At a ceremony in Beijing on November 29, the Communication University of China formally announced the creation of the “Institute for a Community with Shared Future” — a new think tank paying homage to Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy concept. This is the first research center in China devoted to the study of the notion of a “community of common destiny.” Among the diplomats attending the unveiling of the centre were Brazilian Ambassador to China Celso de Tarso Pereira, Montenegrin Ambassador to China Branko Perovic, the President of Saint Augustine University of Tanzania, and Jean-Christophe Bas, the CEO of the Berlin-based Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute.The center’s director, Li Huailiang, read out an “Initiative on an International Scholarship Alliance” (人类命运共同体国际学术联盟倡议书). The principles of this initiative were broadly outlined as follows: Cultural diversity is the basic character of the world; common prosperity, openness and accommodation are the common aspirations of people of all countries for a better life; the international scholarly community should actively promote consciousness of a community of common destiny for humankind, encouraging exchanges and mutual learning between civilizations; universities, think tanks and research institutes and scholars should be constructors of world peace, and contributors to global development, and protectors of international order. Li Huailiang, the new center’s director, was the Deputy Editor of Hebei Studies (河北学刊), a scholarly journal of the Hebei Academy of Social Sciences, and the author of several books on media and culture. The Shanghai-based news site The Paper reported that Li Huailiang is known as a pioneering figure in the field of “international culture trade” (国际文化贸易), noting that his book International Cultural Trade and Cultural Competition Today (当代国际文化贸易与文化竞争) was the first book domestically dealing with the field of cultural competition.
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