Humbled + honoured to have been a group panel participant at the 11th Nishan Forum on World Civilizations on 2025/07/09 in Confucius' birthplace / hometown: Qufu, Shandong, China.

Within the Forum's central theme of "Beauty in Diversity: Nurturing Understanding Among Civilizations for Global Modernization", my particular group session topic was "Mutual Assistance in Pursuing Modernization". In this context, I focused less on formal philosophical, political or socio-economic perspectives than on the essential role of what Xi Jinping identified as "mutual learning" in bridging dialogue and promoting integration among civilizations (CGTN, 2025). Specifically: how this can be achieved methodologically within Inter-Cultural Communication [IC] pedagogic practice?

Forum keynote speaker Prof. Roger Ames suggested that the limitations of Western dualism - relativism vs. absolutism - is surmounted by a third option, that of Confucian relational equity as facilitating a pluralism fostering "superlative and inclusive harmony out of difference"