Connecting East Asia, Embracing the World: Contemporary Echoes of Confucian Dialogue

GUIYANG, China, Aug. 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A News Report by Huanqiu.com

On August 7, the keynote speech and outcomes release conference of the 2026 "Chinese Learning of the Heart-Mind and the World"-An East Asian Dialogue on Confucianism was held at the Confucius Academy in Guiyang, which systematically presented academic outcomes from the weeklong series of academic conversation.

Guided by the International Confucian Association (ICA), the event was co-hosted by the Guiyang Confucius Academy Cultural Communication Center, the East Asian Classics Research Institute of Zhusi Academy at Qufu Normal University, and the Ma Yifu Academy of Zhejiang University. The series included one press briefing, ten roundtable dialogues and one keynote speech and outcomes release conference, alongside field study tours on Yangming culture.

At the outcomes release session, Kung Tsui-chang, the 79th-generation direct descendant of Confucius and President of the Confucius Foundation, delivered a speech. He noted, "East Asian Confucianism forms the spiritual bond of East Asian civilization. Its core tenets such as 'harmony without uniformity', 'great universal commonwealth', and 'benevolence towards people and care for all creatures' offer profound insights into the diversity, coexistence and shared prosperity of human civilizations." He stressed, "What civilizations around the world need today is not estrangement and confrontation, but dialogue and mutual learning—and Confucianism offers exactly such wisdom and breadth of vision for cross-civilizational exchange." He commented that this conversation "is more than an academic exchange; it is an intellectual voyage transcending national boundaries and bridging the past and the present—enabling Confucian wisdom to travel from scholarly studies into public life, and from East Asia to the world."

ICA Vice Chairman Li Wenliang summarized the outcomes of this academic exchange. Scholars from home and abroad engaged in iterative debates and in-depth exchanges, systematically mapping the cross-regional dissemination of Yangming's School of Mind over five centuries and profoundly elucidating its distinctive value in empowering East Asian modernization and advancing inter-civilizational integration worldwide. This gathering has laid a solid foundation for sustained collaboration with the "Chinese Learning of the Heart-Mind and the World" academic alliance. 

Dai Jianwei, Director of Guiyang Confucius Academy Cultural Communication Center and Vice Chairperson of the Council of the ICA, said during the outcomes release session that academia at home and abroad has yet to gain a thorough understanding or reach a unified consensus regarding Confucianism's contemporary value and its modern-day adaptation. For that very reason, conducting more profound intellectual dialogues on a broader international scale and at a higher academic level to contribute the cultural values of East Asia has increasingly become an urgent demand across international circles and common ground amid divergent viewpoints.

Based upon this professional assessment and the imperatives of our times, Dai Jianwei formally unveiled a special initiative: to regularly convene 50 distinguished experts and young scholars from all parts of China—including the mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan region—as well as Japan, the Republic of Korea, Vietnam, Singapore and countries across Europe and America to build an academic dialogue platform. The existing "Chinese Learning of the Heart-Mind and the World"-An East Asian Dialogue on Confucianism will be upgraded into the "International 50-Scholars Forum on Confucianism", featuring fixed scale, institutionalized mechanisms and far-reaching influence. Guided by its core mission "to pass forward the spark of civilization and create a bright future", the forum will break free from the confines of conventional academic research, incorporate Confucian studies into global philosophy and global modernity studies, and translate specialized academic deliberations into intellectual resources and cultural drivers for social progress.

The "Chinese Learning of the Heart-Mind and the World"-An East Asian Dialogue on Confucianism marks the third major international academic activity organized by the "Chinese Learning of the Heart-Mind and the World" academic alliance founded in 2024. It carries forward the alliance's defining feature of "cross-civilizational and cross-linguistic" exchange.

From East Asian regional connectivity to global civilizational interplay, and from scholarly theoretical research to public outreach, age-old Confucianism adopts an open and inclusive posture to respond to technological-era advancement and global cross-civilizational dialogue. As Kung Tsui-chang put it, this academic dialogue is a profound exploration of thought, bridging great distances and connecting the ages.

SOURCE Huanqiu.com