The Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations (CDAC) shows the possibilities for motivating all of humanity to work together to meet the challenges facing today's world, according to Alistair Michie, secretary general of the London-based British East Asia Council.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with China.org.cn on Thursday, Michie said the only way to tackle pressing global challenges, including climate change, the threat posed by nuclear weapons and an unstable global economic system, lay in all of humanity acting as one in the most coherent way possible.

"How can that happen? I think the conference in the last two days has shown us a possible way," he said.

The CDAC has drawn representatives from 47 Asian countries and nearly 50 others from outside the region to discuss the best way to build a community of a shared future for humanity through better exchanges between different civilizations.

"If we can develop that consensus in Asia, home to about 60% of the world's population, then I think we've got a chance to influence the rest of the world," Michie added.

He said a big challenge for Asia in communicating the message of building a shared future in an all-embracing community was how to win the hearts and minds of people in the United States and Europe.

Though these two regions account for only 14% of the global population, they possess a dominant influence on how the world is moving forward, Michie said.

For example, they dominated major international agencies, such as the United Nations, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization.

Michie said the pattern of Asian civilization, going back several millennia, is very much focused on creating consensus and harmony, while the European and the U.S. civilizations adopt such mentalities as "winner takes all" and a "zero-sum game."

This thinking had been very successful for them in the past couple of hundred years, but was somewhat dangerous in the current context.

"Humanity will destroy itself if we go down the path of a 'clash of civilizations,' "Michie warned, adding that the only way to solve the problems threatening all humanity is to act as a single community and move towards a common destiny.

At present, people in Europe and the U.S. have shut their minds and switched off listening to Asia, so the latter needs to create fresh and innovative thinking about communication to win them over.

Inspired by how the economic reform and opening-up has modernized China at a speed and scale unprecedented in human history, Michie called for reform and opening-up in communication among the broad swathe of Asian countries.

He believed such an initiative could have the same huge and unimaginable impact as the economic reform and opening up, and it was crucially important for China and other Asian countries to continue this process for the sake of all humanity.

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