Global Thinkers: What makes China and Chinese people special?

What makes China and Chinese people special? In the Global Thinkers Special at the Wuyi Forum, international scholars explore the differences between Eastern and Western perspectives, and unveil how China's seemingly abstract philosophy deeply influences the daily lives of its people.

Liu Xin: Is there something special about Chinese, I don't know, genes or our society, our geography, the food that we eat that make us see the world this way?

Yang Huilin: Yin-yang is the basic archetype of Chinese philosophy or Chinese dialectic. That means nothing is ultimate. Nothing is single. From positive and negative, two opposite things, we could find something mixed together.

Tamara Prosic: In Western thought, there is this distinction between humans and nature. Humans are given dominion, as the bible says, over nature. That's not the case in China. Chinese gardens blend nature, human, and culture seamlessly. So, I think he kind of blended those things together, and that stayed with China. And I think today, China is also like that. It is dialectical and inclusive.

Javier García: I think Zhu Xi thinks more about how things interact with each other. The experience was much more important for him. The experience. And this difference is key, I think, to understanding the difference between Chinese thought and Western thought because Western thought was based on theories, on speculations, and on abstractions. And Chinese thought was based on experience, on practical things, how things were useful for the people, for the reality.

Roland Boer: So all of this, what seems like abstract thinking, is actually very practical. What is better for the people, what is better to reform the system to improve the lives of people, and so on. So that's behind it.