Headed by Du Zhanyuan, president of China International Communications Group (CICG), a leading Chinese publishing and communication organization devoted to promoting China’s international exchanges, and French sinologist David Gosset, founder of the China-Europe-America Global Initiative, a delegation completed a visit to Italy, Spain, and France as part of the China-Europe-America Think Tank Cooperation Forum from November 7 to 13.

The special trip to the three European countries which see the concentration of the largest number of UNESCO world heritage sites acquires a special meaning, coming in the wake of China putting forward Xi Jinping Thought on Culture, with a focus on people-to-people exchange, in October.

The delegation’s tour of each capital included meeting three leading personalities as the main interlocutors. In Bologna, Italy it was Romano Prodi, former prime minister of Italy and president of the European Commission; in Madrid, Spain, Javier Solana, former Spanish foreign minister and NATO secretary general; and in Paris, France, Laurent Fabius, former French prime minister and one of the main architects of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Each of them had had exchanges on EU-China relations and global governance. The countries where the meetings took place are also meaningful. Bologna was the cradle of Western culture since the times of the Roman Empire and was already in contact with the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) in the early days of the Silk Road. In 2017 Rome paid homage to that historical link by joining the Belt and Road Initiative. Bologna is also the first city in Western Europe to have a university.

Spain is the cradle of the Western Hemisphere's second most widely spoken language. Spanish is also one of America’s most spoken languages through which the American continent predominantly inherited European culture and its main institutions via Spain and the Iberian Peninsula. Today these countries have important cultural and material ties with both the EU and China.

Paris, the delegation’s last halt, was a cultural beacon of the Western world for the last three centuries. It is also the headquarters of UNESCO. It was there that Xi gave his famous address in March 2014, opposing the concept of the clash of civilizations. Xi’s thought on culture attaches importance to promoting exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations.

In Europe, Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, said in October: “The EU seeks to keep cultural exchanges open with the Chinese people as an essential means to maintain bilateral links and provide a favorable environment for cooperation.”

The China-Europe-America Think Tank Cooperation Forum Madrid Dialogue 2023 is held in Spain on November 9, 2023.

And at a recent high-level dialogue in Beijing, the EU Ambassador to China Jorge Toledo highlighted the importance of think tanks and personal interactions between European and Chinese researchers, pointing out that three years of the COVID-19 pandemic have left a vacuum in people-to-people exchanges between Europe and China.

At the Bologna, Madrid, and Paris talks, Du expressed his pleasure to be back in Europe once again in a spirit of friendship. He said the Chinese attach great importance to history and culture, as well as to continued dialogue. Gentlemen seek harmony but not uniformity.

Gosset, the recipient of official decorations from Spain, France and Italy for his contribution to bilateral relations with China over the last two decades, echoed him, saying, “In a world with multiple crises, one should not decouple but renew intellectual dialogue to solve the problems of our century.”

His words were timely since France will celebrate 60 years of bilateral relations with China with all its transatlantic significance in 2024. French intellectual André Malraux is an example of how much culture can achieve when it comes to contributing to mutual understanding among nations. Malraux was the key person U.S. President Richard Nixon consulted in the West before going to China to meet Chairman Mao Zedong and renew China-U.S. ties, a bilateral relationship that is key to the present and future of the global civilization. EU-China interactions at the think tank level and in other fields can considerably contribute to the relationship in today’s both promising and challenging times.

The EU countries, torn twice by two world wars in the 20th century, and today beset by two other conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, have been in constant dialogue with China throughout this year at all possible levels. That includes think tanks discussing the global economy, assessing cultural exchange, as well as underlining the urgency of sustainable development without decoupling.

The dialogues in Bologna, Madrid, and Paris did their part in contributing to the necessary interaction.

Thanks to technology, the world is cherishing outstanding degrees of hope for a better tomorrow. Our times demand permanent efforts too, Solana’s recent book Witness of an Uncertain Time says.

My own reflection is that individuals should know their own culture’s heritage, spend more time in their museums, read books on their own history and of others. This is also a lesson derived from former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s interactions with China. At the age of 100, Kissinger, who visited Beijing a few months ago and met Xi, is a living example of the significance of maintaining the flame of continuous conversation.

What keeps Kissinger so energetic? Possibly history. Why does he think that dialogue with China is the greatest contribution he can make to mutual understanding, human engagement, world peace and global prosperity? There is the weighty argument that everyone knows: because of the weight of his country and China in world affairs. But it is also because he knew that he would find the doors in Beijing wide open and it would be time for full reciprocity.

This is something that 18th-century classical thinkers Montesquieu and Voltaire – who were passionate about Chinese governance – could only imagine from a distance. Then there were the Europeans who knew it first-hand a couple of centuries earlier. One of them was Spanish missionary Diego de Pantoja, who lived in China for 21 years, 17 of which were spent in Beijing. He could speak and read Chinese and exchanged knowledge and wisdom with his Chinese peers in various disciplines, including mathematics, music, geography, linguistics, philosophy, and literature. He and the well-known Italian missionary Matteo Ricci were among the very few Western pioneers of Europe-China dialogue between civilizations that we need to revitalize in all fields today, in the Northern Hemisphere and beyond.  

AUGUSTO SOTO is director of the Spain-based Dialogue with China Project.