Lead-in:

Every nation seeks to be understood.

How to understand the future of China and the world from the perspective of culture?

Let's begin with the United Nations. The United Nations, established after World War II, represents the interests of the peaceful development of all countries in the world. As a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, China is well aware that the effectiveness of this organization is critical to the destiny of the world.

Since 2019, China's average national income remains at the world's lower-middle level, yet its contributions to the United Nations and its assessed share of contributions to international peacekeeping operations have risen to 12% and 15.2% respectively, making it the second largest contributor to the UN after the United States.

Why does China do so? It is because China has a dream.

In 2015, on the 70th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the building of a "community with a shared future for humanity" in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly. In 2017, he again delivered a speech at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva with the title of Building a Global Community of Shared Future for Humanity, reiterating once again that the key to building a community with a shared future for humanity lies in action.

We should insist on building a global community of a shared future, an open, inclusive, clean, and beautiful world of lasting peace, universal security, and shared prosperity, and jointly create a better future for all of humanity.

These visions of the world are not only about the approaches to building a global community of a shared future but also present the true pictures of how it should be like.

In 2017, this "Chinese proposal" on the future of humanity was written into the UN Security Council Resolution 2344, and in 2018, China included it in the "constitutional amendment" to promote the building of a community with a shared future for humanity, formally upgrading it as the national will.

Why did China propose the building of a community with a shared future for humanity?

The proposal of this goal or this dream is related to humanity's universal desire for peaceful development, the shared difficulties and challenges we face, the rise of emerging market economies and developing countries, and the new and intertwined development practices and models emerging from advancements in science and technology.

The promotion of a community with a shared future for humanity is also grounded in culture and values. All human beings share many common values. There are some common standards of good and evil among countries with different levels of economic development, different cultural backgrounds and different political systems. For example, they all advocate freedom, seek justice, love peace, aspire to a stable and affluent life, love nature, and reject slavery, oppression, violence, poverty, environmental destruction and so on.

In this regard, China in the new era has advanced a new concept that has not yet attracted the special attention of Westerners: the "common values of humanity," including peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom. This is not only the common cultural foundation of world politics but also the value basis for building a "community with a shared future for humanity."

The Chinese culture is deeply rooted in the soil of openness and tolerance and has the natural inclination to live in harmony and seek a shared future. This is the cultural condition for China's willingness and ability to put forward the proposal of building a "community with a shared future for humanity."

How is it possible for countries to have the will to build a community with a shared future when each goes its own ways in pursuit of its interests?

Embracing the concept of a community with a shared future will undoubtedly involve comparison, choices, and trade-offs concerning interests. China's proposal aims to align with the broadest possible spectrum of human interests and promotes the pursuit and enlargement of the "convergence of interests" across diverse civilizational backgrounds, ultimately securing a foreseeable shared future for humanity.

Actually, China and the world have already begun to compose such a "cultural script."

In August 2019, the U.S.-produced documentary American Factory was like a kaleidoscope, presenting a picture of industrial change, cultural collision, and then mutual discovery and tolerance between China and the United States.

For generations, numerous residents of Dayton, Ohio, have earned their livelihood at a local General Motors assembly plant, affording them the means to purchase a car, enjoy vacations, or finance their children's college education. While this job may not lead to wealth, it provides them with dignity.

In 2008, the city of Dayton lost its vitality when factories closed and workers lost their jobs. Fuyao Group from China bought the abandoned GM plant and transformed it into the world's largest single-unit auto glass plant. When it officially went into production in 2016, the plant dramatically turned around the lives of the locals in Dayton.

Film directors Bognar and Reichert said, "We hope that the American public can understand Chinese workers through the documentary, and Chinese audiences can understand American workers. This film can be a bridge between two great cultures and the workers of both countries to understand each other so that they can understand that although they come from different backgrounds, they have a lot in common."

What can be done to improve the recognition of Chinese factories by American workers? The Dayton factory of Cao Dewang (Cho Tak Wong), chairman of China's Fuyao Group, began to provide free lunches in the hope that employees would "feel at home" in the factory. European and American companies rarely did this. Cao said, "If you want your employees to love your company, you have to learn to love your employees first." The free-lunch cafeteria set up in the Dayton factory offers a variety of dishes, serving both Western and Chinese favorites, including the bread cherished by Westerners and the dumplings favored by the Chinese.

On January 6, 2020, a sizeable event was held at the Fuyao Dayton plant. Mr. Huang Ping, China's Consul General in New York, was present and said, "The fact that we have a lot of differences in culture, history, and ways of developing our countries doesn't mean we can't work together."

Mr. Mike Devine, Governor of Ohio, USA, was also present. He presented a letter of recognition to Cao Dewang, affirming that China Fuyao Glass Group's investment in the plant has brought a positive impact on the local economy. He said, "No matter how different the backgrounds are, the two sides have a lot in common. When people from different countries work together for a common goal, good things happen."

The interviewee is Chen Jin, Former committee member of the Institute of Party History and Literature of the Central Committee of CPC.

Liu Xian /Editor    Wu Yongqiang /Translator

Yang Xinhua /Chief Editor    Ren Qiang /Coordinator

Liu Li /Reviewer

Zhang Weiwei /Copyeditor    Tan Yujie /Image Editor

The views don't necessarily reflect those of DeepChina.