Maintaining Chinese Cultural Traditions and Enhancing Cross-Cultural Exchanges

Congratulations on the Opening of the Education Forum for Asia –Conference on Cross-Cultural Management and Training in a Global Economy in Beijing

Huang Haifeng¹  Lin Meizhen²  Luo Zhibing³  Peter King⁴

1,2  Secretary General, the Conference on Cross-Cultural Management and Training in a Global Economy

3.4  Deputy Secretary General, the Conference on Cross-Cultural Management and Training in a Global Economy

In retrospect, history has told us that despite everyone’s aspirations for peace, thousands of wars could not be avoided. This truth serves as a lesson and lessons should be learned from successes and failures. Learning lessons is especially important when the economy of the world is undergoing a globalisation process. This globalisation has generated themes which are, or should be of concern in the whole world: How to respect differences, maintain cultures, establish communications and create win-win situations; how to balance the relations between unification and diversification in national and international affairs; how to establish effective communication mechanisms; how to make a diversified and harmonious human society instead of an identical one, and, in general, how to manage the mutual and only home of all human beings. For this reason, experts and scholars from around the world gathered here in Beijing to explore the problem of how to adapt through cross-cultural management, human society to the challenges which are now becoming apparent. This question is of great significance in both historical and realistic senses. We will illustrate my views from four aspects: 1. “Culture Encounter Theory” in human cultural exchanges. 2.“Power of Culture Theory” in economic transition. 3. New “International Development Notion” in a human society faced with challenges. 4. New “China Development Notion” in the international community.

1. On Culture Encounter Theory

Cross-cultural management theory advocates the coexistence of harmony and development, combining the essence of Chinese and Western cultures and enhancing the development of a world economy. It demonstrates the great contributions of cultural encounters to human civilization. In history, China experienced three important periods of cultural encounters, which represented Chinese society’s evolutionary phases of opening, closing and opening.

The first cultural encounter was marked by Zheng He’s first voyage 585 years ago (July 11th, 1420), which embodied the classic international views of Chinese culture. At the time, Chinese culture spread to other Asian countries, Australia and America. Zheng He’s first voyage happened 72 years earlier than Columbus’s arrival in the new continent. At the time, it was the largest transnational economic and cultural exchange in Chinese history. One century later, Matteo Ricci came to China to preach Christianity. The encounter of Chinese and Western cultures during this period symbolised the high development of China’s civilization and erected a bridge between China and the rest of the world.

The second cultural encounter was marked by outbreak of the Opium War in 1840. Facing this crisis, the Chinese people were forced to look at the outside world from a new perspective and reevaluate their cultural perceptions. They began discarding their traditional indifference to situations outside China, and began to change their contempt for the materially advanced Western civilization into admiration for the great achievements in science and technology of the West. This cultural encounter was the start of China’s learning from the West, representing another dramatic change of the Chinese people’s worldview. Its significance in China’s modern cultural history should not be underestimated.

The third cultural encounter initiated by Deng Xiaoping was marked by the Policy of Opening-up which represents a new international view of China’s culture in modern times.

In China, cross-cultural exchanges have a long history, from the take the initiative to go out in ancient China, to the passively face the outer world, and finally to the modern interactive win-win model. The inner characteristics between eastern and western culture established the precondition of culture merger and exchange, as the cradle of western civilization, Greek culture advocates innovation and aggressiveness; as the foundation stone of Chinese culture, Confucianism advocates self-discipline and the Golden Mean. Guan Yuqian, president of Association of Chinese Scholars in Europe, once pointed out that the westerners seek truth while the Chinese seek goodness and that the combination of the two produces beauty.

2. Power of Culture Theory in Economic Transition

The powers of science, technology and culture are the three major drives behind economic transitions.

Power of Economy here refers to the social practice shown by a society in the production, distribution, exchange and consumption of materials. It includes productive capability, consumption capability, economic strength, and the working capability of labors and the levels of means of production (including production tools). Economy also indicates enterprises’ activities including research and development, technological innovation, and technological transfer.

Power of science and technology refers to an environment supported by science and technology that is, the combination and degree of scientific and technological input and output.

Power of culture refers to the power of various cultures expressed through their supportive role in the development of economy, rising of productivity and the advancement of society. Most scholars divide the powers of culture into spiritual, traditional, knowledge, talent, system behavior, literature and information.

The power of economy and the power of science and technology are the hardware while the power of culture is the software. They are interdependent and mutually beneficial. The former two provide the material and technological foundation for the development of the latter while the later provide the former two with intellectual support and ideological momentum. Power of economy and power of science and technology can be transformed into power of culture while power of culture can accelerate power of economic and power of science and technology into economic power.

Enterprise management has undergone the four periods of experience, scientific, system and culture managements. Since 1980, the world’s top enterprises have led the entry into the culture management period and have heralded an era of outculture in the 21st century. Culture management is becoming increasingly important in the international competition. It is a higher developing phase of human society because it involves culture exchanges, encompassing the exchanges of ideas, emotions and mind. In order to obtain an advantage in international competition, Chinese enterprises must based on their own developing status quo to establish their characteristic company culture and improve their comprehensive competitive strength.

3. New International Development Notion in a challenge-facing human society

Nowadays, the management of society faces three major challenges: national unity and ethnical diversity; the competitive rules of the market mechanism and the democratic principles in social management; economic development and environment protection. Facing these challenges, new development notions begin to take shape:

(1) In 21st century, all countries are interdependent and the disputes cannot be solved thoroughly by wars. Peace, Development and Cooperation has become the basic principles in dealing with international relations. Environmental, economic and resource issues involve the mutual benefits of all countries; therefore the multi-lateral cooperation mechanism is one of the important ways to solve international disputes.

(2) We should balance the relations between modernity and tradition and between development and inheritance. Great importance should be attached to the solution of the conflicts between social and economic development and the inheritance of culture tradition. Changes must be made to substitute the traditional mode of economic development, the old ways of resource exploitation and consumption with a sustainable development conception including the recycle economy production mode and intensive social development mode.

(3) One of the best ways to solve the problems among countries and enterprises is cross-cultural management. This new international development notion has been fully demonstrated by many cases in which Chinese and foreign enterprises cooperated closely with each other to avoid economic frictions. To China, the new international development notion emphasizes more of the enterprises’ social responsibilities.

 In the future, Chinese enterprises will shoulder more and more social responsibilities. Cheap labor forces will no longer be the only resource of Chinese enterprises, more attention should be paid to elements, such as enterprise benefit, market principles, and training systems which will become important characteristics of a new type of economy and culture. In order to improve our enterprises’ international competitiveness, we must emphasize cross-cultural training, because the cross-cultural comprehensive quality of employees will probably become a chief indicator of a company’s international competitiveness.

4. New China Development Notion in an International Environment

Since China initiated its reform and opening-up policy in 1978, the total foreign investment in China has reached 600 billion US dollars. The foreign investment of the first 8 months in 2005 reached 38 billion US dollars. As fund-providers, resource suppliers and manufactures, 250,000 foreign enterprises have started businesses in China which, together with Chinese enterprises are the major impetus to the internationalization of China’s economy. During the process of economic transition, China’s economy has showed some important characteristics:

(1) In a large but relatively poor country, the cheap labor cost and participation in the world’s high-tech competition can be achieved simultaneously.

(2) With a stagnant global economy, China could become the world’s main frame of reference for economic stability and development.

(3) During the process of reform and opening-up, China achieved high-speed economic growth through market economy, while other countries benefited greatly from the enormous opportunities provided by a gigantic Chinese market.

How do the western countries look at China’s high-speed development? Wu Jianmin, the President of Foreign Affairs College concluded the attitudes of western countries toward China’s development into three points on the Nansha Forum Chine—Europe held at Nansha in October, 2005:

(1) Threat Theory which demands the containment of China’s peaceful rise.

(2) Cooperation Theory which regards China as a partner instead of a rival.

(3) Observation Theory which admits China’s good development trend, but takes a wait-and-see attitude.

The harmonious development advocated by the Chinese government is the best response to the range of attitudes identified above.  Besides, the view that China’s economic development threatens the foreign enterprises’ employment needs to be corrected. The biggest beneficiaries are in fact foreign enterprises. Through their cooperation with China, Western enterprises create more employment opportunities. and China only gets 10% of the raw material and labor income from the exported products. In other words, the cooperation with China is a win-win situation.

Cross-cultural management has increasingly become an important precondition of communication and exchange between nations, enterprises and people. It plays a key role in cultural adaptation and successful business operations in the new century.

 Cross-cultural management and training has become both an important approach for managing human society and a priority to tackle for China and other Asian countries in a global economy. We should not only advocate a new international development notion in cross-cultural management but also a new China development notion. In fact, cross-cultural management demonstrates the basic principles of international relations: Mutual Respect, Dialogue, and Win-Win Strategies. In order to establish a firm footing in international competition and to realize modern China’s cultural creation, China must accelerate economic development, attach great importance to culture exchanges and science and technology education, learn and borrow from the cultures of other countries on the basis of Chinese traditional culture. In 1820, China’s GNP accounted for 1/3 of the world total; while in 1949, the number had declined to 1%. This was a symptom of China’s marginalization during the 120 years after 1820 due to the closed-door policy. The effects of this policy were exacerbated by ensuing national tragedies. In 1978, however, as a consequence of  the reform and opening-up policy, China entered a new era of prosperity，exhibited by rapid social development, rising national strength and national rejuvenation. The next step, globalisation of world economy and the development of regional trade blocs, suggests that internationalization of business operations is inevitable. IN the face of such developments, Cross-cultural management is one of the effective ways to accelerate international exchanges.

5.  Conclusion

China’s development notion in cross-cultural management finds its way in many countries through the trend towards learning Chinese.  According to the 2005 statistics from the National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, there are over 30 million students at 2300 schools in 100 countries learning Chinese. Chinese has become the third language in America, the second in Australia and the second in Canada (excluding Quebec). In 2004, the number of people registered for HSK（National Chinese Language level Test）reached 21804 worldwide. China has planned to establish 100 Confucius Institutes in the world and students of Chinese are estimated to reach 100 million in the next four years.  In May, 2005, US Senators Joseph Lieberman and Lamar Alexander proposed a US-China Engagement Act whereby, in the following five years, 1.3 billion US dollars will be provided to increase Chinese classes and enhance the exchange with China in culture, education and commerce. On September 23, 2005, the Economic Iissue of Times Week of Germany published an opinion that the world is “Chinalized”. The article continued to say that China should take four measures in cross-cultural management: inherit excellent Chinese cultural traditions; attach great importance to western cultural traditions; learn lessons from the successes and failures in economic construction; and establish new notions of open culture.

The dawn of economic internationalization has risen over China. As the pace of internationalization speeds up, communication and cooperation between different countries and mutual respect between different civilizations are urgently required. Learning from history, China will play an active role in accelerating cross-cultural exchange.

Finally, on behalf of the organizing committee, please allow us to extend our sincerest gratitude to the experts and scholar from China and abroad and to all the leaders who supported this conference. Conference on Cross-Cultural Management and Training in a Global Economy was co-hosted by more than 20 organizations including Education Forum for Asia in Beijing, China Youth concern committee education development center, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Humboldt University Berlin, and Beijing University of Technology . The cooperation between these organizations will be a milestone in the field of international cross-cultural exchange. We hope that Conference on Cross-Cultural Management and Training in a Global Economy will become, for each and every attending distinguished guest, filled with interaction and innovation, creating new friendships full of warmth and affection, and a journey of culture, glowing with knowledge and discoveries. We also hope everyone present happiness and fitness in a gold autumn season of Beijing!

Thanks!