The International Conference on Intercultural Communication (ICIC) comes back in 2017! In the era when globalism coexists with anti-globalism and cultural pluralism with cultural separatism, we are looking forward to the debate between different thoughts and ideas and exploring the wisdom on peaceful coexistence and free communication.
Based on extensive discussions with scholars around the globe, the theme of the 9th ICIC is set as One Belt One Road Initiative, Multiculturalism & Intercultural Communication. We have all felt this historic moment: the negative impact of globalization is becoming stronger than ever before, which results in what Zygmunt Bauman has described: “the riches are global, the misery is local”. Meanwhile, multiculturalism has been distorted as cultural separatism. And intercultural communication has become fragile. Under this circumstance, China seeks to go beyond the limitations of globalization and has proposed the One Belt One Road Initiative (OBOR), aiming to build the 2.0 version of globalization which appears to offer an imaginary space for intercultural communication practices. 
Thus, the ICIC will focus on the concepts of “community of shared interests,” “community of common destiny,” and “people of shared thoughts” included in OBOR, seeking to resolve issues in intercultural interactions, intercultural conflicts and negotiations in multicultural practices. Starting from the needs of the interactions between different nations and civilizations, we hope to construct OBOR into reciprocal relationship between different cultures, reconstruct our cultural capability of openness, inclusiveness and complementarity, and explore the intercultural foundation of OBOR. Based on the principles of inter-subjectivity and interculturality, we look for effective approaches to easing intercultural conflicts and constructing the “community of common destiny”. We will also explore the ways for intercultural sensitivity, common perceptions, empathy and intercultural capability based on the perspective of “people of shared thoughts”.
We hope to attain an international understanding of OBOR from the perspective of intercultural communication, reconstruct multiculturalism on both the theoretical and practical levels, and release the Intercultural Communication Declaration on the One Belt One Road Initiative in the name of the community of intercultural communication academics.