2024 China-Latin America Civilization Dialogue Held in Lima

On November 6, 2024, the 2024 China–Latin America Civilizational Dialogue was held in Lima, Peru, and was organized by China International Communications Group (CICG, 中国国际传播集团), a state-controlled media organization. Xinhua reported that the forum drew more than 150 officials, scholars, media representatives, and business figures from China as well as more than 10 Latin American countries. The theme of the event was “Civilizational Heritage and Modern Development,” framing that drew on the Chinese Communist Party’s most recent re-formulation of its legitimacy at home and abroad around the notion that China has created a “new form of human civilization” that offers a model for the world. CICG editor-in-chief Gao Anming (高安明) used his keynote speech to push China’s South-South cooperation messaging, casting China and Latin American nations as fellow “members of the Global South” who “share similar development goals and philosophies.” The forum launched an “Academic Partnership Network for Global Civilization Dialogue,” proposed by the CICG-affiliated Academy of Contemporary China and World Studies (當代中國與世界研究院) alongside 53 institutions including the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO), as well as English and Spanish editions of Six Perspectives of Chinese Modernization (中國式現代化六觀), published by the government-run Chongqing Publishing Group (重慶出版集團). The forum was guided by China’s State Council Information Office (國務院新聞辦公室), Peru’s Ministry of Culture, and the Latin American and Caribbean Parliament (Parlatino), and co-organized by CICG and FLACSO. The event falls under Xi Jinping’s Global Civilization Initiative, which promotes a concept of “civilizational diversity” that implicitly challenges universal values by asserting that different political systems can define their own standards, with state rights taking precedence over individual rights.