9th Euro-China Forum
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Speakers David Gosset Jacques Chirac Irina Bokova Liu Ji Li Shimo Romano Prodi Guan Naijia Tong Shijun Xu Bo Lu Qiutian Isabelle Fernandez Laurent Fabius Huang Baifu Shi Shuyun Ni Ning Zheng Ruolin Pierre Morel Jose Luis de Sales Marques Massimo Bergami Augusto Soto, ESADE and External Analyst for Elcano Royal Institute Riccardo Sessa Xavier Prats Monne Dusan Sidjanski Petr Hyl Iman Stratenus Dominique de Boisseson Zdravko Popov Ravi Shankar Carlos Gaspar Thierry Dana Serge Abou Hellmut Schutte Horst Loechel Edward Yan Ming Zhu |
Speeches From mutually beneficial to mutually transformational Sino-European relations By David Gosset, founder of the Euro-China Forum, at the opening of the 9th Euro-China Forum, UNESCO, Paris.
We meet at the UNESCO because we cherish the values of this great and noble institution. The Euro-China Forum is associated with a United Nations’ institution because there can not be any real global endeavor which would ignore what China – 1/5 of mankind – thinks, how the Chinese people look at the world and how China sees its position in the 21st century world-system. We gather in the house of culture because it is based on their cultural affinities – elements of permanency – that Europe and China have to build a partnership that goes beyond ever-varying trade, business or political interests. By placing culture as the keystone of their relationship, the two Eurasian civilizations could enter a stable and meaningful cooperation having over time global constructive impact. Historian Christopher Dawson (1889-1970) already indicated after the first tragedy of the 20th century the direction to follow: "If a true world-civilization is ever to be created, it will not be by ignoring the existence of the great historic traditions of culture, but rather by an increase of mutual comprehension" (The Making of Europe, 1932). We are honored by the participation and strong support of Professor Dusan Sidjansky who represents European intellectual excellence, and his presence is an invitation to remember Denis de Rougemont. Together, in the “Centre Européen de la Culture” – the European Cultural Center –, they gave a new life to the “Europe of the Spirit” and promoted the “dialogue between cultures”, an expression first coined by Denis de Rougemont. For today’s Sino-European link, their work can be a source of inspiration. After the European integration’s long march, following Europe’s re-unification in the post USSR period, the European Union has now to adjust to an era of intense globalization. An ambitious China policy founded on a just appreciation of the Chinese world has to be one of the main pillars of the EU’s global diplomatic action. The vast majority of the discourses on China are characterized by at least one of the four following shortcomings, sometimes, in surprisingly narrow approaches they combine all of them : First, one often fails to fully integrate the fact that China’s size is in itself of global significance. Second, one misinterprets the depth and the nature of China’s mutation, this irreversible process is simply the world’s major factor of change. More Embrace the Era of New Humanism By Liu Ji, Honorary President CEIBS Former Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences According to western scholars, the humanism has experienced the following periods of evolvement: the Cicero's humanism in Roman age; the Renaissance and Enlightenment humanism during the 14th to 16th century and the German humanism in the 18th century. Cicero’s humanism focused on social etiquette, rules and customs, serving for the then emerging feudalist system; the German humanism reflected more philosophical insights; and the Renaissance and Enlightenment humanism boasted the widest social influence.
The Renaissance and the Enlightenment were great ideological liberation movements in Europe, especially in Western Europe. The humanism campaign arising in the Middle Ages strongly protested against the intervention and repression of monarchical power and religious authority on both the physical and mental world of the people. Italian poet Petrarca Francesco (1304-1374), the first one to challenge the religious doctrine with the humanist philosophy, has been widely recognized as the father of Humanism. The humanism advocates replacing the “religious dogma” and “monarchy orientation” with a “human focus”, highlighting the awareness of the human nature and the individual ego, and the focus on human history, human world, human activities, as well as human spirits, image and bodies. It protests to fight against fate, and purse one’s own happiness freely. It believes that people are born equal, and strongly rejects the feudal hierarchy which decides the social status of people based on their family backgrounds, thus calling for people to fight for human rights and democracy. Following this appeal, a large group of artists, scientists and philosophers took a lead in the humanist movement, explored a path for Western Europe to transit from the Middle Ages agricultural society to the neoteric industrial society. In other words, the humanists made significant contributions to the great social transition from feudalist system to capitalist system. With its overwhelming spiritual power, the humanism soon spread from Western Europe to North America and the rest of the world, being widely accepted by well-educated people. Wherever the humanism went, it would stir up a grand movement of human spiritual liberation and creativity liberation, as well as an unprecedented prosperity of material civilization, and thus promote the human modernization process. To sum up, the historical achievements of humanism are of great and far-reaching significance.more The European Union, China and Central Asia – Toward a 21st Century New Silk Road? By Augusto Soto, Professor, ESADE, and global expert in the Alliance of Civilizations of United Nations I want to thank the visionary decision of Mr. David Gosset and Madam Irina Bokova to organize this 9th EU-China Forum. It is a joy and a privilege for me to address a global audience from UNESCO's main hall Europe and China, as two of the great civilizations in world history are getting closer. Between these two titans lies Central Asia, which historically is a central part of Eurasia thanks to the Silk Road. A meaningful part of the human process of self-reflection and exchange of dreams, trade, ideas and religious views have taken place along various segments of the Silk Road. We may well say that mankind mirrors itself along this historical superhighway. On the other side self-perception is a sign of civilization and a valid metaphor or precondition for dialogue. Who am I, who are we? Without introspection, without a mirror a civilized dialogue is impossible. In old Greece Delphos proclaimed: “know yourself”. In ancient China Sun Zi's advice before taking any action was to determine “who we are”. The thing is that it seems that some of the most vivid introspective processes in mankind's history have taken place in deserts and steppes of Central Asia. Li Bai, who lived in the 8th century and probably the greatest Chinese poet was born near Issyk Kul lake in today's Kyrgyzstan. His poetry is pervaded by classical motives, inter alia, with the notion of the self, whose metaphorical expression mirrors itself in lakes and is projected in the infinite space. Two centuries later, not far from Issik Kul, within Central Asia's macrospace, fundamental questions emerged. Was the earth created whole and complete or it had evolved over time? Are there other solar systems out among the stars? As for the first question, at least in a human scale an answer was given two centuries later with the Pax Mongolica. It represented the will to rule the whole and complete space under heaven by administrative measures connecting China, Central Asia and segments of Europe. As for the second classical question, are there other solar systems out among the stars? Attempts to give an answer came from various Central Asian astronomers. Several centuries later a Eurasian pool of scientists and engineers living along the old and famous Road tried a new answer. It was by sending to the space the Vostok 1, marking the first time a human entered the outer space. The event took place at the space facility of Baikonur, a few kilometers away from Turkistan, UNESCO world heritage site.More When the Chinese teach us what technology is really about Speech by Basile Zimmermann, University of Geneva at the 9th Euro-China Forum in Paris China is an ideal place for the European who wants to grasp the essence of technology. To eat at a restaurant, for example, is a totally new experience. Chopsticks, compared to forks, spoons and knives, look rudimentary at first, but while in most of our restaurants one has to wait ten to twenty minutes after having ordered, in China dishes arrive within a few minutes. This particular efficiency is related to what Ledderose describes as a module system. Most dishes are combinations of readymade parts: pork with mushrooms and bamboo sprouts, pork with mushrooms and soy sprouts, chicken with mushrooms and bamboo sprouts, and so on. Chopsticks are but a part of a specific food production system. The Chinese script is another striking example of the technical differences between Europe and China. On the one hand we have, say, English and its 26-letters alphabet. On the other hand we see Chinese with several thousand characters. A child needs a couple of weeks to memorize the graphs of the first system, and many years for the latter (educated people in China know 3,000 to 4,000 characters, scholars up to 10,000). But the Chinese script deserves a closer look. First, similar to food production, it is based on a module system: Its fifty thousand characters are composed by choosing and combining a few modules taken from a relatively small repertoire of some two hundred parts. This aspect makes the task of memorizing them much easier than one would imagine at first. Second, where the letters of our alphabets are mostly symbols of sound, Chinese characters are symbols of meaning. Therefore, where Europeans have to learn a new language every time they want to read something from five hundred kilometers away or five hundred years ago, the Chinese can read the characters of a two thousand years old text, or communicate by written means with friends from other parts of China although they speak different dialects. More History of Euro-China forum It is the Academia Sinica Europra at the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai which took the initiative of the Euro-China Forum in 2002. Once a year in a different European city, Chinese and European leaders meet on the occasion of the forum in order to improve mutual understanding and to discuss issues of common interest. In 2002, several months after China's entry into the World Trade Organization the inaugural forum was organized in Spain. One year later, in cooperation with the Irish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business the forum traveled to Ireland's capital Dublin. For its third edition the forum took place in Sweden with the strong support of the Stockholm County and the Swedish government. In 2005 the gathering was co-organized with the Casa Asia in Barcelona. The fifth edition took place in Sofia, Bulgaria. Under the aegis of the Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev the 2006 forum was strongly supported by the Bulgarian government and co-organized by its Diplomatic Institute. For the first time, and in connection with Bulgaria’s unique position on the Black Sea, the Forum explored all the dimensions of a "New Silk Road" on a cooperative Eurasia. In 2007, the 6th Euro-China Forum took place in Lisbon under the high patronage of Mr Anibal Cavaco Silva, president of the Portuguese Republic. During the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union, one month after the 17th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party and two weeks before the 10th EU-China Summit, the 6th Euro-China Forum provided a platform for both stimulating and useful debates. In 2008, after the Beijing Olympic Games, the 7th Euro-China Forum gathered in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. In a two-day forum entitled "The 21st century Silk Roads" 300 decision makers, academics, economists from Europe and Asia discussed the relationship between Europe and China. The 7th Euro-China Forum greatly benefited from the support of Mr Viktor Yushchenko, President of Ukraine at the time of the event. To mark the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China in 2009, the 8th Euro-China Forum took place in Tianjin, a city which played in the first half of the 20th century an important role in China's modernization and which is now with 11 million inhabitants one of the major metropolis in Northeast Asia. Nine years old only the Euro-China Forum is gaining momentum. In the words of Zhao Qizheng, former Director of the State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China (1998-2005) : "The Euro-China Forum provides a platform for exchanges and discussion, does enhance mutual understanding and makes great contribution to the strategic relationship on all fronts between China and Europe. The Euro-China Forum is gaining in influence". Mr Laurent Fabius, former Prime Minister of the Republic of France (1984-1986), former President of the French National Assembly (1988-1992 and 1997-2000) and a friend of the Euro-China Forum commented: "We, Europeans and Chinese, should seize every opportunity to smoothen out potential frictions and to bridge the gap between the intensification of our commercial relationship and the weakness of our intellectual exchanges. In this respect, the Euro-China Forum plays a crucial part. And its influence keeps growing." 9th Euro-China Forum, UNESCO, Paris: June 27-28 2011. |
