About Nishan Forum on World Civilizations

Nishan Forum on World Civilizations

The Nishan Forum on World Civilizations is an international academic forum devoted to dialogue among the world's civilisations, founded in 2010 and permanently sited at Nishan in Qufu, Jining, Shandong Province, eastern China. Nishan — the hill formerly known as Ni Qiu — lies about 30 kilometres southeast of Qufu and is traditionally regarded as the birthplace of Confucius (551–479 BC), the philosopher and educator who founded Confucianism. From that symbolic ground, the forum brings together scholars, political figures and cultural leaders from dozens of countries to discuss how different civilisations can understand one another, learn from one another and address shared global problems.

Since its first edition in September 2010, the forum has grown from a gathering of some 170 participants into one of China's signature platforms for intercultural dialogue: its tenth edition in 2024 drew nearly 400 international guests from 63 countries, its eleventh in 2025 drew more than 560 guests from over 70 countries, and a twelfth followed in 2026. It is documented by Shandong University, Xinhua, China Daily and the International Confucian Association, and its official news is carried on the China Confucius Network at chinakongzi.org.

Founding in 2010 and Xu Jialu

The forum was initiated by Xu Jialu, who served as vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the Ninth and Tenth National People's Congresses and became honorary president of the forum's organising committee. Writing to the seventh forum in 2021, Xu described its purpose as promoting traditional Chinese culture alongside the cultures of the world and enhancing communication and mutual learning between different civilisations, and he noted that the forum had yielded fruitful results and considerable impact since its inauguration. University of Athens reporting on the eleventh forum records that it was inaugurated in 2010 in response to a United Nations initiative promoting dialogue among civilisations.

Shandong University describes the Nishan Forum as the first world civilisation forum aimed at promoting dialogue among different civilisations to take a permanent venue in Qufu, the cradle of Chinese Confucianism, and as the first world-class forum of its kind hosted from China to acquire extensive influence at home and abroad. Its founding premise was that the questions raised by a globalising world — conflict, development, cultural identity — could be addressed through structured conversation between civilisational traditions, with Confucian thought as host and one voice among several.

Nishan: The Place and the Permanent Venue

The forum takes its name from Nishan Mountain, the low hill southeast of Qufu where, by tradition, Confucius was born in 551 BC. The location places the forum within reach of Qufu's UNESCO World Heritage sites — the Temple of Confucius, the Kong Family Mansion and the Cemetery of Confucius, inscribed in 1994 — while giving it a distinct identity of its own, separate from the temple complex in the city.

The forum is held at its permanent venue, the Nishan Shengyuan College, within the Nishan Sacred Land complex built at the site. Shandong University's account stresses the permanence of the arrangement: unlike a rotating conference, the Nishan Forum returns to the same ground each edition, so that the place itself — the landscape associated with Confucius's birth — becomes part of the forum's argument that dialogue should be rooted in inherited traditions. The Sacred Land complex also serves other Qufu cultural events, including opening ceremonies of the China International Confucius Cultural Festival, but the forum's home and identity are its own.

The First Forum and the Nishan Declaration of Harmony

The first Nishan Forum was held in September 2010 and drew more than 170 participants. Its most durable product was the Nishan Declaration of Harmony, issued at that first meeting, which called for dialogue and communication among civilisations as the way to resolve conflict and promote harmony. The declaration gave the forum a founding text: subsequent editions have repeatedly returned to its vocabulary of harmony, diversity and mutual learning.

The intellectual anchor most often quoted at the forum is the Analects saying that the gentleman "seeks harmony but not uniformity". At the eleventh forum, Zhao Rui of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences cited the line to characterise the forum's approach: civilisations are not asked to become alike, but to coexist and learn across their differences. That principle — harmony without sameness — distinguishes the Nishan model of dialogue from both assimilation and mere tolerance.

Organisation and the Role of Shandong University

The forum's organisation combines national ministries, academic bodies and the Shandong provincial government. Editions have been co-hosted or jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Ministry of Education, the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the International Confucian Association and the People's Government of Shandong Province, with the precise combination varying by edition. The fifth forum, for example, was jointly sponsored by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Ministry of Education and the Shandong provincial government, while the tenth and eleventh listed the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the International Confucian Association among their hosts.

Within that structure, Shandong University holds a distinctive scholarly role. As a conference board member of the forum since its first assembly, the university is responsible for deliberating and selecting topics of discussion, inviting speaking scholars, setting the agenda, reviewing papers and handling translation and interpreting work. The arrangement gives the forum an academic engine room: its themes and sub-topics are worked out through a university-led process rather than set by protocol alone, which helps explain the forum's evolution from general civilisational dialogue toward specific contemporary questions such as artificial intelligence, family and social development, and global governance.

Early Editions and the Biennial Rhythm

The early forums were held roughly every two years. The fourth forum, held at Nishan on 16–17 November 2016, took the theme "Traditional Culture and Ecological Progress — Marching Towards a Green and Simple Life" and broke new ground by adding a sub-forum on women's rights, focused on gender equality and women's empowerment; organisers from Shandong University and Beijing Normal University presented the sub-forum as a platform for raising worldwide awareness of women's rights protection. The fifth forum followed on 26–28 September 2018, gathering some 240 experts and scholars from more than 30 countries and regions, including the United States, Chile and Pakistan. Its theme, rendered as "Integrated Progress, Shared Future", concerned the integration of civilisations toward a community with a shared future for mankind, and its programme comprised three high-end dialogues, four keynote speeches, two special forums and twenty-four panel dialogues alongside the opening and closing ceremonies.

The fifth forum was also the largest to that date, partly because its opening ceremony was held in unison with the 2018 China (Qufu) International Confucius Cultural Festival — an early instance of the two Qufu events being programmed together, a pattern that would become formal in the following decade.

The Integrated Years, 2020–2023, and the Return to a Separate Schedule

From 2020 the Nishan Forum was held as an integrated event with the China International Confucius Cultural Festival, the older Qufu festival founded in 1984 — a distinct event with which the forum is easily confused. The seventh forum met on 27–28 September 2021, sharing its opening ceremony with that year's festival; 172 scholars and experts from 16 countries, including the United States, Germany, Hungary and Japan, attended in person or online, alongside 38 envoys and officials from 20 countries. The eighth forum followed in September 2022 under the theme of the diversity of human civilisations and the shared values of mankind, accompanied by side events including a dialogue between mayors of international sister cities, a visit to Shandong by diplomatic envoys and a world youth forum.

In 2024 the two events resumed separate schedules. The festival kept its traditional late-September dates around the anniversary of Confucius's birth, while the Nishan Forum moved to July, meeting as a standalone academic gathering in midsummer in both 2024 and 2025. The separation restored the forum's independent identity after four integrated years and allowed its programme — keynote speeches, high-end dialogues and specialist sub-forums — to be reported and assessed on its own terms.

The Tenth Forum, 2024

The tenth Nishan Forum was held on 10–11 July 2024 under the theme "Traditional Culture and Modern Civilization". It drew nearly 400 international guests from 63 countries — described at the time as the largest number of countries and guests in the forum's history. Its announced topics included civilisational exchange and mutual learning amid global challenges, Chinese-style and Western modernisation, the inheritance and innovation of civilisation in modernisation, and the effects of artificial intelligence on humanity. For the first time, the programme added a forum on sports and one on family culture.

The guest list reflected the forum's widening remit. Yasuo Fukuda, former prime minister of Japan and chairman of the International Confucian Association, argued that the essence of Confucianism — promoting social and national stability by instructing people in how to live — is applicable worldwide and in any era; Jeffrey D. Sachs, president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, was among the international experts addressing the meeting. International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach sent remarks linking the forum's bridge-building purpose to the Olympic movement, noting that the forum opened just days before the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and that Pierre de Coubertin had revived the Games 130 years earlier as a means of building understanding among nations.

The Eleventh Forum, 2025

The eleventh forum met on 9–10 July 2025 under the fuller theme "Beauty in Diversity: Nurturing Understanding Among Civilizations for Global Modernization". Xinhua reported more than 560 guests from over 70 countries; other reporting put total attendance above 500, with around 300 international participants. Sun Chunlan, president of the International Confucian Association, addressed the opening, arguing that exploring how relationships between civilisations bear on modernisation holds great practical significance, and participants discussed the China-proposed Global Civilization Initiative of March 2023, which calls for respect for civilisational diversity, promotion of shared human values, inheritance and innovation of civilisations and stronger international cultural exchange.

The 2025 programme was organised around six sub-topics: the origins and future development of civilisation; Confucian culture's significance for the world and its value for the times; mutual assistance in pursuing modernisation; the importance of family and social development through the lens of civilisation; artificial intelligence and the future of civilisation; and Qilu culture — the regional culture of Shandong — and world civilisation. Invited speakers ranged across disciplines and continents; the University of Athens, for instance, recorded its philologist Athena Bazou lecturing on ancient pandemics in Greece and China. Xinhua commentary on the forum situated it against geopolitical conflict and economic rifts, presenting Confucian and other civilisational wisdom as resources for shared development.

The Twelfth Forum, 2026, and the Consensus Document

A twelfth edition followed in 2026, held in Qufu in late September. China Daily reported that the forum concluded with the release of a consensus document calling on nations to uphold mutual learning and build a fairer, more equitable global governance system amid profound global changes. The 2026 forum brought together more than 340 guests and scholars from 49 countries and regions around the theme "Civilization · Order · Justice", with exchanges on the contemporary relevance of Confucianism, global governance, artificial intelligence and civilisational resilience; its sub-topics included cross-cultural dialogue and AI and universal harmony. Over 200 scholars attended, around 100 of them from overseas, and IOC honorary president Thomas Bach again contributed by video, with UNESCO representative Edmond Moukala delivering a keynote.

The consensus document stressed that the diversity of human civilisations is the wellspring of human progress, urging the international community to overcome estrangement through exchange, prevent clashes through mutual learning and replace superiority with inclusiveness. Addressing the damage done to the international order by unilateralism and power politics, it called for a global governance system of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, and it held up justice as the moral yardstick of human society. The document marks an evolution in the forum's outputs: where the first forum issued a declaration of harmony, the twelfth produced a consensus addressed to the machinery of global governance itself.

Themes, Agenda and Standing

Across sixteen years, the forum's agenda has widened in step with global concerns: ecological civilisation and women's rights in 2016, a shared future for mankind in 2018, civilisational diversity and shared values in 2022, sports and family culture as new sub-forums in 2024, and artificial intelligence — its ethics, its governance and its bearing on civilisation's future — recurring across the 2024, 2025 and 2026 editions. Reporting on recent forums has noted the expanding range of fields represented, from academia and international politics to sport, culture and traditional Chinese medicine.

The forum's standing rests on three assets: a permanent and symbolically charged venue at Confucius's birthplace; an institutional partnership spanning ministries, the International Confucian Association, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Shandong University; and a documented record, from the 2010 Nishan Declaration of Harmony to the 2026 consensus, of producing shared texts rather than only speeches. It remains, however, a separate institution from the China International Confucius Cultural Festival with which it shared a programme in 2020–2023: the festival is a celebration dating to 1984, the forum an academic dialogue founded in 2010, and their histories, organisers and purposes should not be merged. Official news of the forum is carried on the China Confucius Network (chinakongzi.org), with substantial documentation also published by Shandong University, Xinhua, China Daily and the International Confucian Association.