(ECNS) – The world is now at a really interesting point in history, which is a new kind of modernity led by China, a democratic modernity, which exists in many different forms and can take root and develop in many different countries, said Martin Jacques via video at the sub-forum "West East Talk" of the ninth Nishan Forum on World Civilizations that was held in Shandong Province on Wednesday.
Whereas Western modernization was a process that deliberately excluded and exploited its colonies, China is exactly the opposite, said Jacques, a well-known expert on China.
He noted that China, epitomized by the Belt and Road Initiative, reached out in hope that its modernization can be replicated in lots of different ways across the developing world.
The world is no longer one modernity, no longer a Western modernity, but a picture of multiple modernities, where every country, every civilization, every culture, has its possibility to explore modernity in a different and distinctive kind of way, Jacques said.
He thinks it now stands on the eve of really great transformations. “The West has run the world for over 200 years, but this situation is under great challenge, which was demonstrated clearly at the recent BRICS conference.”
Jacques called that an irresistible trend.
He said the Western way was to deny difference, to insist on one road, one way of doing things, and one system, on the contrary, the Chinese approach is essentially a pluralistic approach to listen, learn from and respect other cultures and other civilizations and to recognize the importance of civilizations.
The West does not recognize civilizations because of its own history and colonialism, but China is built on its own civilization, which is a civilization state primarily, which offers huge possibilities for a quite new kind of development in the world, he concluded.
京公网安备 11010202009201号