Senior Communist Party of China (CPC) official Liu Yunshan makes a keynote speech at the China-Europe Civilization Dialogue in Athens on Monday. [Photo/Xinhua]

ATHENS - As the China-Europe Civilization Dialogue opened Monday in the Greek capital of Athens, the international community expects that the East and the West can work together even closer to face their common challenges and make the world a better place for all mankind.

The forum, the first of its kind, is titled "China-Europe: Cultural dialogues in Greece," and was hosted at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.

Held in the cradle of the Western civilization, the event, co-sponsored by the Chinese and Creek culture ministries of Greece, as well as the Chinese embassy in Greece, seeks to lay the foundation for a much broader and deeper cultural understanding between China and Europe.

"Greece and Europe need to learn more about China, and the latter needs to learn more about Greece and Europe," Maria Andreadaki-Vlazaki, secretary general of the Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports said in his opening speech.

Both the Chinese and Greek side as well as European experts who addressed the event underscored the significance of enhancing cultural ties between the East and the West to help advance collaboration on all other fields.

"I believe this dialogue can help further promote China-EU partnership," Liu Yunshan, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee said, addressing the event as keynote speaker.

"We need to replace the clash of civilizations with the harmony of civilizations," he said, outlining China's plan, which includes the strengthening of cultural exchanges.

Greek Culture Minister Aristides Baltas said in his speech that the debt ridden Greece is working hard to restore its place in the world, and the forum is highly appreciated as more of a vote of confidence by the Chinese government and people in the potential of his country.

"In this course we want to cultivate all the old friendships and cooperation and at the same time to launch new friendships... It is fortunate that our Chinese friends chose Greece as the first country to launch their dialogue with Europe," he said.

Cultural dialogue helps build bridges to ease frictions in the political and economic field and collaborate to resolve common problems, many speakers agreed.

"We need to expand our cooperation to tackle common challenges. This is why we need cross-cultural dialogue. We need to learn from each other," Huang Ping, director of the Institute of European Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Science, said.

"The problems the entire world faces today are not only economic. They are first of all I would say problems of values therefore cultural," Konstantinos Tsoukalas, president of the Hellenic Cultural Foundation, told Xinhua.

"In this sense I believe there is no better start to promote dialogue regarding the future of our world than the dialogue between the two great civilizations," he said.

Monday also marks the 150th opening anniversary of the museum. Following a tour to the museum, accompanied by Baltas and Speaker of the Greek parliament Nikos Voutsis, Liu also visited the New Acropolis Museum.

Later in the day, the senior Chinese official attended a special concert, which was held to celebrate the "dialogue between the two great civilizations."