Abstract

From June 6 to 8, 2022, the 21st Century Council held its annual high-level forum in Venice, Italy. The forum once again brought together prominent global politicians, strategists, and entrepreneurs for in-depth discussions on major issues, such as the world order after the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Sino-US relations, Sino-European relations, and China's strategic intentions. The participants generally felt that there are serious cognitive and thinking biases in the way the West and China view the above issues. They worried that under the current lack of communication between China and the U.S., these biases would evolve into prejudices and misunderstandings, and eventually bring an irreversible disaster, i.e. World War III. The conference believes that efforts can be made to stimulate communication between China and the West through several channels. First, a "civilizational dialogue" with China; second, setting up a cross-Western and Chinese working group to develop a "joint framework for managing strategic competition" as shadow or "second track"; and third, create a "3+1 climate action shadow body" that includes China, the United States, Europe, and India. While communication does not always prevent open conflict, the lack of such engagement and communication is always a prelude to conflict. We believe that while individual participants in this meeting had some bias toward China's internal affairs, the majority of participants in the meeting held a rational view, were generally objective in their assessment of U.S.-China relations, and were informative in their proposals intended to de-escalate U.S.-China relations.