The ancient capital of several dynasties in Chinese history Chang’an, today known as Xi’an, formed the start of the ancient Silk Road.

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On Sept. 7 and Oct. 3 of 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping gave landmark speeches in Central Asia and Indonesia, respectively, that laid the foundation of what is now known throughout the world as the “Belt and Road” initiative.

Unquestionably, this initiative has stirred up a great deal of intellectual discussion around the globe about economy, culture and technology. Of these discussions, perhaps the most intriguing is the debate over the impact of the initiative on China as a nation and on the world as a whole going forward. To this end, it is important to ask what is the greatest challenge facing China in this truly breathtaking global effort.

On Nov. 5, 2016, The Commercial Press and the Forum of the “Belt and Road” 100 co-organized a conference on the subject in Beijing. One of the speakers was the former Deputy Director of China Insurance Regulatory Commission Zhou Yanli, who stressed the importance of cultural factors in the initiative.

“A fundamental point about the ‘Belt and Road’ initiative is ‘cultural communication,’” Zhou said. “Indeed, only through cultural communication can one establish a communication paradigm, and only then can one realize the ‘Belt and Road’ development strategy, push forth the ‘Belt and Road’ initiative’s construction and create projects in reality.”

Zhou’s remarks succinctly zeroed in on one of the major challenges of the initiative. Indeed, the “Belt and Road” initiative is a revitalization of the ancient Silk Road. To this end, it is important to inquire what the difference between the two is. Once we have established such an understanding, we can ask the question: What challenges does the “Belt and Road” initiative face that the ancient Silk Road did not?

Perhaps the starkest difference is that the original Silk Road developed organically. There was no Xi Jinping in ancient times who proposed such a transportation system. Furthermore, on the ancient Silk Road, traffic was not necessarily bidirectional.

Let me illustrate an example of non-bidirectional traffic here. It is a well-documented historical fact that as far back as the Han Dynasty (206BC-AD220), in Kaifeng, there was already a Jewish community.

Obviously, these Jews came to China via the Silk Road. By the time the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) rolled around, this Jewish community of many thousands had become very robust, practicing Jewish lives and engaging in active entrepreneurial activities. Westerners sometimes joke that because the Chinese have good business skills, they are known as the “Jews of the East!” With that in mind, it is curious that there is no significant record of Chinese who travelled in the opposite direction to the West.

This severe asymmetry between the migration of Jews to the East and that of Chinese to the West during that era is a manifestation of the fact that the Silk Road placed no demands on China to truly understand people from different civilizations and ways and means. Hence, from a cultural perspective, it is probably not an exaggeration to say that the Silk Road resulted in the West exerting a far greater influence on the East.

In fact, it may be safe to say that China played a passive role in the Silk Road at the time. This was the Chinese mindset for many millennia. In today’s “Belt and Road” initiative, which is entirely a Chinese initiative and not an organic growth, understandably it requires Chinese to assume a new mindset, which must be significantly different from the people in ancient times.

After all, in the 21st century, the “Belt and Road” initiative involves China’s active engagement with approximately 65 countries from Africa, Europe, Asia and beyond. To transform the initiative into a robust global program, China cannot assume a passive role but must play an active one. One of the fundamental mindset transformations for the Chinese to truly understand people of different civilizations and ways and means is to engage in what Zhou Yanli referred to as “cultural communication.”

In many ways, the necessity for this mindset transformation has been known to China for more than two millennia. For example, the wisdom bestowed by Sun Zi’s Art of War in the 5th century BC has already been stated succinctly as “know thyself and thy opposition, hundred encounters hundred triumphs.” While this statement’s intended audience was military strategists, it is clearly equally applicable to the present context. In the Chinese-initiated “Belt and Road” initiative, the need to “know thy opposition” is not a luxury but a must.

For the present context, the “triumphs” for the initiative must not be regarded as China expanding its influence forcefully. Rather, it means China using “cultural communications” to yield mutually beneficial results as well as results that benefit multiple parties and humanity as a whole.

Therefore, in the context of the initiative, “know thy opposition” means that while the current intensive discussions cover foreign investments, economic corridors as well as geopolitics, which are all people-to-people engagements, I would argue that “cultural communication” must come before or at least in parallel with all the aforementioned efforts.

I will give one example of “cultural communication” here. In recent years, quite remarkably, many of the top universities in North America have appointed Indian-American presidents, including Subra Surash of Carnegie Mellon University, Pradeep Khosla of the University of California at San Diego, Renu Khator of the University of Houston and Satish Tripathi of the University of Buffalo. Furthermore, there are many Indian-American CEOs of multinational and massive corporations, such as Satya Narayana Nadella of Microsoft, Indra Krishnamurthy Nooyi of Pepsicola, Sundar Pichai of Google and Ajaypal Singh Banga of Mastercard. I should also mention that among the top engineering and business schools deans in many US universities, there are also a significant number of Indian Americans.

A good friend of mine who is a well-known headhunter told me that, from experience, many will be university presidents as well. Unfortunately, Chinese-Americans are asymmetrically less successful.
A good friend of mine, David Naylor, who was the former president of one of the top universities in the world, the University of Toronto, said that “I would like to see all University of Toronto students understand the challenges of people of different cultures utilizing their cultures.” What he meant by these few words is that communication between people of different cultures should and must begin by “cultural communication.”

Clearly, the university presidents and CEOs I have mentioned obviously demonstrated that in addition to being truly outstanding individuals with abundant ability, they have inherently acquired the American culture and ways and means. They have mastered the art of “cultural communication,” utilizing American ways and means to interact with people outside of their own Indian community’s comfort-zone. I have often mentioned to my students that learning another language is de fact of learning its culture. Irrespectively of how brilliant they are, if these individuals did not possess such a skill set, would they be selected as leaders of these great institutions or corporations? Even if they were selected to assume such high positions, would they have any chance to be successful?

With this as a preamble, for the “Belt and Road” initiative to be successful, China as a nation must take the lead in transforming the mindset of its people. I will not underestimate the degree of difficulty facing China in this effort. Indeed, as this is a millennium mindset transformation, it will be a hitherto unforeseen arduous task for China as a nation to achieve “cultural communications” across the globe.

Still, I would like to state that China already is halfway there. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced that “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving this goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.” When the national leader put forth such a clear and succinct grand vision, it motivated the entire United States to galvanize its national strength to overcome enormous mental hurdles as well as technical challenges.

 

Feng Da Hsuan is the Special Advisor of the Rector and Director of Global Affairs at the University of Macau.