Scholars mull China's future

The fifth World Forum on China Studies was held in Shanghai over the weekend.

"Understanding is a mutual process. Foreign scholars of Chinese studies can help China and the world know each other," Weng Tiehui, the vice-mayor of Shanghai, said at the opening ceremony on March 23.

The forum has been co-hosted by the Information Office of the State Council and the Shanghai municipal government every two years since 2004.

This year's theme is China's Modernization: Road and Prospect, with about 300 scholars from 30 countries and regions attending the two-day forum.

Participants analyzed China's modernization path from the angles of politics, economy, society, history, culture, ecology, diplomacy and communications, as well as the prospects for China's path in the next decade.

Qian Xiaoqian, vice-director of the State Council Information Office, said in his speech at the forum, that the 18th Party Congress and the just concluded two annual sessions of China's legislators and top political advisers provide scholars around the world with valuable material to study China's path.

Past experience proves that China's path — a dynamic and pragmatic road based on China's practical national conditions — is successful as it has benefited and will benefit not only Chinese people, but the world.

He stressed that the people-oriented scientific development, reform and opening-up and peaceful development are the basic principles that China will unswervingly adhere to in exploring its future development path.

Zheng Bijian, former vice-president of the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China echoed Qian's observations in his keynote speech and said that these principles are important as China adapts its development path and strategy to new domestic and international environments in the second decade of the 21st century.

The other three keynote speakers are Theotonio dos Santos, professor of the Federal Fluminense University in Brazil, Gustaaf Geeraerts, professor of the Vrije University in Belgium and Mohamed Noman Galal, member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Relations. They shared their thoughts on the opportunities and challenges from home and abroad for China with the audience at the opening ceremony.

The forum hosts also awarded three veteran scholars for their life-long dedication and great contribution to Chinese studies. They are: S.L. Tikhvinsky, an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ezra F. Vogel, a professor of Harvard University, and Jao Tsung-I, a professor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

All of the three laureates sent trepresentatives to Shanghai to accept the award. Professor Vogel said through a video that United States scholars benefit tremendously from foreign scholars' studies on the US for their different angles and he hoped Chinese scholars can draw on the same benefits too.

The first laureates to receive the award in 2010 were Jacques Gernet, professor of the College of France, Philip A. Kuhn, professor of Harvard University, Igor Rogachev, the former Russian ambassador to China and Mori Kazuko, a professor of Waseda University in Japan.

The forum organizers wish to establish this forum as one of the most authoritative academic activities in its field to create an open platform for constructive academic communications on China and to promote mutual understanding between China and the world.