Saying there was “no clash” of civilizations, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday denounced racial supremacy as “stupid” amid tensions with the US and concerns over Beijing’s rising global power.
His remarks came after a top US official last month described the rivalry between China and the US as “a fight with a really different civilization and a different ideology.”
Kiron Skinner, the director of policy planning at the US Department of State, put it in racial terms, telling a security forum that China was the first US “great power competitor that is not Caucasian.”
Photo: Reuters
“Thinking that one’s own race and culture are superior, and insisting on transforming or even replacing other civilizations is stupid in its understanding and disastrous in practice,” Xi said at the opening ceremony of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations in Beijing.
It was Xi’s first public address since trade tensions with the US spiked last week. The two nations are locked in an escalating trade dispute, with both levying tariffs on each other’s imports.
Beijing on Monday announced higher tariffs on US$60 billion of US goods, effective on June 1, in retaliation for a US decision on Friday last week to raise levies on US$200 billion of Chinese imports.
Just before Xi spoke, the government reported surprisingly weaker growth in retail sales and industrial output for last month.
Xi made no direct reference to the trade tension, focusing instead on presenting China as a non-threatening country open to all.
China has a glorious history of being open to the world and it would only be more open, Xi said.
Chinese civilization was an “open system” that had continuously had exchanges and learned from other cultures, including Buddhism, Marxism and Islam, he said.
“Today’s China is not only China’s China. It is Asia’s China and the world’s China. China in the future will take on an even more open stance to embrace the world,” he added.
No country could stand alone, Xi said, perhaps taking an indirect swipe at US President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy.
“Civilizations will lose vitality if countries go back to isolation and cut themselves off from the rest of the world,” Xi said.
“The people of Asian countries hope to distance themselves from being closed, and hope that all countries will adhere to the spirit of openness and promote policy communication, connectivity and smooth trade.”
Xi offered no new concrete measures to open China up, aside from proposing an Asia tourism promotion plan, and even on that he gave no details.
Officials have billed the forum as part of a soft power push to put a gentler face on China’s growing might, though it only attracted a handful of foreign leaders to the opening session, at which Xi spoke, including the presidents of Greece, Sri Lanka and Singapore.
In a market in the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, customers flock to Ache Moussa’s stall to have their long plaits smeared with a special paste in an age-old ritual. Each strand of hair, from the root to the end, is slathered in a traditional mixture of cherry seeds, cloves and chebe seeds, the most important ingredient of all. Users say the recipe makes their hair grow longer and more lustrous. Local and natural hair products are gaining popularity across Africa as people turn away from commercial cosmetics. Moussa applies the mixture and shapes the client’s locks into a gourone — a traditional hairstyle consisting of
The US yesterday wrapped up its first multidomain exercise with Japan and South Korea in the East China Sea, a step forward in Washington’s efforts to enhance and lock in its security partnerships with key Asian allies in the face of growing threats from North Korea and China. The three-day Freedom Edge increased the sophistication of previous exercises with simultaneous air and naval drills geared toward improving joint ballistic-missile defense, anti-submarine warfare, surveillance and other skills and capabilities. The exercise, which is expected to expand in years to come, was also intended to improve the countries’ abilities to share missile warnings —
‘ONE FELL SWOOP’: Overturning a landmark ruling that said judges should defer to experts would ‘cause a massive shock to the legal system,’ a dissenting opinion said Prosecutors overstepped in charging Jan. 6, 2021, rioters with obstruction for trying to prevent certification of the 2020 presidential election, the US Supreme Court said on Friday, throwing hundreds of cases into doubt, while another controversial ruling struck down 40 years of legal precedent on federal agencies’ ability to regulate critical issues. The matter was brought to the court through an appeal by former police officer Joseph Fischer, a supporter of former US president Donald Trump who entered the Capitol with hundreds of others in 2021. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said prosecutors’ interpretation of the law would “criminalize
‘APOCALYPTIC : An UN official said that Lebanon was ‘the flashpoint beyond all flashpoints,’ and a conflict that involved it would draw in Syria and other nations Israel on Wednesday said that it does not want war in Lebanon, but could send its neighbor “back to the Stone Age.” The border between the two countries has seen daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants since the attack on Israel by Hezbollah’s ally Hamas on Oct. 7 last year, which triggered the war in Gaza. Fears those exchanges could escalate have grown in the past few weeks as cross-border attacks intensified and after Israel revealed it had approved plans for a Lebanon offensive, prompting new threats from Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah. Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said