People like to point to Samuel Huntington when discussing civilization. But we didn't expect this much frowned-upon ivory-tower analysis to find its way into a U.S. high-level apparatus until Kiron Skinner, Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. State Department, reignited the civilization debate recently.

According to her, while the Cold War constituted "a fight within the Western family," the competition with China "is a fight with a really different civilization," and she added that "the United States hasn't had that before." Well, she does have a point: China is different.

Interestingly, Skinner's remarks came only a few days before China hosted the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations. So are civilizations bound to clash? Let's take a look inside the conference. More than 2,000 participants from 47 Asian countries and other regions gathered in Beijing to celebrate cultural diversity, enhance cultural bonds and foster a community with a shared future for humanity.

Some experts share their views on this topic with Beijing Review.

"It reminds me of a saying that we are like a beautiful rainbow. Rainbow has different colors, and rainbow emerges after a strong or heavy rain and turns out as very beautiful vision for what can be the best the nature can give us. So I think we should have this unity and diversity," said Mushahid Hussain Syed, Senator & Chairman of the Pakistan-China Institute.

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