The Working Paper

Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem about East and West begins with the words, “Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” Even today, as we live in a globalised world where rapid development have led the East and West to be highly interconnected and dependent on one another, there is a sense that East and West do not understanding each other. There have been rising tensions between China and the West, with each side expanding their military in response to the other’s expansion. There is a risk that if this carries on – or rather, if there continues to be no development of understanding and respect for each other’s cultures, backgrounds, and motives – a simple misunderstanding may be all we need to spark an armed conflict between the two. We believe that underlying such tensions between China and the West is a barrier that prevents both sides from accurately reading each other’s motives and intentions.