The 2025 International Forum on Mutual Learning among Civilizations concluded on Wednesday in China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR), issuing an initiative on mutual learning and inheritance innovation.

The initiative called for upholding a global perspective to promote dialogue among civilizations and experience sharing; championing openness and inclusiveness to deepen mutual learning and people-to-people exchange; cherishing cultural heritage and integrating traditional wisdom with modern development; focusing on intergenerational transmission to support youth development and digital innovation; and jointly building platforms for dialogue among civilizations and advancing the Global Civilization Initiative.

Qian Chengdan, a Boya chair professor at Peking University, told the media that Macao has a rich historical legacy and serves as an important bridge connecting Chinese and Western cultures. He expressed hope that the forum would help spread China's ideas on civilizational exchange and mutual learning to a wider audience, which he said is of great importance for safeguarding world peace and development.

Alfred Hornung, a member of the Academia Europaea and a research professor at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany, recalled that his first encounter with China around 20 years ago led him to reorient his research by incorporating Chinese civilization into his scholarly framework.

Stressing the importance of intercultural exchange, Hornung noted that China has an older civilization compared to many other places in the world. "We (as researchers) were always one-sided, looking only to the west, and ignored what was going on in the eastern parts of the world," he said.

Cui Shoujun, a professor at the School of International Studies of Renmin University of China, said at the forum that advocating stronger dialogue among civilizations is a "crucial issue of the times." Facing numerous global challenges today, he noted, no single civilization can address them alone, and all civilizations must work together.

Hosted by the Macao SAR government and organized by its Cultural Affairs Bureau, the forum, in its first version, commenced on Tuesday and brought together around 300 representatives from government departments and international organizations, as well as leading experts and scholars worldwide.