Alexandros Modiano, chairman of the West-East Urban Governance Institute, Greece said "Culture is a slippery, but yet very safe place to invite people from different horizons to be together, understand each other. And when we understand each other, we appreciate each other. We learn from our differences, and we are richer every day, because we understand how complementary our own culture is is vis-a-vis the Chinese culture."
Koh Hock Kiat, the founder and director of the Singapore Xiang Institute, said "Many Western cultures, especially the Western philosophy, are relatively logical. They are more specific about philosophy and religion. These are in harmony with the different ideas of Chinese culture and can be perfectly combined together."
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism will take 40 diplomats from 25 countries on a visit to southwestern China's Guizhou province from Sept 26-29.
Nigel Morgan,professor of social sustainability at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom looks forward to learning more about what Beijing's cultural strategy to involve.