The long-term historical development and broad geographical variation of Chinese character (Hanzi/Kanji) has made it a cross-cultural information sharing platform in East Asia. In this paper, we propose a theoretical framework for the knowledge representation of Hanzi in the cross-cultural context. Our proposal is mainly based on two resources: Hantology and Generative Lexicon Theory. Hantology is a comprehensive Chinese character-based knowledge resource created to provide a solid foundation both for philological surveys and language processing tasks, while Generative lexicon theory is extended to catch the abundant knowledge information of Chinese characters within its proposed qualia structure. We believe that the proposed theoretical framework will have great influence on the current research paradigm of Hanzi studies, and help to shape an emergent model of intercultural collaboration.