China Daily committed to Xi's focus on promoting Chinese civilization

Editor's note:China Daily launched Vision China in 2018 to play its role as a bridge for communication between China and the rest of the world. Focusing on developments in both China and abroad, Vision China invites well-known Chinese and overseas opinion leaders to give talks and share their ideas on forums focusing on a wide range of topics. In this event on Thursday, we gathered in Chaoyang, Liaoning province, a place where Hongshan Culture thrived more than 5,000 years ago. With the theme "Tracing the Origins of Chinese Civilization and Passing it on to Future Generations", experts shared their thoughts on the inspiration provided by ancestors and called for exchanges and mutual learning among various cultures. Let's hear what they said at the forum.

On June 2, President Xi Jinping delivered an important speech at a symposium on cultural inheritance and development, where he gave a comprehensive, systematic, and in-depth explanation of a series of major theoretical and practical issues related to the inheritance and development of Chinese culture, and made strategic deployments for shouldering the new cultural mission and striving to build a modern civilization of the Chinese nation. China Daily has studied the spirit of President Xi's important directives on promoting cultural inheritance and development, and strengthening and improving international communication. We will stay firmly rooted in Chinese culture. We will collect and refine the defining symbols and best elements of Chinese culture and showcase them to the world. We will enhance technological empowerment, expand communication platforms, create high-quality and multimedia products featuring Chinese culture, promote exchanges and mutual learning among world civilizations, and improve the communication strength and influence of Chinese culture.

Today, in conjunction with the National Cultural Heritage Administration and the publicity department of the Liaoning Provincial Committee of the CPC, we have jointly organized Vision China and invited renowned Chinese and foreign experts who are involved in historical research, civilization tracing and cultural heritage protection. They will share their insights on the development of world civilization, cultural inheritance and innovation, as well as their research and thoughts on Hongshan Culture with us. I believe this will be a feast of knowledge.

Liaoning has a long history and rich cultural inheritance. In recent years, it has accelerated its development into a culturally advanced province, especially in strengthening the protection and inheritance of cultural heritage, promoting archaeological excavations and research work focusing on Hongshan Culture, and deepening the study and promotion of Liaoning's regional culture, and has achieved eye-catching results. Yesterday, we visited the Niuheliang site and were moved by the long-standing and profound Chinese culture. This experience has deepened our understanding of President Xi's important speech and further enhanced our sense of responsibility and mission to tell the story of Chinese civilization to the world and promote communication between China and the world. Here, I would like to share three thoughts:

First, we need to systematically introduce the outstanding characteristics of Chinese civilization and present ancient China to the world. China has more than 1 million years of human history, more than 10,000 years of cultural history, and over 5,000 years of civilizational history. From "the sky full of stars" to "the bright moon with sparse stars", China has created numerous dazzling cultural achievements and written a brilliant chapter in the history of human civilization.

As President Xi pointed out, "China's fine traditional culture comprises many important elements which have formed the prominent features of Chinese civilization." The remarkable consistency, originality, uniformity, inclusiveness, and peacefulness "precisely portray" Chinese civilization.

We should strive to explain to the world the social ideals of pursuing common good for all, the governance concept of regarding people as the foundation of the country and governing by virtue, the tradition of unity and diversity, the care for family and country that every person bears responsibility for the rise or fall of their motherland, the spiritual pursuits of embracing the world with virtue and illuminating morality, the economic ethics of enriching people and balancing righteousness and profit, the ecological concept of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, the philosophical thought of seeking truth from facts and combining knowledge with action, the thinking of sticking to the middle way and maintaining harmony, the way of interaction of being trustworthy and kind to neighbors. By doing so, we let the world clearly see where modern China comes from, and recognize and identify a reliable, admirable and respectable China from the continuous Chinese civilization.

Second, vividly demonstrate the modern civilization of the Chinese nation and interpret modern China to the world. President Xi pointed out that it is natural to integrate the basic tenets of Marxism with China's specific realities and fine traditional culture if we are to create and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics on the basis of the profound Chinese civilization of more than 5,000 years. Marxism and China's fine traditional culture are highly compatible. They complement and enrich each other. Their combination makes Marxism bear Chinese characteristics and the fine traditional Chinese culture modern, promoting the creative transformation and innovative development of the latter, that is fine traditional Chinese culture. The "two combinations" have solidified the foundation of the Chinese path, opened up new horizon for innovation, consolidated cultural subjectivity, made the new culture formed through the "two combinations" the cultural form of Chinese modernization, and created modern Chinese civilization and a new form of human civilization.

We need to let the world fully recognize the innovation, inclusiveness and peace that the modern civilization of the Chinese nation inherits and glorifies, as well as the advanced nature that emanates due to the "two combinations". We need to let the world recognize that the historical inevitability, cultural connotation, and unique advantages of the Chinese path are the key to the brilliant achievements of New China since its founding and in the new era. We need to let the world recognize that China has always stood on the right side of history and on the side that represents the progress of human civilization, and let them recognize and identify with a real, three-dimensional and comprehensive image of China that has created "two miracles": rapid economic development and long-term social stability.

Third, expound the Chinese path to modernization and depict the future of China to the world. In the report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi solemnly declared: From this day forward, the central task of the Communist Party of China will be to lead the Chinese people of all ethnic groups in a concerted effort to realize the Second Centenary Goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects and to advance the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation on all fronts through a Chinese path to modernization.

Ten years ago, President Xi proposed the grand concepts of building a community with a shared future for mankind and the Belt and Road Initiative. Since September 2021, he has successively proposed the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, and the Global Civilization Initiative, illustrating how the world should look like in China's view.

We should accurately depict Chinese modernization's significance to the world as a new form of human civilization from the perspective of the development of human civilization, emphasize that China seeks its own development while firmly maintaining world peace and development, and uses its own development to better maintain world peace and development.

Publisher and editor-in-chief of China Daily