of this wisdom will help to generate an even more peaceful world. This is one great opportunity that has surfaced from the renaissance of Chinese civilization.
Another great opportunity for fusing Eastern and Western wisdom presents itself in the realm of managing the relations between individual human beings and society. Since time immemorial, philosophers have been debating the ideal balance between meeting the needs and interests of individuals and the needs and interests of societies at large. This debate has been going on for over 2,500 years. As Aristotle said,
Man is by nature a social animal. An individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human. Society is something that precedes the individual. Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god.
Confucianism regards the individual as a member of society, and the interests and values of the community are higher than those of the individual.
One consequence of the past two hundred years of Western domination of world history is that in the age-old balance that societies have striven to find between rights and responsibilities, the emphasis has shifted to rights over responsibilities. This is a concrete consequence of the Western emphasis on rights. Rights are important. Modern societies have emerged and progressed because they have emphasized that all human beings, kings and commoners, should enjoy equal rights. Against the backdrop of the many centuries of feudalism that dominated human social structures, this idea of equal rights for all was revolutionary. It liberated millions of human beings, especially those who lived in the bottom rungs.
Hence, we made a great advance in human history when we adopted the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (UDHR) in December 1948. However, good citizens don’t just demand rights from their societies. They also declare their “responsibilities” to their fellow humans and their societies. Again great philosophers have emphasized this too. Socrates defines justice as both the “virtue of an individual” and the “virtue of a state/society,” wherein the state/society is deemed “larger than an individual”. He continues the conversation on the responsibilities of each individuals within the larger state/society (with Adeimantus, as recounted in Plato’s Republic), “a state comes into existence because no individual is self-sufficing; we all have many needs... So, having all these needs, we call in one another’s help to satisfy our various requirements”. Confucius recounts the virtues of a man of responsibility in the Analects,
Suppose that there is an individual who can be entrusted with the charge of a young orphan prince, and can be commissioned with authority over a state of a hundred li, and whom no emergency however great can drive him from his principles, is such a man a superior man? He is a superior man indeed.
In December 1998, the UN met to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I happened to be the Singapore Ambassador to the UN then. A few years before this 50th anniversary, a group of former world leaders, led by eminent Western statesmen, including Helmut Schmidt, proposed that the world should adopt a “Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities” – to complement the UDHR. Since they were responsible leaders, they actually drafted such a document. These statesmen explained well the imperative of moving towards a rights-and-responsibilities based society in the draft “Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities”.
Here follows the introductory comment to the text proposed in 1997:
Globalization of the world economy is matched by global problems, and global problems demand global solutions on the basis of ideas, values and norms respected by all cultures and societies. Recognition of the equal and inalienable rights of all the people requires a foundation of freedom, justice and peace, but this also demands that rights and responsibilities be given equal importance to establish an ethical base so that all men and women can live peacefully together and fulfill their potential. A better social order both nationally and internationally cannot be achieved by laws, prescriptions and conventions alone, but needs a global ethic.
Although traditionally we have spoken of human rights, and indeed the world has gone a long way in their international recognition and protection since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations in 1948, it is time now to initiate an equally important quest for the acceptance of human duties or obligations.
One virtue that is constantly praised by Western leaders and pundits is the value of free speech. They believe that if anyone has a good idea, it should be allowed to be aired in an open “marketplace of ideas”. The UN General Assembly provides a good place to share new ideas since the UN Ambassadors come from all corners of the world. As the idea of a “Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities” was an initiative led by Western statesmen, I expected the Western Member States of the UN to take the lead in proposing this Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities for open discussion. Instead, they did the opposite. They undertook a massive campaign to suppress any discussion of this new initiative. Since I was personally present there and I saw with my own eyes how the Western nations suppressed this initiative by Helmut Schmidt. I can speak with some conviction about the hypocrisy of Western nations when they preach the virtues of free speech. They have no hesitation to suppress speech that they don’t like to hear.
However, as we move decisively away from the era of Western domination of world history, we are also opening the window for bringing out ideas that the Western nations have tried to suppress. One such idea is the idea of “Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities”. Indeed, one recent crisis has demonstrated why societies need to pay greater attention to “responsibilities”. This is the COVID-19 crisis. The record shows that the East Asian countries have handled this crisis better than most Western societies. The former Portuguese Europe minister Bruno Macaes, has noted that the countries who responded better belong to “what could roughly be called the Confucian cosmopolis”. Clearly, the countries that had imbibed the wisdom of Confucius understood well that in a crisis, they cannot just pay attention to their “rights”. They need to accept their “responsibilities” to their fellow citizen in their societies.
Crises can divide societies. However, they can also provide opportunities for societies to come together and have a dialogue on the lessons from a crisis. Here too there is an opportunity for European and East Asian (especially those belonging to the “Confucian cosmopolis”) to come together to study the lessons from the management of COVID-19. When they study the deeper lessons, they should also discuss what Europeans and East Asians can learn from each other in the eternal effort to find the right balance between rights and responsibilities in any society.
It would be good to bring in the rest of the world into this discussion. One easy first step to achieve this goal is for European and East Asian nations to jointly table the draft “Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities” for discussion at the next UNGA. If a document based on this draft can be adopted in 2023, on the 75th anniversary of the adoption of UDHR, it would represent a concrete signal that the Chinese renaissance is making a contribution towards improving the social conditions in both Eastern and Western societies.
Humanity has made extraordinary progress in improving the human conditions over the past century or more, especially in the last few decades. Steven Pinker has documented the many dimensions of this progress in his comprehensive book entitled, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. Pinker writes of how thanks to the ideals of reason, science and humanism, we now have newborns who will live for more than eight decades, markets overflowing with food, clean water that appears with a flick of a finger and waste that disappears with another, pills that erase a painful infection, sons who are not sent off for war, daughters who can walk the streets in safety, critics of the powerful who are not jailed or shot, the world’s knowledge and culture available in a shirt pocket.
Yet all the progress has also come at a certain cost: our planet is in peril. There is now a near universal consensus among all the leading scientists in the world that our planet faces a peril from global warming. If we do nothing, the planet will get warmer by 2 °C and it will result in profound alterations to human and natural systems, bringing increases in extreme weather, droughts, floods, sea level rise and biodiversity loss.
Some in the West want to put the responsibility on the new developing nations, like China and India, for the acceleration of global warming. President Trump has said that
we have a relatively small piece of land – the United States. And you compare that to some of the other countries like China, like India, like Russia, like many other countries that absolutely are doing absolutely nothing to clean up their smokestacks and clean up all of their plants and all of the garbage that they’re dropping in sea.
President Trump was clearly being unfair with such a statement. In terms of ratio of natural resources to people, the US is the most blessed country in the world. Just look at the ratio of arable land to people. The US has 0.47 hectares of arable land per person; China’s has only 0.09.
There is an even more critical point that President Trump misses with his suggestion that China and India are doing “nothing to clean up their smokestacks”. As I have documented in the “Great Convergence” (Public Affairs, 2013), global warming is not just the result of new “flows” of greenhouse gas emissions from countries like China and India. It is also a result of the “stock” of greenhouse gas emissions that the Western countries put in the atmosphere during the years of rapid industrialization in the 19th and 20th centuries. To be fair, if the most affluent Western countries want developing countries to pay an economic price and reduce their “flows”, they should pay an economic price for the “stock” that the West has generated.
The European countries are willing to be responsible and take on their fair share of global responsibilities. Sadly, the Trump Administration decided to walk away from the commitments undertook in the Paris Accords of 2015. When the richest and most powerful country walked away from its moral and legal responsibilities, it would have been perfectly justified for the relatively poorer countries like China and India to do so too. Fortunately, they didn’t do so. The world should applaud them for this massively responsible gesture.
However, China has taken on an even bigger responsibility. When the Western countries were industrializing, they paid scant attention to the damage they were doing to the global environment. They only became environmentally conscious after becoming affluent. China has decided to be responsible in the management of its environment even before it became an affluent country.
China has inspired the world with its declaration that it will become the world’s first “ecological civilization”. This will not be cost free for China. To protect its environment, China will pay some economic costs. China acknowledges this. In 2012, the CCP introduced the goal of achieving an ecological civilization in its constitution, and officially made the amendment in 2018. Xi has said that China “must speed up the construction of a system of ecological civilization and ensure that the ecology and environment are fundamentally improved by 2035, and that our goal of building a beautiful China is basically achieved”.
The concept of ecological civilization is truly inspiring. If all civilizations of the world were to emulate China and proclaim their commitment to developing ecological civilizations, the world would become far more beautiful. As the China Daily said, the goal is to achieve “the right relationship between man and nature” (Oct 24, 2017).
Under the rubric of an ecological civilization, China is developing many key initiatives. Here are two examples. First, it is leading the world in solar technology. According to Wood Mackenzie, China’s photovoltaic panel installations will hit a cumulative total of 370 GWdc by 2024. This will be more than double the capacity of the US at that point. Secondly, China is also leading the world with its reforestation programmes. Since 1978, China has planted 66 billion trees across 13 provinces in Northern China. Reforestation can help to reduce global warming. Despite this, most developed countries will not be able to match China’s record in reforestation. A study by Boston University has found that China, along with India, are leading the world in increasing the area of leaf vegetation. Even though China only has 6.6% of global vegetated area, it has accounted for 25% of the global net increase in leaf area since the 1990s.
These bold initiatives by China in the environment has led to one of America’s most respected politicians, former governor of California, Jerry Brown, to say “America was a
leader with China, and now America’s gone AWOL under Trump, and China’s the leader... China’s the hope, and that’s why I’m going to China to work with them on a sensible climate change strategy”.
Governor Jerry Brown is right. China is providing leadership in formulating and implementing sensible and responsible climate change policies. However, China could only do this because of its remarkable 40-year record of successful economic and social development. This has provided the necessary base for China as it moves ahead to its next level of development.
Examples like these show that the great renaissance that China is experiencing today is bringing benefits not just to the Chinese people. This renaissance is also helping the world to cope with a planet in peril. The resurgence of Chinese wisdom is helping to create a better world for humanity.
Mr. Kishore Mahbubani is a senior diplomat and academic from Singapore.
我和天津颇有渊源，这也是我担任《灵感·天津》一书主编并为之撰文的缘由，愿此书为这座独一无二的城市带来更多关注。谨以此文与读者分享：天津这座中国北方城市，不仅是通往某个目的地的途经之处，它本身就是一个独具魅力与特色的目的地。
和许多在法国接受教育的年轻人一样，在1996年夏天我第一次来到中国前就听说过天津这个名字。法国学生，尤其是那些热爱文学和诗歌的人，对保罗·克洛代尔（1868-1955）并不陌生。他们一定记得他与中国之间的深刻联系，也一定想象过他在1906至1909年间作为法国外交官在天津度过的时光。
德日进（1881-1955）是另一位一生都与这座中国北方港口城市有着密切联系的法国著名人士。他曾为天津自然博物馆（原为黄河白河博物馆）的创始人桑志华（1876-1952）提供工作上的支持，为中国古生物学的发展做出了重大贡献。
然而，我个人与天津的渊源还要从黑海之滨的保加利亚说起。2006年，我决定在索非亚举办中欧论坛，我认为这座城市与欧亚大陆连续性方面的议题密切相关。四年前我创立了中欧论坛，旨在进一步增进欧洲与中国之间的相互了解。这一旅程至今仍在继续！
在筹备2006年中欧论坛期间，我有幸见到了时任中国驻保加利亚大使于振起先生。这段美好而难忘的相遇始于对苏东坡（1037-1101）《念奴娇·赤壁怀古》的赏析。当时餐厅的墙上正好挂着这首词的书法作品，于大使同我共赏“大江东去浪淘尽……”， 仿佛置身于“一樽还酹江月”的意境之中。
在摆满佳肴美馔的中式晚宴上，当于振起大使得知我从未去过天津这座对他而言有着重要意义的城市时，他倍感惊讶。他告诉我，一个学习中国历史文化的人，若不知晓南开大学及其学术传统，那将是一个错误。
我将于大使的话深深地记在心里，并从未感到后悔。天津的历史，与溥仪（1906-1967）、袁世凯（1859-1916）、张学良（1901-2001）、梁启超（1873-1929）密不可分，至今仍是展现20世纪中国大变革的佳视窗之一。可以说，人们能够在天津找到中国现代性的不少来源。
2006年11月，我第一次拜访南开大学。我了解到南开1919年建校以来的丰富历史以及它与周恩来（1898-1976）之间的联系，也感受到南开充满活力的学术生活。我还与当时的南开党委书记薛进文先生进行了一次非常愉快且富有成果的对话。
三年后，中华人民共和国建国60周年之际，我有幸与天津市政府合作，举办了一场有多位欧洲领导人出席的高级别会议，包括前法国总理洛朗·法比尤斯和前德国总理格哈德·施罗德。
从天津的建筑风格可见，欧洲与中国早在帝国主义和殖民主义时期就已相遇。对中国而言这无疑是一段悲痛的历史。所幸，如今的中国已稳健地走在复兴的道路上，在世界事务中重拾中心地位。
天津历史上的九个租界中，有七个为欧洲国家所设立：奥匈帝国（1901-1917）、比利时（1902-1931）、英国（1860-1943）、法国（1860-1946）、德国 （1899-1917）、意大利（1901-1947）和俄罗斯（1900-1920），另外两个由美国（1869-1902）和日本（1898-1945）设立。
在今天为众人所熟知的五大道，仍坐落着200多座独具风情特色和历史价值的建筑。“老上海”的故事已然写尽，而天津仍有许多不为人知的生动故事，足以给学术界和读者带来惊喜。
在如此丰富的历史的召唤下，在天津继续推动和深化21世纪中欧对话具有重要意义。2008年北京奥运会期间，许多人重新认识了埃里克·亨利·利迪尔（1902-1945）这位曾在1924年巴黎奥运会上获得的苏格兰运动员，他的一生与天津有着千丝万缕的联系。《天堂的浅滩》作者布莱恩·鲍威尔（1918-2008）也以天津为背景生动地展现了中国与欧洲的交往史。
2011年，在联合国教科文组织前总干事伊琳娜·博科娃女士的积极支持下，我在巴黎展开了中欧论坛的筹备工作。我非常高兴地看到南开大学深度参与到了这个在联合国机构下进行的文明间对话。
在2011年6月27日的论坛开幕式上，我提到了南开大学创始人张伯苓（1876-1951）的弟弟张彭春（1892-1957）：“中国传统的世俗主义和人文主义在历史上启发过西方。曾任联合国人权委员会副主席的中国外交家、学者张彭春在1948年《世界人权宣言》的起草工作中发挥了关键作用。他在埃莉诺·罗斯福主持的辩论会上说：‘18世纪，当进步的人权思想在欧洲发轫时，中国哲学的译本激励了伏尔泰、魁奈、狄德罗等思想家的人文主义反封建思潮。’”
经过连续九年与天津的建设性交流，多项与欧洲的合作项目开花结果。2015年，我很荣幸被天津市政府授予“海河友谊奖”，这对我而言弥足珍贵。2019年，我受邀出席南开大学百年校庆纪念大会。看到一座城市在展望未来的同时追忆过去，我十分感动。
14年来，我亲眼见证了天津发展成为一个21世纪智慧城市，国际知名度不断提升。自2007年以来，世界经济论坛新领军者年会每年在天津和大连交替举行。2017年，世界智能大会在天津拉开帷幕，这是一个将科技与可持续发展相结合的国际平台。正如我在2019年7月向《中国日报》表示的那样，“天津正在成为一个真正的智慧城市，速度超乎人们的想象。”
然而，在《灵感·天津》这本书的框架下，我想描述的是天津在个人层面打动我的特征。换言之，我想用文字描绘一幅天津的心理画像，并希望以此引发更多有关“城市性格”的讨论。
巴黎、纽约、马德里、东京、伦敦和柏林各有各的特征，而我认为北京、上海、深圳、成都、杭州和天津也正是如此。
只有懒惰肤浅的人才会认为中国的大城市都如出一辙。事实上，正是中国的内部多样性赋予了这个“中心国家”无尽的魅力。
要走近天津的灵魂，关键在于要懂得欣赏它的低调感。天津不会宣称自己是一个经济或文化中心，因为在天津看来假装领先他人就是过为己甚。这种低调的文化会带来几方面的影响，其中之一就是天津从不会让你失望。相反，它真正的价值被一种随着时间推移而逐渐被人理解的谦逊所掩盖，促使你不断探索它的多个面貌。
作为中国四大直辖市（即北京、天津、上海、重庆）之一以及拥有超过1500万人口的重要交通枢纽，天津毗邻北京，并与朝鲜半岛和日本隔海相望，是一个真正的国际化大都市。天津港作为世界上第四大港口（按吞吐量计算），与180个国家和地区有着贸易往来。
然而，天津并不急于展现它的优势，也不渴望成为焦点。天津的质朴和简单对许多人而言都极具吸引力，我也不例外。
天津的直率、低调、毫不做作还造就了其独一无二的津式幽默。说起中国相声界的代表人物，比如马三立（1914-2003）、侯宝林（1917-1993）、郭德纲，人们自然会将相声与天津联系在一起。而津式幽默也为天津的都市生活增添了不少诗情画意。
若要寻觅天津独有的特色，首先跃入脑海的是丰富多彩的天津方言、杨柳青年画、泥人张彩塑和风筝魏。天津美食也是天津生活方式的重要组成部分。值得一提的是，第一本关于中华料理的法语书正是由亨利·勒库尔1925年在天津创作的！
开放是天津的另一大重要特征。在这座“桥城”，有名的桥莫过于当年的万国桥，也就是今天的解放桥。远道而来的外地中国游客和国外友人都能真切地感受到天津人与身俱来的热情好客。
天津市总面积11,946平方公里（几乎是上海的两倍），可谓幅员辽阔。然而，人们不该因此忽视了天津另一个令人着迷的特点。在海河附近，也就是历史上的市中心，城市生活充满了浓浓的人情味儿。在天津，道路和桥梁的设计也考虑到了行人与这座城市之间更深层次的情感联系，而不是为了走马观花。
漫步在缓缓流淌的海河河畔，不难理解为什么将天津称为“桥城”。当你继续在这座城市漫步和思考时，你会很快领悟到，整个城市就是一座连通情谊的桥梁，使得文化与文化互相融通，过去与未来交相辉映。
即使你已离去甚久，它那一声声热情的回响仿佛仍在不停地召唤着访客归来，或真实或虚幻地回荡在无尽的回忆之中。
高大伟：汉学家、中欧论坛创始人（2002年）
意大利与中国深厚的历史渊源，可以追溯到威尼斯商人马可波罗（Marco Polo）、传教士利玛窦（Matteo Ricci），以及马国贤（Matteo Lipa），而这只是知名的一些例子。当我们谈论两国间的商务和文化交流时，总是不能绕开丝绸之路。那条延绵不绝的走廊，始于“永远安宁之城”长安，终于传奇的“永恒之城”罗马。在我们谈到中意友谊时，也不能不谈到丝绸、香料和许多其他商品，正是这些商品成就了丝绸之路，并使之誉满全球的传奇。
丝绸看起来是连结中意友谊的主线。如果我们想在想象的时间线里更靠近我们的时代，统一后的意大利与中华帝国之间的官方联系始于1866年。当年，护卫舰队长阿尔曼容（Vittorio F. Arminjon）奉命出使中国和日本。此行的首要目的是巩固意大利商业企业的实力，首先就是丝绸产业，丝绸之路的名字正是源自丝绸产业。
在国际贸易关系中，天津一直作为中国北方经济重镇。其原因有三：首先，天津发挥着商务和军事港口的战略功能，这个功能一直到沿用至今。这个城市得以迅速发展的另一个原因就是它毗邻首都，尤其在英国人在1897年开通了通往北京的第一条铁路之后。后要归功于穿过城市中心的北段京杭大运河：这条运河建于隋朝，甚至数次被马可波罗提及。马可波罗曾来到过天津，还称其为“天堂般的城市”。京杭大运河从过去到现在一直都是世界上长的全程可航行的人工运河，它在天津港到全国各地、尤其是首都北京的商品运输上发挥了重要作用，北京离海较远，有160公里所以，天津在以“航海家之国”而闻名的意大利眼中享有格外重要的地位。
在二十世纪早期，天津知名度甚高，我们可以在许多意大利军人、商人、和旅行家的文字里找到对天津的描绘和赞美。在几年前，出于个人兴趣，我决定更深地挖掘那些曾居住过天津的意大利人的故事。我发现了本韦努蒂（Giuseppe Messerotti Benvenuti）的书信，他是一位受命来北京开意大利医院的军医以及中尉，和我一样在摩德纳省出生。那么这位百年前曾经到访过天津的中尉，是如何看待天津，这个我居住了许多年的城市呢？其实，他在真正到达天津前就很了解这里了：“天津比北京大多了，也漂亮多了：北京只有不到五十万居民，而天津已经超过九十万了。”在旅程开始前，中尉就已经对中国国家、人民和历史文化都有所了解，但是在天津和北京度过的一年，还是毫无疑问的帮助了他更深入地发现中国的美丽和宏伟。他曾在多个场合多次重复说，意大利人可以向中国人学习的地方有很多。
几个世纪来，究竟有多少意大利人感受到了中尉所描述的对天津的尊重与爱？不计其数。而且这种类深远的影响绝对不是巧合：一直以来，天津一直是中意友谊的中心。这一友谊的核心原因可以在天津的前意大利租界区找到。
天津的意租界在建于1902年，曾被当地人称为“贵族租界”，森佐·菲莱蒂（Vincenzo Fileti）及其继任者（1902-1920的管理者）为此做出巨大的努力。意租界以其庄严有致的别墅和青翠秀美的花园闻名，在20世纪20年代到40年代，曾经是中意友好关系“强劲的心脏”，也成为了许多中国知识分子和名人喜爱的居住地。许多建筑显示了二十世纪初期的典型意大利建筑风格。感谢中国政府的帮助，如今我们还能欣赏这些精妙绝伦的建筑。
前意租界，现在被重新命名为“意大利风情区”，中国政府和意大利Sirena组织2004年开始的重建工作，恢复了其往日的荣光。这一中意合作项目涉及对目前八十座建筑物中约二十层外墙的翻新，从而为该地区的商业和旅游业提供了新的动力。前意大利总统卡洛·阿泽利奥·钱皮（Carlo Azeglio Ciampi）在2004年十二月份对中国进行了访问，并参观了由北京意大利文化组织的“通往天津的路：中意关系的一千年”展览，为进一步推进两国友好关系起到了至关重要的作用。
有了这一新发动力和两国政府间的紧密合作，风格独特的意大利风情区在中外企业家中备受欢迎。著名导演朱赛贝·托纳多雷（Giuseppe Tornatore）选择在这里来开设一个电影俱乐部，并以他获得奥斯卡佳外语片的作品《天堂电影院》命名。
如今，在这个美丽的街区散步，就仿佛身处意大利，身处托纳多雷电影的情境中。意大利风情区无疑是天津旅游业的一大地标，在今年更是有着尤为突出的重要性：2020年标志着两个中意关系的重要里程碑。这一年，“文化和旅游年”在一月二十三日拉开了帷幕，十一月下旬两国也将共庆意大利共和国和中华人民共和国建立外交关系五十周年。
在这一新冠疫情肆虐的特殊年份，在漫长的隔离期中，每一个住在天津的意大利人都对意大利风情区魂牵梦萦。当防疫响应级别降低，我们终于可以来到意大利风情区，细细品味它的色彩、风格和气味，仿佛瞬间回到了我们心爱的故土。每每念及故乡，我就会像许多其它居住天津的意大利人一会去往意大利风情区。这一城市地标深受所有游客和当地居民的喜爱，无论他们是，中国人、意大利人、或是其他国家的人。品尝完美的披萨，享受在露天桌台上的一杯咖啡，或是静静欣赏美丽的建筑， 这里都是一个理想的地方。这一块小小的区域凝结着太多美丽，让人难以挑出其中之，但有一个绝对不能错过的地方就是但丁广场（Piazza Dante）。为什么它如此特别呢？第一是因为它的名字：“Piazza”这个词足以唤起每个意大利人心中的美好回忆，再加上对于但丁——我们伟大的国家诗人的尊重，结果是完美的。第二是因为那座伫立于但丁广场中心的带翅膀的胜利女神雕像。雕像属于意风区重建工作的一部分，这座大理石雕塑本身就足以令人惊叹，但还有另一原因让它更加特别，也包含了中意友谊的精髓：保护我们的胜利女神身背象征和平的橄榄树枝——还有什么比和平更美好的愿望呢？
意大利风情区完美承载了超过一千年以来的中意友谊。就像以融合东西方文化而闻名的意大利传教士郎世宁（Giuseppe Castiglione）一样，天津意大利风情区结合了维西利亚风格的建筑设计与生机勃勃的中国文化、塑造了具有包容性、国际性和多元文化特征的完美城市典范。包容、多元文化和文化交流：这些是我们每天都试图向南开大学意大利语系学生传递的核心价值观。南开大学意大利语系也是另一个紧紧连结天津与意大利的元素。我们深知自己身负重要使命，因为我们认为教育能让这个世界变得更好。当我们告诉我们的学生那些中意友谊的美好历史时，我们也鼓励他们正像天津在这一千多年中做的一样，成为两种文化交流的大使。
A relatively long personal association with Tianjin explains my contribution to Inspiring Tianjin, a book that I hope will generate more interest for this unique city. May “Tianjin’s resonance(s)” introduce the idea that this northern Chinese city is not a mere stop on the way to a final destination, but that it is a destination in itself that should be appreciated for its own outstanding features.
Like many youngsters educated in France, I came across the name of Tianjin well before I visited China for the first time in the summer of 1996. French students, especially those interested in literature and poetry, are familiar with Paul Claudel (1868-1955) and, therefore, they would remember his close links with China and would have tried to imagine the years he spent in Tianjin – or Tientsin as it was then known– between 1906 and 1909 as a French diplomat.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) is another prominent French personality forever associated with China’s northern port. He supported the work of Emile Licent (1876-1952), the founder of Tianjin’s Natural History Museum, known as the Hoangho Paiho Museum, and made major contributions to Chinese paleontology.
However, my direct personal connection with Tianjin started not far from the Black Sea in Bulgaria. In 2006, I made the decision to organize the Europe-China Forum in Sofia, a place that I consider highly relevant in discussing issues related to Eurasian continuities. I had established the Europe-China Forum four years earlier with the goal of increasing mutual understanding between Europe and China. This journey persists to this day!
During the preparation for the 2006 international gathering, I had the privilege of meeting Yu Zhenqi, the then Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China in Bulgaria. It was a beautiful and memorable encounter which began with an appreciation of Memories of Red Cliff by Su Dongpo (1037-1101) whose calligraphic reproduction was hanging on the wall of the Ambassador’s dining room: “Large river turns to the east…”, and Ambassador Yu kindly accompanied me up to “the river-reflected moon”.
Over a dinner featuring exquisite Chinese dishes, Ambassador Yu Zhenqi expressed his surprise when I told him that I had never been to Tianjin, a city which meant a lot to him. He told me that it would be a mistake for someone studying Chinese history and culture not to be acquainted with Nankai University and its scholastic traditions.
I took the words of the Ambassador very seriously and I don’t regret it. The history of Tianjin, inseparable from Puyi (1906-1967), Yuan Shikai (1859-1916), Zhang Xueliang (1901-2001) or Liang Qichao (1873-1929) remains one of the best introductions to the larger Chinese transformations of the 20th century. It can be argued that it is in Tianjin that one can find some of the sources of Chinese modernity.
It was in November 2006 that I managed to visit Nankai University for the first time. I discovered its rich history since its founding in 1919, its connection with Zhou Enlai (1898-1976), and its vibrant intellectual life. I had a most agreeable and fruitful conversation with its then chancellor Xue Jinwen.
Three years later, for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, I had the opportunity to cooperate with the Tianjin Municipality for the organization of a high-level gathering bringing top European personalities to Tianjin, among them the former French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius and the former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
As the city’s architecture illustrates, Europe and China had met before in Tianjin during the time of imperialism and colonialism. These were profoundly sad circumstances for China. Fortunately, it is presently well on the way to a robust renaissance and it has regained centrality in world affairs.
Of the nine concessions that have marked Tianjin’s history, seven were European: the Austro-Hungarian (1901-1917), the Belgian (1902-1931), the British concession (1860-1943), the French (1860-1946), the German (1899-1917), the Italian (1901-1947) and the Russian (1900-1920). The two other concessions were the American (1869-1902) and the Japanese (1898-1945).
In what is known today as Wudadao, literally “the five avenues”, there are still over 200 buildings with interesting architectural features and historical value. While almost everything has been said about the “old Shanghai”, Tianjin can still surprise academics and their readers by the richness of its still untold stories.
At the evocation of such a rich past, the idea that 21st century Sino-European dialogue has to be continued and deepened in Tianjin makes great sense. In 2008, during the Beijing Olympics, many rediscovered Eric Henry Liddell (1902-1945), the Scottish Olympic gold medalist at the 1924 Paris Olympics whose life is intertwined with Tianjin. Brian Power (1918-2008), the author of The Ford of Heaven, is also a stimulating introduction to the interaction between China and Europe whose backdrop is Tianjin.
In 2011, with the active support of Irina Bokova, the then director-general of the UNESCO, I prepared for the Europe-China Forum in Paris. It was a true delight to observe Nankai University’s deep involvement in this dialogue between civilizations taking place at a United Nations’ organization.
At the opening of the forum on June 27, 2011, I made a reference to Zhang Pengchun (1892-1957), the younger brother of Zhang Boling (1876-1951), the founder of Nankai University: “China’s traditional secularism and humanism have in the past inspired the West. Diplomat and man of letters Zhang Pengchun, who served as vice-chairman of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and played a pivotal role in drafting the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, noted during the debates chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt : “In the 18th century, when progressive ideas with respect to human rights had been first put forward in Europe, translations of Chinese philosophers had been known to have inspired such thinkers as Voltaire, Quesnay and Diderot in their humanistic revolt against feudalistic conceptions”.
Following nine years of uninterrupted constructive exchanges with Tianjin, various cooperation projects with Europe were realized. In 2015, I was honored to receive a friendship award from the municipal government. I truly cherish it. In 2019, I was invited to the ceremony of Nankai’s 100th anniversary. I was deeply moved to see a city simultaneously remembering its past while preparing for the future.
For 14 years, I have directly witnessed Tianjin’s evolution into a 21st century Smart City, gaining in international visibility. Since 2007, the Annual Meeting of the New Champions, an event established by the World Economic Forum, alternates between Tianjin and Dalian. In 2017, Tianjin established the World Intelligence Congress, an international platform at the intersection of technology and sustainability. As I expressed to the newspaper China Daily in July 2019: “Tianjin might become a true Smart City much faster than people think”.
However, in the framework of the book Inspiring Tianjin, I wish to describe the features of Tianjin that impress me the most, especially on a personal level. In other words, I would like to sketch a psychological portrait of a city with the hope that it triggers more conversation around the theme of the character of urban centers.
Paris, New York, Madrid, Tokyo, London or Berlin have different characters, but I would argue that the same is also true for Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Hangzhou or Tianjin.
Only an indolent and superficial mind would conclude that most major Chinese cities are uniform in character. However, it is precisely China’s internal diversity which makes the Middle Country infinitely attractive.
The key in accessing Tianjin’s soul is the appreciation of its sense of understatement. Tianjin would not claim to be an economic or a cultural capital, for it would find it excessive to pretend to be ahead of others. There are several effects of this culture of understatement, but one is certainly that Tianjin does not disappoint you. On the contrary, its true value is concealed by a modesty that dawns on you over time, forcing you to continuously explore its many faces.
As one of the four Municipalities directly under the central government – along with Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing – and a major transportation hub having a population of more than 15 million people, it is indeed a cosmopolitan metropolis close to Beijing, but with a gaze towards the Korean peninsula and Japan. Tianjin’s port is the world’s fourth largest (in tonnage) and trades with 180 countries and territories around the world.
However, Tianjin would not immediately try to display its strengths, and stays away from being a spectacle. Tianjin’s obvious simplicity is highly attractive to many. It is certainly the case for me.
A corollary of its straightforwardness, its absence of any pretention and its sense of understatement, Tianjin has also developed a singular sense of humor. With its outstanding performers – e.g. Ma Sanli (1914-2003), Hou Baolin (1917-1993) or Guo Degang –, one rightly associates the xiangsheng, or art of cross talk, to Tianjin. But, in everyday life, Tianjin’s humor is also part of a charming urban poetry.
In a quest for Tianjin’s own characteristics, a colorful dialect, Yangliuqing’s paintings, Zhang’s clay figurines, and Wei’s kites, come immediately to mind. Its culinary delights are also an important component of its way of life. It is interesting to note that the very first book in French on Chinese cuisine was written by Henri Lecourt in 1925 in Tianjin!
Being open to the Other is also a crucial element of Tianjin’s identity. In the City of Bridges– the most famous being the “international bridge” known today as the “Jiefang Bridge”–, Chinese visitors from other provinces or foreigners coming from afar can feel the gentle embrace of spontaneous hospitality.
Tianjin occupies a large territory of 11,946 square kilometers (almost two times the size of Shanghai),. However, this should not distract from what is another attractive trait of this city. Around the Hai River, in what is considered the historic city center, urbanism is of human scale. In Tianjin, roads and bridges are also made for pedestrians looking for a deeper, emotional connection to the city, rather than a cursory examination.
Walking along the slow-moving Hai River, one understands easily why Tianjin is known as the City of Bridges. As one continues to wander and reflect within Tianjin, one soon realizes that this entire city is a conduit for fellowship, for cultures to cross-fertilize, and for the past to resonate into the future.
Its welcoming echoes resonate long after you have left, as if they were beckoning the visitor to return– physically or metaphorically through the paths of remembrance.
David Gosset, Sinologist, is the founder of the Europe-China Forum (2002).
Relations between Italy and China have a very long history that can be traced back to the Venetian merchant Marco Polo and the missionaries Matteo Ricci and Matteo Ripa, to name just a few of the most famous characters. When we talk about the commercial and cultural exchanges between the two countries, it is impossible not to mention the Silk Road, that endless corridor that began in Chang’an, the ancient “city of perpetual peace,” and ended in Rome, the legendary “eternal city.” It would also be impossible to talk about the friendship between Italy and China without mentioning silk, spices, and all those products that have allowed the Silk Road to become a legend and leave its mark on the whole world.
Silk seems to be the common thread that connects the friendship between Italy and China. If we want to get closer to our era on an imaginary timeline, relations between post-unification Italy and the Chinese empire officially began in 1866, when the frigate captain Vittorio F. Arminjon was asked to sail to China and Japan on a diplomatic mission. The primary purpose of the mission was the fortification of Italian commercial enterprises, starting with the silk industry, the eponymous industry after which the Silk Road was named.
In the context of international trade relations, Tianjin had always played a role of great importance in the economy of northern China for three main reasons, the first being its strategic function as a commercial and military port, a function it has maintained to this day. Another factor that allowed the development of the city is its proximity to the capital, especially after the British opened the first railway to Beijing in 1897. Last but not least is the passage of the northern section of the Grand Canal in the city center: its construction began during the Sui dynasty, and its existence was even mentioned by Marco Polo, who personally visited Tianjin and called it the “heavenly city.” The Grand Canal was, and still is, the longest fully navigable artificial canal in the world. Hence, it played a crucial role in goods transportation from Tianjin’s port to all of China, especially to the capital, located 160 kilometers away from the sea. Therefore, Tianjin is particularly important in the eyes of its Italian partners and friends, as Italy is famous in the collective imagination as a “nation of navigators.”
In the early 1900s, Tianjin was a well-known city, so much so that we can find descriptions and appreciations in the writings of numerous Italian militaries, merchants, and travelers. A few years ago, out of personal interest, I decided to deepen the research on the Italians who have lived in Tianjin. I then discovered the letters of Giuseppe Messerotti Benvenuti, a military physician and lieutenant sent to China to open an Italian hospital in Beijing. Lieutenant Messerotti Benvenuti, born in the province of Modena just like me, had visited Tianjin, the city where I have lived for many years, over a hundred years before me. What could he have thought of this city? Messerotti Benvenuti knew Tianjin well before arriving there: “Tianjin is much larger and more beautiful than Beijing, while the latter does not reach 500,000 inhabitants, Tianjin passes 900,000”[ Battaglia P., Labanca N. (edited by), Giuseppe Messerotti Benvenuti, un italiano nella Cina dei Boxer. Fotografie e lettere (1900-1901), Modena: Associazione Giuseppe Panini archivi modenesi, 2000, letter n. 5.]. At the beginning of his journey, the lieutenant knew little about China, its people, and its culture. Still, the year spent between Tianjin and Beijing was undoubtedly a great help in discovering its beauty and grandeur. On several occasions, he repeated that Italians had a lot to learn from the Chinese.
Over the centuries, how many Italians have felt the feelings of respect and love described by the lieutenant? Countless, and it is certainly no coincidence: over time, Tianjin has been the center of friendship between Italy and China. One of the central reasons for this friendship can be found in Tianjin’s former Italian Concession.
The Italian Concession, founded in 1902, was locally known as the “aristocratic concession” thanks to the great efforts of Vincenzo Fileti, administrator between 1912 and 1920, and his successors. Famous for its stately villas and verdant gardens, from the 1920s to the 1940s, it was the beating heart of the friendly relations between Italy and China, as well as one of the favorite places of residence for many Chinese intellectuals and famous people. Many buildings showed the typical traits of Italian architecture of the first half of the 20th century. Thanks to the help of the Chinese Government, today, we can still admire these magnificent buildings.
The former Italian Concession, now renamed the “Italian Style Area,” has returned to its former glory thanks to the restructuring process started in 2004 by the Chinese Government and the Italian Sirena group. The Italian-Chinese project dealt with the renovation of about twenty facades of the 80 buildings currently present to give new impetus to the commerce and tourism of this area of the city. The visit to China of the then President of the Italian Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi in December 2004 was also essential, as he had the opportunity to visit the exhibition Road to Tianjin: One Thousand years of relations between Italy and China held at the Italian Institute of Culture in Beijing.
Thanks to this new impetus and the close collaboration between the governments of the two countries, the unique Italian Style Area has become a popular place among Chinese and international entrepreneurs. Even the famous director Giuseppe Tornatore chose it as a set to open a film club named after the work that earned him the Oscar for the best foreign-language film: Nuovo Cinema Paradiso.
Today, as we stroll through the streets of this beautiful neighborhood, we feel like we are in Italy, on the set of one of Tornatore’s films. The Italian Style Area is undoubtedly one of the landmarks of Tianjin’s tourism, an element that acquires even more importance this year. 2020 marks two significant milestones for the history of relations between China and Italy. Not only was the Year of Culture and Tourism inaugurated on 23 January, but the two countries are also getting ready to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Italian Republic and the P.R.C. later in November.
In this particular year, tragically marked by the COVID-19 outbreak, during the long quarantine days, each member of the Italian community in Tianjin was thinking about the Italian Style Area. As soon as the security measures were lifted, we could finally set foot in the Italian Style Area to savor its colors, flavors, and scents and return, even if only for a short time, to our beloved Italy. When I miss my hometown, I, like the many other Italians who have decided to make Tianjin their permanent home, go to the Italian Style Area. This famous spot is a place loved by tourists and residents, whether they are Chinese, Italian, or of other nationalities: it is the perfect place to eat a good pizza, savor a cup of coffee on the outdoor tables or admire the beautiful buildings. There are so many beautiful places in this small area that it would be impossible to choose the most beautiful. However, there is one place that you cannot miss: Piazza Dante. Why is this “piazza” so unique? First of all, for its name: the word “piazza” is enough to awaken beautiful memories in the heart of every Italian, and if we add the homage to Dante, our great national poet, the result is perfect. The second reason is what stands out in the center of Piazza Dante: the winged Victory statue, rebuilt during the area’s restoration process. The marble statue is marvelous, but there is an element that makes it even more special and embodies the true essence of the friendship between Italy and China: the goddess who protects us from above carries an olive tree twig, the symbol of peace par excellence. Is there a better wish than peace?
The Italian Style Area perfectly embodies over 1000 years of friendship between China and Italy. Just like the Italian missionary Giuseppe Castiglione is known for merging East and West in his works, Tianjin’s Italian Style Area combines Versilia inspired architecture and design with the vibrant Chinese culture. The result is the perfect example of a city with an inclusive, international, and multicultural profile. Inclusion, multiculturality, and cultural communication: these are the core values we try to teach every day to the students of Nankai University’s Italian Department, another of the elements that connect Tianjin to Italy. We take our mission very seriously as we believe education is the way to build a better world. While we tell our students the fascinating history of friendship between China and Italy, we encourage them to become ambassadors of the two cultures, precisely as Tianjin has done for over a millennium.
Une relation personnelle relativement ancienne avec Tianjin explique ma contribution à Tianjin en perspective(s), un livre qui, je l'espère, suscitera un intérêt encore plus grand pour cette ville unique.
Puissent ces « échos de Tianjin » introduire à l’idée que cette ville du nord de la Chine n’est pas seulement une étape en route vers d’autres lieux, mais que c’est une destination en soi qui doit être appréciée pour ses caractéristiques propres.
Comme beaucoup de ceux qui ont reçu une éducation en France, j’ai vu mentionné le nom de Tianjin bien avant de visiter la Chine pour la première fois à l'été 1996. Les étudiants français, en particulier ceux qui s'intéressent à la littérature et à la poésie, connaissent Paul Claudel (1868-1955) et, par conséquent, ils se souviennent de ses liens étroits avec la Chine et ont imaginé les années qu'il a passées à Tianjin - ou Tientsin comme on l'appelait alors - entre 1906 et 1909 en tant que diplomate.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) est une autre personnalité française de premier plan associée à jamais au port du nord de la Chine. Il a soutenu les travaux d’Emile Licent (1876-1952), le fondateur du Musée d’histoire naturelle de Tianjin, connu sous le nom de Musée Hoangho Paiho, et a par la suite joué un rôle majeur dans le développement de la paléontologie chinoise.
Cependant, c’est non loin de la mer Noire, en Bulgarie, que ma relation personnelle directe avec Tianjin prend sa source. En 2006, j'ai pris la décision d'organiser le Forum Europe-Chine à Sofia, un lieu que je considère très pertinent pour discuter des questions liées aux continuités eurasiatiques. J'avais créé le Forum Europe-Chine quatre ans plus tôt dans le but de contribuer à une meilleure compréhension mutuelle entre l'Europe et la Chine. Ce travail s’est poursuivi jusqu’ à ce jour!
Lors de la préparation de l’évènement international de 2006, j’ai eu le privilège de rencontrer Yu Zhenqi, alors ambassadeur de la République populaire de Chine en Bulgarie. Ce fut une belle et mémorable rencontre qui débuta par une appréciation de Sur la Falaise Rouge pour évoquer le passé de Su Dongbo (1037-1101) dont la reproduction calligraphiée était accrochée au mur de la salle à manger de l'ambassadeur: «Le grand fleuve vers l'Est s’en va…», et l'ambassadeur Yu m’accompagna généreusement jusqu'à «la lune reflétée par le fleuve».
Lors d'un dîner composé d’exquis plats chinois, l'ambassadeur Yu Zhenqi exprima sa surprise lorsque je lui dis que je n'étais jamais allé à Tianjin, une ville qui comptait beaucoup pour lui. Il m'a dit que ce serait une erreur alors que l’on aspire à l’étude de l'histoire et la culture chinoise de ne pas connaître l'Université de Nankai et sa tradition de recherches académiques.
J'ai pris le conseil de l'ambassadeur très au sérieux et je ne le regrette pas. L’histoire de Tianjin, indissociable de Puyi (1906-1967), Yuan Shikai (1859-1916), Zhang Xueliang (1901-2001) ou Liang Qichao ( 1873-1929) reste l'une des meilleures introductions aux grandes transformations chinoises du 20e siècle. On peut affirmer que c'est à Tianjin que l'on trouve certaines des sources de la modernité chinoise.
C'est en novembre 2006 que j'ai pu visiter l'Université de Nankai pour la première fois. J'ai découvert sa riche histoire depuis sa fondation en 1919, son lien avec Zhou Enlai (1898-1976) et le dynamisme de sa vie intellectuelle. Je me souviens d’une conversation des plus agréables et fructueuses avec son chancelier d'alors, le professeur Xue Jinwen.
Trois ans plus tard, à l'occasion de la célébration du 60e anniversaire de la fondation de la République populaire de Chine, j'ai eu l'occasion de coopérer avec la municipalité de Tianjin pour l'organisation d'un rassemblement de haut niveau réunissant à Tianjin des personnalités européennes de premier plan, tels l'ancien Premier ministre français Laurent Fabius et l'ancien chancelier allemand Gerhard Schroeder.
Comme l’illustre l’architecture de la ville, l’Europe et la Chine se sont déjà rencontrées à Tianjin à l’époque de l’impérialisme et du colonialisme. Ce furent des circonstances profondément tristes pour la Chine. Heureusement, elle est depuis en route vers sa renaissance et elle a retrouvé une place centrale dans les affaires mondiales.
Sur les neuf concessions qui ont marqué l'histoire de Tianjin, sept étaient européennes: l'austro-hongroise (1901-1917), la belge (1902-1931), la concession britannique (1860-1943), la française (1860-1946), l’allemande (1899-1917), l’italienne (1901-1947) et la russe (1900-1920). Les deux autres concessions furent américaines (1869-1902) et japonaises (1898-1945).
Dans ce qui est connu aujourd'hui sous le nom de «Wudadao», littéralement «les cinq avenues», il y a encore plus de 200 bâtiments aux caractéristiques architecturales variées et dont la valeur historique est incontestable. Alors que presque tout a été dit sur le «vieux Shanghai», Tianjin peut encore surprendre les universitaires et leurs lecteurs par la richesse de ses histoires passées qui restent encore à présenter.
À l'évocation d'un passé aussi riche, l'idée que le dialogue sino-européen du 21e siècle doit être poursuivi et approfondi à Tianjin prend tout son sens. En 2008, lors des jeux olympiques de Pékin, beaucoup ont redecouvert Eric Henry Liddell (1902-1945), médaillé d'or écossais aux jeux de 1924 dont la vie est intimement liée à Tianjin. Brian Power (1918-2008), l'auteur de The Ford of Heaven – Le gué céleste–, est également une introduction stimulante à l'interaction entre la Chine et l'Europe dont la toile de fond est Tianjin.
En 2011, avec le soutien actif d'Irina Bokova, alors directrice générale de l'UNESCO, c’est à Paris que j'ai organisé le Forum Europe-Chine. Ce fut une grande staisfaction que d’observer la profonde implication de l’Université de Nankai dans ce dialogue entre les civilisations qui se tenait au sein d’une organisation des Nations Unies.
Lors de l'ouverture du forum le 27 juin 2011, j'ai fait référence à Zhang Pengchun (1892-1957), le frère cadet de Zhang Boling (1876-1951), fondateur de l'Université de Nankai: «La laïcité et l'humanisme traditionnels de la Chine ont, dans le passé, inspiré l'Occident. Zhang Pengchun, diplomate et homme de lettres, qui a été vice-président de la Commission des droits de l'homme des Nations Unies et a joué un rôle central dans la rédaction de la Déclaration universelle des droits de l'homme de 1948, a noté lors des débats présidés par Eleanor Roosevelt: «Au 18e siècle, lorsque des idées progressistes en matière de droits de l'homme ont été avancées pour la première fois en Europe, les traductions de philosophes chinois étaient connues pour avoir inspiré des penseurs tels que Voltaire, Quesnay et Diderot dans leur révolte humaniste contre les conceptions féodales ».
Après neuf ans d'échanges constructifs ininterrompus avec Tianjin, divers projets de coopération avec l'Europe ont été réalisés. En 2015, j'ai eu l'honneur de recevoir une distinction du gouvernement municipal. Je chéris ce témoignage d’amitié. En 2019, j'ai été invité à la cérémonie du 100e anniversaire de Nankai. J'ai été profondément ému de voir une ville se souvenir de son passé tout en se préparant pour l'avenir.
Depuis 14 ans, j’ai vu de manière directe Tianjin évoluer vers une ville intelligente du 21e siècle alors qu’elle gagnait en visibilité internationale. Depuis 2007, la réunion annuelle des nouveaux champions, un événement créé par le Forum économique mondial, se tient en alternance entre Tianjin et Dalian. En 2017, Tianjin a créé le «World Intelligence Congress», une plateforme internationale à l'intersection de la technologie et de la durabilité. Comme je l'ai dit au journal China Daily en juillet 2019: «Tianjin pourrait devenir une véritable ville intelligente beaucoup plus rapidement que les gens ne le pensent».
Cependant, dans le cadre du livre Tianjin en perspective(s), je souhaite décrire les caractéristiques de Tianjin qui me laissent, sur le plan personnel, une forte impression. En d'autres termes, je voudrais esquisser un portrait psychologique d'une ville dans l'espoir qu'il déclenche des conversations autour du thème du caractère des centres urbains.
Paris, New York, Madrid, Tokyo, Londres ou Berlin ont des personnalités différentes, mais je dirais qu'il en va de même pour Pékin, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Hangzhou ou Tianjin.
Seul un esprit indolent et superficiel conclurait que la plupart des grandes villes chinoises ont un caractère uniforme. C'est précisément la diversité interne de la Chine qui rend le pays du milieu infiniment attrayant.
La clé pour accéder à l'âme de Tianjin est l'appréciation de son sens de la retenue. Tianjin ne prétend pas être une capitale économique ou culturelle, car il lui paraîtrait excessif de se placer en avant des autres. Il y a plusieurs effets de cette culture de la réserve, mais l'un est certainement que Tianjin ne vous déçoit jamais. Au contraire, sa vraie valeur est cachée par une modestie qui vous apparaît au fil du temps et qui vous invite à continuer à explorer ses nombreux visages.
L'une des quatre municipalités relevant directement du gouvernement central - avec Pékin, Shanghai et Chongqing -, plaque tournante des transports avec une population de plus de 15 millions d'habitants, c'est, dans les faits, une métropole cosmopolite proche de Pékin, mais tournée aussi vers la péninsule coréenne et le Japon. Le port de Tianjin est le quatrième au monde (en tonnage) et commerce avec 180 pays et territoires à travers le monde.
Cependant, Tianjin ne montre pas immédiatement ses forces et avantages et ne veut pas se donner en spectacle. L’évidente sobriété de Tianjin est, pour beaucoup, très attachante, elle l’est certainement pour moi.
Corollaire de sa simplicité, de son absence de prétention et de son esprit de retenue, Tianjin a également développé un humour singulier. Avec ses artistes exceptionnels - Ma Sanli (1914-2003), Hou Baolin (1917-1993) ou Guo Degang -, on associe à juste titre l’art de la scène dit xiangsheng, ou diaphonie, à Tianjin. Mais, au quotidien, l’humour de Tianjin fait également partie d’une charmante poésie urbaine.
Dans une quête des caractéristiques de Tianjin, un dialecte coloré, les peintures de Yangliuqing, les figurines d'argile de Zhang et les cerfs-volants de Wei viennent immédiatement à l'esprit. Ses délices culinaires sont également une composante importante de son mode de vie. Il est intéressant de noter que le tout premier livre en français sur la cuisine chinoise a été écrit par Henri Lecourt en 1925 à Tianjin!
L’ouverture à l’autre est également un élément crucial de l’identité de Tianjin. Dans la ville des ponts – le plus célèbre étant le «pont international» connu aujourd'hui sous le nom de «pont Jiefang» - , les visiteurs chinois d'autres provinces ou les étrangers venant de beaucoup plus loin peuvent ressentir la douce étreinte d’une hospitalité spontanée.
Avec ses 11 946 kilomètres carrés (près de deux fois la taille de Shanghai), Tianjin occupe un vaste territoire. Cependant, cela ne doit pas détourner l'attention de ce qui est un autre trait attrayant de la ville. Autour de la rivière Hai, dans ce qui est considéré comme le centre-ville historique, l'urbanisme est à taille humaine. À Tianjin, les routes et les ponts sont également conçus pour les piétons qui recherchent un lien émotionnel avec ce qui les entoure, et non point uniquements des passages empruntés dans la vitesse.
En marchant le long de la rivière Hai qui s’écoule lentement, on comprend pourquoi Tianjin est connue comme la ville des ponts. Et, alors que l'on continue la marche et la méditation, la ville apparaît faite pour la communion des esprits, l’échange des cultures et pour que le passé résonne dans le futur.
Ses échos accueillants persistent longtemps après votre départ, comme s'ils invitaient le visiteur à revenir physiquement ou métaphoriquement à travers les chemins du souvenir.
David Gosset, sinologue, est le fondateur du Forum Europe-Chine (2002).
Les relations entre l'Italie et la Chine ont une très longue histoire qui remonte au marchand vénitien Marco Polo et aux missionnaires Matteo Ricci et Matteo Ripa, pour ne citer que quelques-uns des personnages historiques les plus célèbres. Lorsque nous parlons des échanges commerciaux et culturels entre les deux pays, il est impossible de ne pas mentionner la Route de la Soie, ce couloir sans fin qui a commencé à Chang'an, l'ancienne « ville de la paix perpétuelle » et s'est terminée à Rome, la légendaire « ville éternelle ». Il serait également impossible de parler de l'amitié entre l'Italie et la Chine sans mentionner la soie, les épices et tous ces produits qui ont permis à la Route de la soie de devenir une légende et de laisser sa marque dans le monde.
La soie semble être le fil qui relie l'amitié entre l'Italie et la Chine. Si nous voulons nous rapprocher de notre époque sur une chronologie imaginaire, les relations entre l'Italie post-unification et l'empire chinois ont officiellement commencé en 1866, lorsque le capitaine de frégate Vittorio F. Arminjon a été invité à se rendre en Chine et au Japon en mission diplomatique. Le but principal de cette mission était de fortifier les entreprises commerciales italiennes, à commencer par l'industrie de la soie, l'industrie éponyme qui a donné son nom à la Route de la Soie.
Dans le contexte des relations commerciales internationales, Tianjin a toujours joué un rôle important dans l'économie de la Chine du nord pour trois raisons principales, la première étant sa fonction stratégique en tant que port commercial et militaire, fonction qu'elle a conservée jusqu’à maintenant. Un autre facteur qui a permis le développement de la ville est sa proximité avec la capitale, surtout après que les Britanniques ont ouvert le premier chemin de fer à Pékin en 1897. Enfin, le passage de la section nord du Grand Canal dans le centre-ville : sa construction a commencé pendant la dynastie des Sui, et son existence a même été mentionnée par Marco Polo, qui a personnellement visité Tianjin et l'a nommé la « ville céleste ». Le Grand Canal était, et est toujours, le plus long canal artificiel entièrement navigable au monde. Par conséquent, il a joué un rôle crucial dans le transport des marchandises du port de Tianjin vers le reste de la Chine, en particulier vers la capitale, située à 160 kilomètres de la mer. Par conséquent, la ville de Tianjin est particulièrement importante aux yeux de ses partenaires et amis italiens, puisque l'Italie est célèbre dans l'imaginaire collectif en tant qu’une « nation de navigateurs ».
Au début des années 1900, Tianjin était une ville très connue, à tel point que nous pouvons trouver des descriptions et des appréciations dans les écrits de nombreux militaires, marchands et voyageurs italiens. Il y a quelques années, par intérêt personnel, j'ai décidé d'approfondir la recherche sur les Italiens qui ont vécu à Tianjin. C’est ainsi que j’ai découvert les lettres de Giuseppe Messerotti Benvenuti, médecin militaire et lieutenant envoyé en Chine pour ouvrir un hôpital italien à Pékin. Le lieutenant Messerotti Benvenuti, né dans la province de Modène, comme moi, avait visité Tianjin, la ville où je vis depuis de nombreuses années, plus de cent ans avant moi. Que pouvait-il penser de cette ville ? Messerotti Benvenuti connaissait bien Tianjin avant d'y arriver : « Tianjin est une ville beaucoup plus grande et plus belle que Pékin, alors que cette dernière n'atteint pas 500 000 habitants, Tianjin en passe 900 000 ». Au début de son voyage, le lieutenant en savait peu sur la Chine, son peuple et sa culture. Pourtant, l'année passée entre Tianjin et Pékin a sans aucun doute été d'une grande aide pour découvrir sa beauté et sa grandeur. À plusieurs reprises, il a répété que les Italiens avaient beaucoup à apprendre auprès des Chinois.
Au fil des siècles, combien d'Italiens ont ressenti les sentiments de respect et d'amour décrits par le lieutenant ? Ce nombre est sans doute inestimable, et ce n'est certainement pas un hasard : au fil du temps, Tianjin a été le centre de l'amitié entre l'Italie et la Chine. L’une des principales raisons de cette amitié se trouve dans l’ancienne concession italienne de Tianjin.
La concession italienne, fondée en 1902, était connue localement comme la « concession aristocratique » grâce aux grands efforts de Vincenzo Fileti, administrateur entre 1912 et 1920, et de ses successeurs. Célèbre pour ses villas majestueuses et ses jardins verdoyants, des années 1920 aux années 1940, elle a été le cœur battant des relations amicales entre l'Italie et la Chine, ainsi que l'un des lieux de résidence préférés de nombreux intellectuels et personnalités chinoises. De nombreux bâtiments montrent les traits typiques de l'architecture italienne de la première moitié du XXe siècle. Grâce à l'aide du gouvernement chinois, nous pouvons encore aujourd'hui admirer ces magnifiques bâtiments.
L'ancienne concession italienne, désormais rebaptisée « Zone au Style Italien », a retrouvé son ancienne gloire grâce au processus de restructuration entamé en 2004 par le gouvernement chinois et le groupe italien Sirena. Le projet italo-chinois a porté sur la rénovation d'une vingtaine de façades des 80 immeubles actuellement présents afin de donner un nouvel élan au commerce et au tourisme dans ce quartier de la ville. La visite du président de la République italienne de l'époque en Chine, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, en décembre 2004, a également été essentielle, car il a eu l'occasion de visiter l'exposition Road to Tianjin : One Thousand years of relations between Italy and China (Chemin vers Tianjin : Un millier d'années de relations entre l'Italie et la Chine) qui s'est tenue à l'Institut italien de Culture à Pékin.
Grâce à ce nouvel élan et à l'étroite collaboration entre les gouvernements des deux pays, l'unique Zone au Style Italien est devenue un lieu populaire parmi les entrepreneurs chinois et internationaux. Même le célèbre réalisateur Giuseppe Tornatore l'a choisi comme décor pour ouvrir un club de cinéma nommé après l’oeuvre qui lui a valu l'Oscar du meilleur film en langue étrangère: Nuovo Cinema Paradiso.
Aujourd'hui, lorsque nous nous promenons dans les rues de ce beau quartier, nous nous sentons comme en Italie, sur le tournage d'un des films de Tornatore. La Zone au Style Italien est sans aucun doute l'un des points de repère du tourisme de Tianjin, un élément qui prend encore plus d'importance cette année. 2020 marque deux étapes importantes dans l'histoire des relations entre la Chine et l'Italie. Non seulement l'Année de la Culture et du Tourisme a été inaugurée le 23 janvier, mais les deux pays s'apprêtent également à célébrer leur 50e anniversaire depuis l'établissement des relations diplomatiques entre la République italienne et la République populaire de Chine plus tard en novembre.
En cette année particulière, tragiquement marquée par l'épidémie du COVID-19, pendant les longues journées de quarantaine, chaque membre de la communauté italienne de Tianjin pense à la Zone au Style Italien. Dès que les mesures de sécurité ont été levées, nous avons enfin pu mettre le pied dans cette Zone pour savourer ses couleurs, ses saveurs et ses parfums et retourner, ne serait-ce que pour une courte période, dans notre bien-aimée Italie. Quand ma ville natale me manque, comme les nombreux autres Italiens qui ont décidé de faire de Tianjin leur résidence permanente, je vais dans la zone de style italien. Ce lieu célèbre est un endroit apprécié des touristes et des résidents, qu'ils soient chinois, italiens ou d'autres nationalités : c'est l'endroit idéal pour manger une bonne pizza, savourer une tasse de café sur les tables en plein air ou admirer les beaux bâtiments. Il y a tellement de beaux endroits dans cette petite région qu'il serait impossible de choisir les plus beaux. Cependant, il y a un endroit à ne pas manquer : la Piazza Dante. Pourquoi cette « piazza » est-elle si unique ? Tout d'abord, pour son nom : le mot « piazza » suffit pour éveiller de beaux souvenirs dans le cœur de chaque italien, et si l'on ajoute l'hommage à Dante, notre grand poète national, le résultat est parfait. La deuxième raison est ce qui ressort au centre de la Piazza Dante : la statue de la Victoire ailée, reconstruite pendant le processus de restauration de la zone. La statue en marbre est merveilleuse, mais il y a un élément qui la rend encore plus spéciale et incarne la véritable essence de l'amitié entre l'Italie et la Chine : la déesse qui nous protège d'en haut porte une brindille d'olivier, symbole de paix par excellence. Y a-t-il un meilleur souhait que la paix ?
La Zone au Style Italien incarne parfaitement plus de 1000 ans d'amitié entre la Chine et l'Italie. Tout comme le missionnaire italien Giuseppe Castiglione est connu pour avoir fusionné l'Est et l'Ouest dans ses œuvres, la Zone au Style Italien de Tianjin combine l’architecture et le design de la région de Versilia avec la vibrante culture chinoise. Le résultat est l'exemple parfait d'une ville au profil inclusif, international et multiculturel. Inclusion, multi-culturalité et communication culturelle sont les valeurs fondamentales que nous essayons d'enseigner chaque jour aux étudiants du département d'italien de l'Université de Nankai, un autre des éléments qui relient Tianjin à l'Italie. Nous prenons notre mission très au sérieux car nous pensons que l'éducation est le moyen de construire un monde meilleur. Alors que nous racontons à nos étudiants l'histoire fascinante de l'amitié entre la Chine et l'Italie, nous les encourageons à devenir des ambassadeurs des deux cultures, précisément comme Tianjin l'a fait pendant plus d'un millénaire.
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