Tu Weiming (杜维明)

BEIJING (CNTV) – Professor Tu Weiming is awarded the CNTV Personality of the Year Award 2012 for Disseminating Chinese Culture to the World.

See the China Network Television (CNTV) Show here: The Brilliance of China (Zhonghua zhi guang).

Tu Weiming was introduced by Christian Murck, the President of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, and a trophy was handed to Prof. Tu by Zhou Qifeng, the President of Peking University.

Short Bio

Professor Tu Weiming, Director of The Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies (IAHS), Director of The World Ethics Institute Beijing (WEIB), both at Peking University, is the leading scholar of Confucianism and in particular Confucian Ethics.

Award Show

Here’s a rough transcript (in English translation) of the award show that was aired on CCTV-1 on the 17th of January 2013:

Hosted by Wu Daqi and Wu Tianxin; Introduction Remarks by Christian Murck, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in China:

“Tu Weiming taught at Princeton University where I was his student. Through his efforts Confucianism has engaged in an ongoing dialogue with Christianity and Islam, as well as Buddhism and Daoism. As a result of his influence as a teacher and writer the contribution of Confucian thinkers to China and to the world is better understood and is the subject of continuous study and discussion. Professor Tu is therefore an excellent candidate for the Brilliance of China Award and I recommend him to you warmly. Thank you.”

Q&A with Tu Weiming

Wu Tianxin: “We know that Professor Tu has promoted New Confucian philosophy for now almost twenty years and that he has visited more than half of the countries of the world. Please tell us, Professor Tu, in those past twenty years, what was the most rewarding experience to you?”

Tu Weiming: “What was most rewarding is hard to tell. I would like to continue my efforts to convey the Confucian traditions to even more places. Many of the young people that I’ve met wanted to know from me the “ABC” of Confucianism. So I told them, well, A is: Confucianism is a learning civilization, it’s about studying as much as possible to become a true human being; and B is: Confucianism is a fairly tolerant civilization, so it is able to engage with all different kinds of cultures; and C is: Confucianism is a Dialogical Civilization, it especially aims at using dialogue as a means to promote a culture of peace, with the new vision to create a peaceful world.”

2012CCTV: http://news.cntv.cn/special/zhonghuazhiguang/