Ancient wisdom, modern questions

"Classical studies — and the field of humanities in general — will no doubt play an important role in providing the foundation for intercultural understanding," he said. "The way we understand the past has crucial ramifications for our own identity today."

Drawing on examples from his research, Galambos compared the use of Chinese by non-Chinese-speaking communities with the spread of Latin texts across medieval Europe, saying such interactions generated "new texts, commentaries, and even entire written traditions in vernacular languages".

"Much of the innovation that happened in pre-modern societies resulted from cultural contacts, from the adoption of foreign texts, objects, or ideas into new environments," he explained. "Typically, this was not passive borrowing but rather creative adaptation, leading to entirely new developments. We can learn from such past examples and embrace the idea of dialogue."

Yuri Pines, professor of Chinese studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said: "Thinkers during China's Warring States Period (475-221 BC) realized that no state could solve its problems alone.

"In conditions of constant competition and struggle, there can be no security for a single country without taking into consideration 'all under heaven' — the broader world order," Pines said.

"In the Warring States, the solution was to unify the entire Tianxia, or 'all the world' in a single universal state. Today, this can be reinterpreted as something akin to 'cosmopolitanism', or the idea that individual problems cannot be solved without considering broader global challenges," he said. "This logic, I think, is very relevant to the global initiatives of development and security."

Pines said the diversity of the Hundred Schools of Thought during China's classical period fostered a worldview that did not insist on a single exclusive truth to be imposed on everyone, and that could facilitate mutual learning between civilizations.

"I think that it is very good for people nowadays to understand that there are different value systems because it will make people more tolerant, more open-minded, and maybe even more understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of their own civilization," Pines said.

"There are different possibilities. There are different ways. Not because one of them is very good, and one of them is very bad, but because each civilization has its own choice, and its own route for development," he added.