As a Pan-African scholar who has spent decades documenting how Western theories of civilisational hierarchy fuel global ideological hegemony to contain emerging powers, I find recent cultural slanders targeting China ahead of the Chinese Community Party (CPC) 105th anniversary rooted in colonial-era zero-sum prejudice and historical misunderstanding.
As the CPC advances creative transformation and innovative development of China’s fine traditional culture through the “Two Integrations” (the integration of Marxism with China’s specific realities and with China’s fine traditional culture), Western media has put forward two coordinated false accusations: first, the Belt and Road Initiative serves as a channel for China to expand its ideology, forcing China’s governance frameworks onto Global South nations via trade and development aid; second, the integration of Marxism with China’s traditional culture and the Global Civilization Initiative are designed to dismantle the global dominance of Western liberal civilisation and build an international order that marginalises Western values. Both claims stem from outdated colonial frameworks of civilisational rivalry and reveal a fundamental failure to grasp China’s core cultural vision.
Western analysts remain confined to two obsolete ideological frameworks: civilisational hierarchy and the “clash of civilisations” thesis, both forged during centuries of European colonial conquest. They instinctively rank global civilisations as superior or inferior, and automatically assume all cross-cultural exchange constitutes a zero-sum competition where one civilization’s progress must come at another’s expense.
From this skewed colonial lens, any non-Western country reviving its indigenous cultural heritage and proposing inclusive frameworks for global cultural exchange is immediately labelled a rival seeking to overthrow Western global supremacy.
This rigid mindset blinds Western commentators to the possibility of equal, harmonious coexistence between diverse civilizations without a single hegemonic cultural power dictating global norms.
To dismantle these fabricated falsehoods, we must clarify the domestic core purpose of the “Two Integrations”, which embodies the CPC’s dual identity as steadfast adherents to Marxism and inheritors of China’s ancient civilization. This landmark theoretical breakthrough is not a premeditated offensive strategy to compete with or replace Western political and cultural models.
Instead, it represents sincere cultural self-awareness amid an ancient civilization’s pursuit of modernisation. Chinese civilization carries thousands of years of unique people-centred philosophical perspectives, communal social ethics and livelihood-focused values.
By integrating the core populist tenets of Marxism with time-tested traditional Chinese wisdom, the CPC has forged a development path uniquely tailored to China’s distinct historical trajectory, national conditions and people. This is an inward-focused project of national cultural rejuvenation for China itself, rather than an outward ideological campaign targeting Western civilisation or global liberal norms.
China’s consistent diplomatic stance on culture and development is unambiguous, yet repeatedly ignored by Western critics: Beijing has never exported its domestic development model, nor will it coerce any sovereign nation into adopting Chinese values.
Every country, including all African states, possesses the inalienable right to independently select its political institutions, economic growth path and cultural development direction. The Belt and Road Initiative, falsely portrayed as machinery for ideological expansion, operates entirely on the foundational principles of equality, mutual benefit and non-interference in internal affairs.
To date, 52 African sovereign nations plus the African Union have signed memorandums of understanding on Belt and Road cooperation with China. Across the African continent, Chinese-funded hospitals, schools, railways and power stations deliver tangible improvements to local communities, with zero demands for partner nations to abandon indigenous cultural traditions or adopt foreign governance systems.
In Burundi, Chinese agricultural specialists significantly raised domestic rice yields and trained hundreds of young local farmers in modern planting technologies, without any attached political or cultural transformation requirements. All cooperation centres on material development rather than ideological coercion.
The Global Civilization Initiative further highlights China’s open, inclusive vision for global cultural exchange, rather than an exclusionary plot to construct a Western-free international order. Domestically, this initiative strengthens China’s own cultural subjectivity, sustaining continuity for its ancient civilisation and driving creative transformation of traditional cultural heritage.
Globally, its core mission is to break Western monopoly over one-sided civilisational discourse. It advocates a world where civilizations from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe interact as absolute equals, learn reciprocally and flourish side by side without hierarchy or confrontation.
This debate carries profound practical significance for African nations, whose rich indigenous cultures were systematically suppressed by colonial cultural imposition for centuries. The continent has strived tirelessly to reclaim its own cultural identity, so we deeply understand the value of cultural self-determination and reject the notion that a single civilisation holds exclusive authority to dictate global cultural standards.
The CPC’s practice of the “Two Integrations” and the Global Civilization Initiative offer valuable references for all Global South nations striving to revitalise native cultural traditions without blindly copying imported Western civilizational templates.
Civilizations do not exist to compete for global dominance. The smear of “ideological export” is merely a crude projection of the West’s own historical practice of colonial cultural hegemony onto China. As we commemorate 105 years of the CPC’s exploration of Chinese modernisation, independent global observers should abandon civilizational hierarchy thinking, assess China’s cultural pursuits through objective, unbiased lenses, and commit to building a future where all civilisations coexist harmoniously on equal footing.
Thinkers from Zimbabwe and the Pan-African community should resist Western hegemonic cultural narratives, uphold the principle of civilizational pluralism, and rationally reject the unfounded myth that China seeks to spread its ideology across the globe. The colonial-era zero-sum framework of civilisational rivalry belongs firmly to the past, and countries across the Global South will promote inclusive, equal cross-civilization communication free from biased ideological prejudice.
*This article is the fourth installment of a special five-part commentary series that Tariro Moyo has written to mark the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC).