- Xi warns against Westernization
- David Ownby opens the door to Chinese discourse
- Sinologists argue over transparency register
- Biden warns Beijing against espionage
- Balloon recovery underway
- German trade with China at record high
- Car sales plummet
- Heads: Sinology professor Marc Matten
On Tuesday, the global public paid particular attention to US President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address. Xi Jinping’s keynote speech, on the other hand, attracted less attention from the world public but all the more from us at China.Table. Xi spoke rather unwieldily in the old CP manner, but even if his rhetoric was nowhere near as dazzling as Biden’s, there were good reasons to listen to him carefully.
This is what our author in Beijing, Fabian Kretschmer, did. Xi warns against “Westernization” and praises the Chinese way as a guide for the Global South in his speech. This does not sound at all conciliatory toward the West, as some observers had recently hoped, but rather like a declaration of war.
Our second text is also about the “Chinese world order”. Fabian Peltsch spoke with Canadian history professor David Ownby, who is intensively engaged in the sociopolitical debates among China’s intellectuals. These are surprisingly lively.
Even as lively as the debates among German sinologists when it comes to cooperation with institutions in the People’s Republic? While some demand maximum transparency, others fear potentially endangering critical minds in China, as Marcel Grzanna describes the dispute.
Both sides agree on one point: More China expertise is needed, especially in those research areas that have so far paid little attention to the political situation. This debate could change that.
Felix Lee
Feature
Xi’s keynote speech: against ‘Westernization’
When the 69-year-old state and party leader Xi Jinping delivers his first keynote speech in a long time, the world public has good reason to listen more closely. After all, Xi outlines China’s political thrust for the next few years – just one month before he will begin his third term in office at the National People’s Congress.
On Tuesday, dressed as always in a white shirt and dark blue work jacket, he appeared before his leading cadres at the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party. Xi’s core message bristled with self-confidence: China had “debunked the myth that modernization equals Westernization.” What’s more, the Chinese way serves as a model for the developing countries of the Global South.
Xi: China represents ‘holistic democracy’
The People’s Republic has been trying to export its autocratic model of government abroad for several years. A paradigm shift can be observed in the argumentation of the state leadership: Beijing used to reject concepts such as “democracy” and “human rights” as Eurocentric, but it has now appropriated them for itself.
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