Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi addressed the United Nations Ancient Civilizations Forum (ACForum) on September 26, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and communication among international players. 

Created in 2017, the ACForum aims to avoid the "clash of civilizations" and build an inter-civilization dialogue platform.  

"When Samuel Huntington wrote the Clashes of Civilizations in 1992… the basic assumption is that civilizations are going to clash against each other because of different values," Huang Jing, professor at Beijing Language and Culture University, earlier told a special edition of CGTN's primetime talk show Dialogue aired on December 7, 2018.

But the problem, as Huang pointed out, is that the clash will only occur when one civilization tries to invade other civilizations and impose values on others. This is, by no means, what Chinese civilization advocates.

Read also: 'Dialogue of Civilizations' to shed new light on the rise and fall of cultures

"I don't care about Samuel Huntington's view [on civilization]. What I care more is what you can learn from that and avoid," said Einar Tangen, an American current affairs commentator, highlighting the importance of dialogues among civilizations in another episode of Dialogue, aired Thursday.

"The important thing when you start to look at civilizations is the lesson of it," Tangen said. In the meantime, he warned about U.S. President Donald Trump's separatism tendency. "It is quite important at this stage when you have the most powerful leader in the world calling for separation and he doesn't want a multilateral world," Tangen told CGTN.

He Wenping, senior research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences echoed Tangen, adding that similar anti-globalization sentiments are also emerging in European countries. "This is not a single phenomenon in the United States. We also see similar things in the European countries. It shows some kind of side product of globalization."

So what's the way out? He emphasized the importance of inclusive globalization. Some countries, including those in Africa, are marginalized on the international arena, and that is why China has been calling for more inclusive and equal globalization.

Democracy, elimination of social inequalities, and respect for cultural differences form the basis of a safe and peaceful international community. For this end, the role of dialogues can never be underestimated in the 21st century.

Therefore, China, Greece, Bolivia, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Italy and Peru created the ACForum in 2017,  aiming to "transform culture into a source of soft power and a fundamental tool of a modern and multidimensional foreign policy" and improve cultural cooperation among the countries concerned. 

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