Ip Guiping, President of the Macau Scholars Alliance: Macau provides feasible solutions to eliminate the "clash of civilizations theory"

China News Service, Macau, November 10 (Reporters Zheng Jiawei and Mo Qian) When attending the "International Forum on Mutual Learning of Civilizations 2026" on the 10th, Ye Guiping, President of the Macau Scholars Alliance, said that Macau is not only a city, but also a paradigm for civilization exchanges. The value of this paradigm is not only that it proves that different civilizations can coexist harmoniously, but also that it provides a practical Chinese solution to the "clash of civilizations theory" in the era of globalization.

On November 10, the "International Forum on Mutual Learning of Civilizations 2026" held in Macau entered the second day of the agenda. The picture shows Ye Guiping, President of the Macau Scholars Alliance, delivering a speech at the sub-forum. Photo by China News Service reporter Zheng Jiawei

Ye Guiping introduced that over the past 400 years, Chinese culture, Portuguese culture, indigenous culture and other foreign cultures have met, collided and integrated in Macao, gradually forming a unique multicultural paradigm. This integration is not only seen in the surface life and customs of Macao, but also goes deeper into the language, system and spiritual values.

For example, he gave the endangered Macau Portuguese language (Patuá), which is based on Portuguese and incorporates Cantonese, Malay and other elements, becoming a rare living fossil of Creole language in linguistics. At the institutional level, Macau’s current legal system inherits Portugal’s civil law tradition. At the same time, it is compatible with local customs and common law elements, forming a unique mixed legal structure; at the value level, the Confucian ethics of "peace is the most important" and the Catholic teaching of "love your neighbor as yourself" reflect each other in Macau society, shaping the city's generous and tolerant background.

Ye Guiping pointed out that Macao’s practice over the past hundreds of years has provided the most vivid historical footnotes and the most convincing realistic samples for building a community with a shared future for mankind. It proves to the world that different civilizations can transcend conflict and confrontation and move toward dialogue and cooperation; people with different systems and beliefs can coexist harmoniously and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results.

He emphasized that facing the future, Macao must summarize, improve and disseminate past experience. "We should transcend civilizational estrangement with civilizational exchanges, transcend civilizational conflicts with civilizational mutual learning, and transcend civilizational superiority with civilizational coexistence, and contribute uniquely valuable Macao wisdom and Macao strength to building a community with a shared future for mankind." (End)