When I wrote a year ago about my first visit to China, I said: "The most beautiful thing about that visit was that I entered China through the gateway of culture and knowledge." That phrase was not a passing description of a personal experience; it was an entry point to a deeper understanding of the nature of the relationship between Arabs and Chinese, and of the role that culture can play in building bridges of communication between nations and peoples.
On that visit, I did not see China merely as a rising economic and technological power; I saw it as an ancient civilisation, an extended memory, and a nation working toward its present and future with confidence and calm. What caught my attention most was the Chinese engagement with Arab and Emirati culture, and the familiarity some Chinese intellectuals and researchers had with aspects of our customs and values — particularly those relating to family, respect for elders, and attachment to identity — elements that converge in many respects with Chinese culture and customs.
Today, with the United Arab Emirates serving as Guest of Honour at the Beijing International Book Fair, that personal experience feels like part of a broader context, affirming that UAE-China relations are no longer read solely through the lens of economics and investment, but through the lens of civilisational awareness, intellectual exchange, cultural communication, and cultural diplomacy.
The selection of the United Arab Emirates cannot be regarded as a courtesy or a protocol honour; rather, it signals that the UAE has become a powerful presence in Chinese cultural consciousness as a state with a humanistic and intellectual project, not merely a successful development model.
Looked at more deeply, book fairs are not merely markets for books but meeting points for minds, where languages converse and peoples come to know one another beyond stereotypes. The truth is that a book carries something deeper than information — it carries the spirit of a society, its experience, its imagination, its questions, its anxieties, and its way of understanding the world.
Herein lies the value of cultural diplomacy: it is not an intellectual luxury or a celebratory activity, but a strategic and intellectual necessity in a world of ever-growing need for mutual understanding, communication, and civilisational dialogue. Relations between states may begin with interests, but they become entrenched when they are transformed into mutual knowledge, mutual respect, and the capacity to see the other outside ready-made moulds. I believe that culture possesses an immense and quiet power to dismantle stereotypes, build trust, and open new spaces and pathways for dialogue.
Perhaps the symbolic significance of China in the history of the book and knowledge adds a particular dimension to this event. China gave paper to the world; paper made knowledge transferable, the book made human experience capable of enduring, and translation made civilisations capable of speaking and conversing with one another.
In these days, the UAE comes to Beijing bearing an experience that is modern in its age yet profound in its vision — an experience that has made coexistence, openness, and respect for diversity part of its identity. It is as if the UAE is saying through this cultural presence that the future is not built by infrastructure alone, but by the human being, knowledge, awareness, and the capacity to communicate with the other.
The significance of being chosen as Guest of Honour also goes beyond cultural celebration to recognition of the UAE's standing as a civilisational bridge between the Arabs and China. We are, in fact, witnessing a dialogue between two Eastern civilisations — the Arab-Islamic civilisation and the Chinese civilisation — between which there is a long history of communication, broad areas of understanding, and shared values connected to family, society, work, and stability.
From this standpoint too, the importance of the participation of Emirati cultural and academic institutions in such forums becomes clear — among them Mohamed bin Zayed University for Humanities — because they link culture to knowledge, dialogue to research, and symbolic presence to the shaping of awareness. Cultural diplomacy does not rest on programmes and events alone, but on institutions capable of converting presence into impact, encounter into knowledge, and knowledge into a deeper relationship between peoples.
I have become firmly convinced that great standing is not built by hard power alone; it is also built by culture and books, dialogue and communication, and intellectual and knowledge exchange. In Beijing, therefore, the UAE is not present merely to display books, but to carry a deeper message: that culture is capable of being a bridge between civilisations, and that relations between states do not reach their true meaning until they reach the human being and touch his conscience, thought, and awareness.
From these premises, I see UAE-China relations heading toward a broader civilisational horizon, affirming to the world that great nations do not meet only in economics but also in culture and knowledge, in values and shared humanity. And when culture becomes the bridge that connects nations, they are heading toward a world of greater understanding, balance, and humanity.