General secretary Xi Jinping said that, “The confidence in the path, theory and system of the socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era comes down to confidence in culture which is a more basic, profound and long-lasting strength.” So, the cultural element has been more and more prominent and important in China’s internal affairs and diplomacy, like in the implement of the strategic layout of the “four comprehensive”, the belt and road initiative and the launching of an Asian community with a shared fate.

    The confidence in culture has it’s priority in handling the vein of China’s self-development; it’s key in the reshaping of the relation between China and Asia as well as China and the world and it’s requirement in dong long-term and practical work for a seemingly intangible work. When looking at the current world, one can find crisis of cultural and identity recognition hiding behind many hot spot issues and political crises, such as “Islamic State” related issues indicating the complexity of conflicts among religions, denominations and nationalities and Ukraine event reflecting a conflict of “national identity” by choosing to “go east” or “go west”. Also, with the influence of the “deglobalization”, more major countries are more introvert rather than being open to the world or to ideas. Now, at a time of more uncertainty and tumultuous condition, individuals, communities and countries have to find and relocate their cultural roots.

    Interaction in cultural field is already integrated with the international economic and political maneuver. Currently, more countries in the world valued cultural soft power, so we need to deal with cultural problems with wider situation taken into consideration. Adding multiple influence coming from reshuffle conditions and reshaped international rules, the cultural competition between countries is a comparison of both “hard power” and “soft power”, the transition of both of which is delicate.

    The belt and road initiative is significant in both material and spiritual level. The goal of it is to re-stimulate the spiritual cultural and the historical resource of the “Silk Road” to promote lasting peace and common prosperity of Asia or even further with the principle of “common consultation, jointly construction and shared benefit”. The initiative is different from general international development cooperation for it emphasizes “five connections”, including policy communication, road unicom, trade unimpeded, currency circulation and interlinked people. Policy and people-to-people connection are directly connected to culture. Road, trade and currency are “hard connections” which can only stuck in unstable and short-term situation without “soft connections” as bases, including exchanges, communication and integration. In the past, Chinese enterprises “going out” to the world faced risks in economy, business and laws. Now, there are more urgent and complex political and social problems due to the lack of knowledge of other countries’ conditions, like cultures and customs. As a result, the “five connection” shouldn’t focus only on hardware and ignore software, but attach equal importance on both of them, even highlight culture more, or there would be more soft constrain in China’s expansion of international cooperation.

    Being confident of Chinese culture again and promoting Chinese culture to “go out” offers a more effective soft protect and a more beneficial soft environment to the expanding influence of China’s economy, diplomacy and security, so it’s a project of this era that must be paid attention to. How to promote Chinese culture’s “going out”?

    Pushing forward Chinese culture to go out requires a clear understanding of the rules of cultural exchanges in the world. We need to develop a new mode to study various regions and countries, so we can stipulate and specify strategies that are more localized and suitable for people for Chinese culture to go out, and our work can be differentiated, targeted and integrated, leading to increased efficiency and sustainability. Relating departments need to use expression similar to local ideas and cultural customs of the countries we are interacting with; to know the similarities of Chinese culture and foreign ones and to interpret Chinese beliefs of peaceful development and win-win cooperation in a more vivid way, so as to promote the harmonious coexistence of Chinese culture and diverse world culture.

    Chinese culture’s going out urgently need talents with a good command of non-common-language. A country relies on talents to prosper, just like a business relies on talents to gain it’s place in the market. The “going out” is a cultural exchange project straddling subjects, countries and fields, so in terms of human resource, it requires experts and scholars with international vision and Chinese hearts and people dedicated to practical work with good command of foreign languages and rules of the international cultural exchanges, especially versatile talents of outstanding command of non-common languages with Chinese hearts, global vision, ability of cross-cultural communication and a clear understanding of international rules. The accelerating implement of the belt and road initiative makes it more urgent to solve the lack of non-common language. China is an advocator and participator of the initiative, so there’s great opportunities and challenges in the subject construction and education of non-common language. The current education needs a subject development plan and reasonable and scientific design, which are the countries’ urgent need and foreign language schools’ responsibilities.

    Non-governmental strength is needed in Chinese culture’s “going out”, The root and soul of Chinese culture are within Chinese people, so China’s cultural exchanges with the international community would lost meaning and internal driving forces without non-governmental participation. The reduction of governmental participation is a general trend in the international cultural exchange and a wide-spread act to lessen the doubt and misunderstanding of other countries. The government should further transfer their function to eliminate the constrain of the cultural development in systems and mechanisms and inspire the potential of China’s non-governmental sectors and overseas Chinese, so as to fully unlock the strength of talents and non-governmental organization in the international competition.

    Promoting Chinese culture’s “going out” needs a result evaluation system. We need to acknowledge that resource investment doesn’t necessary lead to improvement and we also need to improve the quality monitoring of China’s international cultural exchanges as well as to perfect a feedback system. When Chinese culture is introduced abroad, it’s not always well-received. A complete evaluation system can foresee the condition in the early period, follow the project in the middle term and correct misconducts according to the feedback in the latter period. Such system can clarify the standpoint, focus and starting point of the “going out” of Chinese culture, so as to guarantee the efficient use of resources and successful completion of cultural projects.

    Promoting Chinese culture’s “going out” means that we should have a clear understanding of the multiple theoretical and practical challenges. On one hand, rational discussion is needed in terms of the rule, process, mode and structure of China’s cultural exchanges in the international society. On the other hand, effort is needed to solve practical problems of China’s “going out” systems, including systems of diverse content, intensive cooperation, multi-layer human resource, three-dimensional passage and dynamic evaluation.

    Chinese culture’s “going out” has a new structure composed of diverse subjects in practice, multiple interest concerns and many layers of starting points. We need a coordination system with the interaction of governments of various countries, shared cultural resource and complementary advantages. Relating departments should seek a large improvement of the quality of the “going out”, which means that cultural trade and exchanges should be more closely connected with the improvement of the global recognition of Chinese cultural value. A single department or industry can’t realize this goal, so we need the participation of various sectors, cooperation and collective advantage.

    A country relies on culture to find it’s place in the world and to prosper. China’s increasing national strength and international influence mean that there’s unprecedented strategic opportunities for Chinese culture’s going out. We need to seize opportunities to enable the Chinese cultural exchange with the international community to be more popular and to last for a long time, with a sense of historical responsibility to inherit and promote outstanding traditional Chinese culture as well as with high-level of cultural awareness, confidence, self-reflection and innovation. In this way, China can be transformed from a country with cultural resource to one with strong cultural strength and can increase Chinese culture’s influence and enable it to be liked by more.