Real East-West agreement requires prior agreement on first principles, not just economics.

Evidence

But his point, I think, was that there is an inverse differential in reform between the East and the West, namely, that the more the West needs to reform, the less the East needs to match it. … There cannot be such an uneven relationship without first reaching an “agreement in the domain of the principles,” for once such an agreement is achieved “all secondary difficulties will be smoothed away automatically, or else no real agreement of any sort will ever be reached.” — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 331

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in civilizational clash frameworks and how substantive agreement must precede transactional deals.