The world has reached a critical juncture, on the one hand multipolarization, cultural diversity and information technology fill the world with promise and hope, but on the other increasing uncertainties, instabilities and global challenges present risks that call for concerted actions and a common response.

The United States has unilaterally provoked trade frictions against China, adding greater instability to the international situation. Rising unilateralism and protectionism are manifested in some political forces inciting populism and conflicts between civilizations. They encourage irrational expressions of emotions, sabotage international cooperation and world peace and erode the cultural foundation and popular support for the harmonious coexistence of humankind.

But the more complex the situation is, the more confident we should be in the community with a shared future for mankind that has been proposed by President Xi Jinping. The world today has over 7 billion people, living in over 200 countries, belonging to over 2,500 nationalities and speaking more than 5,000 languages. There should not be any differentiations of good or bad, superior or inferior. Human society is colorful instead of uniform or standardized, and the world is a diversified one in terms of civilizations, social systems and values.

History tells us that any attempt by one civilization to dominate the world is doomed to failure. To safeguard the world's cultural diversity, we should treat each other as equals and respect each other, abandon arrogance and prejudice, pursue better understandings of the differences among cultures and promote dialogue and harmonious coexistence among civilizations.

Human civilization entered a complicated era after the industrial revolution. Rapidly growing productivity created vast wealth; but on the other, the wealth created was grabbed by Western powers, who waged colonial wars across the globe and drove the majority of countries and populations into the abyss of poverty. Although links and cooperation among countries have become closer on an unprecedented scale, these links were in fact what Western powers created to seize and loot the global market and resources. The world was thus divided into suzerains who exercised bullying and hegemony and colonies and semi-colonies who suffered from bondage and exploitation. While proclaiming "democracy, freedom and equality" and portraying themselves as saviors, Western powers played law-of-the-jungle and winner-takes-all games, used their strength aggressively across the world, exercised racial discrimination and national oppression, even traded black people as slaves and slaughtered indigenous populations. What they did in essence was abuse their power and act on their will at the cost of the majority of people in the world.

The international community has given China high praise for its achievements of reform and opening up, peaceful development and contribution to the world. However, it is a disappointment to some in the West that China's social system and values haven't changed in the way the West expected after 40 years of cooperation. As a result, they want to change their China policy from cooperation to confrontation and are making every effort to contain China' rapid development. The cultural grounds for their belief is obviously arrogant, and by no means open and tolerant. But it's spread quickly among some Western countries and exercising an influence on their policies toward China and harming world peace and prosperity.

In the current world, common interests far outweigh divergences, which means that cooperation is the right path forward and an irresistible trend of history. Only cooperation can defend the common interests of countries, and strengthened cooperation is the common demand of people. It is in line with the call of history and the common interests of all people to treat all countries with mutual respect, openness and tolerance, to learn from each other and exchange needed goods for material progress and to pursue common ground while reserving differences for cultural development. Only through opening up can countries leverage their comparative strength, enhance their economic cooperation, foster the world market, improve the global value chain and promote the growth of their economies. Only through tolerance and inclusiveness can different social systems coexist, different civilizations and development models learn from each other and democratic international relations witness progress.

For civilizations to move with the times, the key lies in mutual learning. Any civilization, despite its origin, is fluid and open. The most direct way to stimulate creativity and innovation is to learn from the strong points of different civilizations.

The Chinese civilization has gained rich nourishment from its exchanges with others and has made a major contribution to the progress of human civilization. Isolation leads to stagnation and self-proclaimed supremacy causes barrenness. Proper learning from the strengths of other civilizations is a vital precondition for enhanced pride and confidence in one's own culture.

The world is undergoing major changes, transformations and readjustments, with the most distinctive highlight coming from rapid and sustained development of BRICS and other emerging markets and accelerated poverty reduction and economic development in Asia, Africa and Latin America. This phenomenon is depicted by many scholars as the shift of the world's economic center of gravity from the West to the East. However, this shift is not happening at the cost of Western countries. Instead, they are beneficiaries of this shift. They still possess major advantages. What happened is that the cake of the world economy is larger and more economic engines are in place, and Western countries' share just saw a slight decline in a relative sense.

It is undoubtedly a change unseen in the past 100 years. The changes in the world's situation, including diversities in development mode and path of various countries, will evolve as multipolarization and economic globalization continue. As times move forward, colonial and cold-war mentalities should be discarded, independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries should be respected, countries should treat each other as equals, coexist in harmony, seek partnerships instead of alliances, and pursue a new type of international relations featuring mutual respect, equity, fairness and win-win cooperation.

The author is president of the Taihu World Cultural Forum.

The author contributed this article to China Watch exclusively. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of China Watch.

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