Global civilisation initiative and western hubris

The term civilisation entered popular imagination in 1993 when Professor Samuel Huntington published his seminal article, The Clash of Civilizations, in Foreign Affairs magazine. He argued that in the Post-Cold War era, culture would replace ideology as the primary driver of conflict. Economic and political differences among nation-states will remain but the fault lines of global clashes would be defined by cultural and religious identities of major civilisations.

Identifying eight key civilisations, Huntington surmised that as non-Western civilisations, particularly Chinese and Islamic civilisations, gain power they will begin to challenge Western hegemony. This, according to Huntington, will shape future geopolitical rivalries and alliances. In this context, Western policymakers received China's Global Civilization Initiative, launched by President Xi Jinping in 2023.

The West labelled the initiative as China's attempt to further its influence among countries of the Global South by promoting its model of governance and launching a surreptitious attack on the Western-led international order. A complete misunderstanding of its scope and a gross misinterpretation of its intent. The focus is not international politics and warfare but development and modernisation, and it is not addressed to military strategists of the great powers but economic planners and political leaders of poor nations.

It does not propose an alternative theory of future international disputes but seeks to shift the focus away from political and economic confrontation to mutual learning among civilisations to achieve the universal human aspiration of progress and development. President Xi's speech on March 15, 2023, announcing the initiative, revolved around one fundamental question: what kind of modernisation does the world need and how can we achieve it? Modernisation should foster "sustainable development" and secure "a happy and stable life for the people".

President Xi's speech titled "Path Towards Modernization: The Responsibility of Political Parties" highlighted China's successful experience and identified three elements of modernisation: the gene…