China-Arab Humanistic Exchanges In The Framework Of The "Belt And Road Initiative"

Since it proposed “Belt and Road Initiative” in 2013,China has pursued the strategy of “looking west”.The Arab world in return has generally sought the strategy of “looking east”.Thus the two sides have returned from the “back to back” of modern times to “face to face” during the Ancient Silk Road era,and have gradually formed symbiotic relations in the aspects of mutual trust,cooperation,economic and trade exchanges and cultural ties,The status of each other is rising in both of their foreign relations.Based on the common historical and cultural legacy,China-Arab humanistic exchanges have promoted the generation of common consciousness and ideological collision in ideological,cultural and personnel exchanges,so as to enhance friendship,trust and affinity with each other.The humanistic exchanges between China and the Arab world are rich in connotation,involving many fields such as culture,education,art,think tank,health,sports,religion,tourism,press and publication,radio,film and television,academic research,peopleto-people exchanges,etc.,including six basic elements of actors,time,space,content,field and mechanism.Humanistic exchange is one of the three important vehicles for promoting bilateral cooperation and developing the multi-lateral relations.The political cooperation,economic and trade development,and cultural exchanges have become the “the carriage” of promoting the cooperation between China and the Arab countries.The humanistic exchanges between China and the Arab countries are directly promoted by the governments of both sides,with top-down characteristics.Religion,education,culture and tourism have become the key pillars of China-Arab humanistic exchanges.In this process,China and Arab countries as well as the Arab League have actively promoted mechanism coordination.Over ten departments,including the Ministry of foreign affairs,the Publicity Department of the Central Committee,the Xinhua News Agency,the Ministry of radio,film and television,the Ministry of culture and tourism,the press and publication administration,the State Administration of religion,the Ministry of education,the Hanban,the all China Women’s Federation and the China Arab Friendship Association,joined forces to participate in people to people and cultural exchanges with the Arab countries.China-Arab humanistic exchanges are characterized by compatibility,complexity and comprehensiveness in performance evaluation.They have basically achieved overall promotion,departmental coordination and goal consistency,and enhanced South South cooperation and people to people exchanges.In the context of Western control of international discourse,China and Arab countries need to mobilize the enthusiasm of social teams,enterprises and the people to promote humanistic exchanges,form an interactive pattern of “government guidance,folk predominance” and a mode of “official platform,social performance”,so that China and Arab countries can truly achieve humanistic exchanges from the bottom up trajectory,pursue actual results,truly achieve hunamistic exchanges,and promote the common destiny of the both sides.