'Diversity drives progress': Xi

President Xi Jinping delivers a wide-ranging speech on civilization at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris on Thursday. [Photo: fmprc.gov.cn]

No one civilization can be judged superior to another, president says

President Xi Jinping quoted extensively Victor Hugo, Napoleon Bonaparte and Chinese historian Zuo Qiuming in giving his views on civilization during a major speech on Thursday.  [Special coverage]

He stressed that Chinese civilization, along with others, will provide mankind with the right cultural guidance and strong motivation.

"Civilizations have become richer and more colorful with exchanges and mutual learning," Xi said at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization headquarters in Paris on the third day of his visit to France.

Such exchanges and mutual learning are an important driver of human progress and global peace and development, said Xi, the first Chinese president to visit the headquarters.

"A single flower does not make spring, while one hundred flowers in full blossom bring spring to the garden," Xi said.

He drew on this popular Chinese saying to explain that civilizations have come in different shades and such diversity has made exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations relevant and valuable.

He also said he had visited both the Louvre Museum in France and the Palace Museum in China, saying, "They are attractive because they present the richness of diverse civilization."

Xi said he believed all human civilizations are of equal value, that there is no perfect civilization in the world, nor is there a civilization that is devoid of merit. In short, no one civilization can be judged superior to another.

The ocean is vast, for it refuses no rivers, Xi said, quoting a well-known Chinese saying.

"Civilizations are inclusive, and such inclusiveness has given exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations the drive needed to move forward," he said.

If all civilization can uphold inclusiveness, a so-called clash of civilizations will be out of the question and the harmony of civilizations will become reality, the president added.

Turning to Victor Hugo, Xi said the French novelist once said that there is a prospect greater than the sea, and it is the sky; there is a prospect greater than the sky, and it is the human soul. "Indeed, we need a mind that is broader than the sky as we approach different civilizations," Xi said.