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A Sino-German discussion forum




By Joachim Güntner

Georg Blume, a German correspondent living Delhi, was asked how China is perceived from India. The reply was quick: “As very wealthy.” China no longer suffers starvation, it aims to take the United States’ place as largest economy, and the old Communist economy is ever more similar to the Capitalist economy.

Politically, though, the People’s Republic keeps its distance. The lines are drawn on human rights in China: the west demands more rights; Chinese leadership considers its obligation fulfilled. Is it all merely a question of perspective? Perhaps both sides are preaching to deaf ears because they have different definitions of freedom and human dignity.

To make things more transparent, at least among intellectuals, a two-day discussion forum was recently held in the contemplative remoteness of the Brandenburg province. The forum was organized by the Goethe-Institut and the Institute of Philosophy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; the atmosphere provided by the Stiftung Schloss Neuhardenberg.

The panel consisted of Wang Hui, Homi K. Bhabha, François Jullien, Thea Dorn, Alexander Kluge, Monika Maron, Xu Bing, Yang Lian, Zhao Tingyang, Helmut Lachenmann, Xiao Kaiyu and Li Yinhe. The guests from China were presented as a mixture of free thinkers and university affiliates, and moderator Georg Blume announced they would witness a rare sight: the Chinese in a political debate on an open stage.

In fact there were lively moments, but sparks never flew. Why we don’t understand one another was the motto of the meeting. Alexander Kluge was of the opinion that a layer of European concepts lies like lava over China. If one were to clear them away, it would reveal a “second history of logical reasoning” that is different than that in the west.

The French Sinologist and philosopher François Jullien provided examples of the different ways of thinking. While the European concept of freedom postulates an individual who breaks with the existing order, the Chinese way is to keep “all possibilities open.” Unlike Immanuel Kant, Confucius did not emphasize the autonomy of the subject, but his “inclination” to decide according to the demands of the moment. Traditional Chinese thinking strives for accord between man and the world, while the occidental way promotes discord.

Very few in Neuhardenberg wanted to hear about a clash of civilizations. Monika Maron’s attempts to speak more bluntly about the different status of civil rights in the east and west were in vain. When composer Helmut Lachenmann spoke of the European tradition of negative thinking to derive a greater capacity for self-criticism, for example than in Islam, he was rebuffed by Homi K. Bhabha, the Indian cultural theorist teaching in the USA: Salman Rushdie, who deals quite critically with his homeland is, after all, a Muslim. Bhabha did not go into the dues for this, the hatred of Rushdie.

The prominent cultural theorist had brought along a paper on The ethics of collaboration. In order to defuse cultural conflicts, Bhabha recommends that the parties do not strive to reach “consensus” in their opinions, but rather dynamic “convergence.” When moral concepts do not translate, it must be accepted and, in the spirit of neighbourliness, a third pathway sought between cultural relativism and universalism.

It is all very well to say that. Zhao Tingyang’s proposal of granting human rights comprehensively, but only reciprocally and “on credit,” for example so that a murderer forfeits his own right to life through his deed, was praised by the Chinese panel participants for its coherence, but rebuked by the Germans as an example of schematic “retributive justice.”

Wang Hui, a mentor of the New Left, and traditionalist poet Xiao Kaiyu described the psychological situation of workers as well as intellectuals in China in consistently dark terms. Li Yinhe demonstrated unpredictability. With her remarks, the sociologist had repeatedly seemed to whitewash deficiencies in culturally relativistic terms. But at the close of the meeting, she raised a sharp attack against the Chinese censors, lamented the ubiquitousness of lies and the ruination of trust. It was apparently overhasty to write her off as a hardliner.

This article appeared in the Neuen Zürcher Zeitung on 25 September 2012. Courtesy of Neuen Zürcher Zeitung.