Book on China's diplomacy grabs public attention in Romania

A book on China's diplomacy has commanded public attention in Romania, with its launch event on Tuesday creating an opportunity for Romanian scholars, diplomats and those interested in China to exchange opinions on the east Asian country and its relations to the world.

The book, "The Chinese Diplomacy -- historical and spiritual fundamentals," was written by Ana Eva Budura, a Romanian historian and sinologist.

"While China is becoming a global rising power, its gate opened and its cultural assets are becoming assets of the entire mankind," said Budura at the book launch, where participants discussed China's peaceful diplomacy from the perspectives of history, culture and philosophy.

Zhao Lei, counselor of the Chinese embassy in Romania, called the book "a window that allows the readers to get to know China better, and a gift for this year's celebration of Romania's centennial and for next year's celebration of 70 years of friendship between China and Romania."

The discussions at the event centered on two topics. One is that China has given the world an incomparable, special spirituality that can serve as a source of wisdom, continuity and human values while the other is that the older generation of Romanian sinologists want the younger generation to take over their studies.

Budura said she is among "the first generation of Romanian sinologists."

"Sixty-eight years ago, I went to Tsinghua University (in Chinese capital Beijing) and started to study one of the greatest human civilizations. I had the chance to perceive its deep and unique nature," she said.

As one of the first five Romanian students to study in China in the early 1950s, she later worked as a diplomat in Beijing for years together with her husband Ioan Romulus Budura, the Romanian ambassador to China between 1990 and 1996.

Constantin Vlad, a former Romanian diplomat, said the book is a retrospective of a diplomacy that belongs to a still-alive millenniums-old civilization.

The Chinese spirituality is the key to understanding the "Chinese phenomenon," said Vlad, who used to represented Romania in Finland, Japan and Australia.

Gheorghe Magheru, a diplomat and the governor for Romania in the Asia-Europe Foundation, said the book makes intelligible the fundamentals of the Chinese spirituality.

It helps people understand one of China's contemporary preoccupations, which is to reconcile the Chinese classical and modern concepts on the one hand, and the Chinese and the Western concepts on the other hand, in an effort to find a locus where the East meets the West to build a community with a shared future for mankind, he said.

The book, first published in 2008 and now republished, introduces the formation of important historical periods of the Chinese nation, and the characteristics of its internal affairs and diplomacy, revealing the historical and spiritual roots of the Chinese nation's external exchanges.