CLASH OR COMMUNICATION?

Despite the tours, the handshakes and the gifts, touring so many countries was no easy feat. When Xi was championing exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations this past year, some resurrected the outdated theory of "a clash of civilizations."

In April at a security forum, then U.S. State Department Director of Policy Planning Kiron Skinner referred to the China-U.S. competition as a "a clash of civilizations," claiming it's "the first time we will have a great-power competitor that is not Caucasian."

The rhetoric has alarmed a lot of people both in and outside the two countries, for the logic will ultimately result in conflicts and diplomatic disputes among civilizations.

Two weeks later, at the opening of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC) held in Beijing, Xi said "civilizations don't have to clash with each other," adding what is needed are eyes to see the beauty in all civilizations.

"No civilization is superior over others," he said. "The thought that one's own race and civilization are superior and the inclination to remold or replace other civilizations are just stupid. To act them out will only bring catastrophic consequences."

While people like Skinner invoke fear of a threat from an "alien" value system to rally support for a harder stance against China, Xi upholds the vision that exchanges and mutual learning are important drivers for human progress and global peace and development.

"He markedly refused to assign any developmental hierarchy to civilizations," wrote Emanuel Pastreich, an American academic and the president of The Asia Institute, after the conclusion of the CDAC.

The open call for an internationalist perspective and the presumption that all civilizations are fundamentally equal provided a compelling alternative to the "clash of civilizations" rhetoric that is quickly degenerating into thoughtless xenophobia in the United States, he wrote in an article carried by the Foreign Policy in Focus website.

"When it comes to a philosophy that can save the world, the old adage of ex oriente lux (the light comes from the East) seems to once again apply," Pastreich wrote.

ADAGE OF EX ORIENTE LUX

Books and other intellectual traditions "are the best passport" when it comes to contacts with a modern country with a long history, the Greek book historian Konstantinos Staikos has said.

Staikos is the author of "Books and Ideas: The Library of Plato and the Academy," a book gifted by Pavlopoulos to Xi during his visit to Greece.

It was the perfect gift for the Chinese president.

"Art and literary works are the best way for different nations and peoples to understand and communicate with each other," Xi said in a speech delivered in 2014 at the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) when recalling the books he had read during his youth.

Xi told an American audience about his experience of reading Ernest Hemingway when delivering a speech at a welcoming dinner in Seattle in 2015.

"I was most captivated by Ernest Hemingway's 'The Old Man and the Sea' and its descriptions of howling wind, driving rain, roaring waves, a small boat, the old man and sharks," Xi said.

During his second visit to Cuba, Xi recalled, he dropped by the bar Hemingway had frequented and ordered a mojito, Hemingway's favorite rum cocktail with mint leaves and ice.

"I just wanted to feel for myself what was on his mind and what the place was like as he wrote those stories," Xi said.

"Reading has become a way of life for me," the Chinese president said in an interview with Russian TV at the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014.

Besides reading foreign literature extensively to understand and learn about other cultures, Xi explores his own native culture for inspiration and solutions to global challenges.

Both his signature vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are rooted in the ancient Chinese wisdom of "Great Harmony" and "World Unity."

The dream embedded in the BRI, besides common development for all countries, is to build a road connecting different civilizations where mutual respect will replace discrimination, exchanges will replace estrangement, and mutual learning will replace clashes.

Since the initiative was put forward in 2013, more than 160 countries and international organizations have signed BRI cooperation documents with China, showing the growing popularity and convergence of Xi's grand vision.

China, an open civilization with a very long history, serves as a "catalyst for stability and qualitative development" in the 21st century, David Gosset, a French expert on international affairs and China, said.

Xi's vision on exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations is "a source of inspiration" for the world, the expert said.