Who is watching China in Germany?

© Trey Ratcliff / Flickr / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Up until a short while ago, China studies were still viewed as belonging to the so-called 'orchid subjects' inside the German university system.

You are wondering about the meaning?

Well, this fairly odd term denotes an extremely peculiar, even extravagant field of study that is somehow nice to indulge in but not really essential. Over the years, even institutes with excellent international reputation and a very long tradition in Chinese studies had to fight hard to secure adequate funding.

And what about research centres outside the traditional halls of academe?

Not so much to boast of either as only a handful of institutions exist that have integrated studies on China into their normally much wider research profiles.

One of the most prolific and renowned is the Leibniz-Institut für Globale und Regionale Studien (German Institute of Global and Area Studies) (GIGA) based in the northern city of Hamburg.

Currently, the GIGA has roughly 160 employees, including 90 academics. The latter, under the aegis of the GIGA, pursue their studies at four regional institutes (Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East); research results are regularly published in GIGA's own publication series.

The Institute of Asian Studies (IAS) is staffed with scholars specializing in a variety of countries, China being just one of them. Those working on China-related issues have backgrounds in different academic disciplines and carry out research on a wide range of subjects. The internationally refereed periodical 'Journal of Current Chinese Affairs' is their major publication organ; the latest issue is titled 'The Chinese Presence in Africa: A Learning Process'.

Then there are research outfits with a much narrower approach.

The primary focus of Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) (German Institute for International and Security Affairs), for example, is on foreign policy issues. Berlin-based SWP advises the Bundestag (the German parliament) and the German Federal Government, but also offers its expertise to the business world and the general public. Presently, SWP covers a wide scope of analysis ranging from security policy topics to aspects of climate protection and the political challenges associated with the shortage of natural resources.

In total, the institute boasts of eight research divisions employing more than 60 scholars. The Research Division Asia explores the connection between local transformation processes, foreign and security policy and their global repercussions. In this division, three of the academics concentrate on China (China-specific papers can be found here).

Another venerable institution is Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik (DGAP) (German Council on Foreign Relations), the German network for foreign policy, also based in Berlin.

The council's think tank pursues 'policy-oriented research at the intersection of operational politics, business, scholarship, and the media'. Around 30 foreign policy experts work in ten research programmes addressing transatlantic relations, European integration, Russia / Eurasia, international security policy, energy policy, global economics, the Middle East and China.

The small China programme, headed by Eberhard Sandschneider, explores the country's ascent and the consequences for German foreign policy, European-Chinese relations and the transatlantic relationship. It also examines leadership changes and the ramifications for domestic and international political stability (articles on China in the English-language online edition of the institution's 'IP Journal' are pretty sparse).

In addition to these age-old and rather stately research organizations, there is a new kid on the think tank block. This newcomer is particularly noteworthy as its research is devoted entirely to contemporary China.

Large and affluent private Mercator Foundation is the generous donor for the recently established Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) in central Berlin. It employs 30 China experts, making it one of the biggest research institutes in Europe.

The centre covers a much broader spectrum of topics than its rivals above, but also explicitly aims at policy advice. On its very sleek web site, seven central fields of study are presented in depth: policy making, foreign policy and economic relations, economic policy and financial system, innovation capacity and cooperation, social change and social security, digital China and, last but not least, environmental technology and urban sustainability.

The team at MERICS routinely publishes weekly updates on important news (in German only) as well as more comprehensive analyses, dossiers, individual comments and graphics.

There is a marked effort to cater to non-specialist audiences (which is not a bad thing, after all). Interestingly enough, there have already been warnings that the newcomer may soon become a monopolist in shaping public and political opinion in Germany.

Commentators have also voiced concerns that the research profile of MERICS is too vague or that historical perspectives are completely missing (for a recent article in German, look here).

It remains to be seen if the highly ambitious new institute will be able to achieve the cherished status of big player in the small China watcher scene eventually.

Admittedly, this short list is anything but exhaustive as there are a lot more of smaller initiatives, most of them private endeavours, that are engaged in some kind of China watching. Due to extremely scarce resources, very few of them are actually able to do original research. Foundations of political parties, too, commission small-scale studies on Chinese developments from time to time. But that's about it.

As you may have noticed reading this, China watching is not exactly high on the German agenda.

Often subsumed under the incredibly wide (and quite meaningless) rubric of 'Asia studies', Chinese studies remain positioned on the margins.

The rather sorry state of German China expertise might pose considerable challenges in the near future, because one thing should be perfectly clear by now: trying to understand China can no longer be considered a somewhat exotic undertaking reserved for a few select specialists in academic ivory towers.

Professional China watching constitutes an immensely important field of study deserving much more attention and way more resources than chronically underfunded universities or sponsors of existing research centres provide.

Using big data for intelligent urban planning

© hjl :: Flickr :: CC BY-NC 2.0

In the post-Snowden era, the collection and analysis of so-called 'big data' has increasingly become a highly controversial subject in public discussions around the world.

Proponents of privacy rights have convincingly demonstrated how the limitless gathering, storage and examination of virtually all kinds of bits and bytes not only by state actors, such as security agencies, but also by private commercial data miners all too often gravely violate citizens' basic rights.

Nevertheless, there are instances where the use of big data ultimately can be beneficial.

At the Beijing Institute of City Planning, Chinese urban planner Long Ying (who is also the founder of Beijing City Lab) and his colleagues are trying to find out what a certain type of traffic statistics might tell us about the link between patterns of spatio-temporal movement and socio-economic status.

To get around the sprawling Chinese capital, most travellers purchase smartcards as these are heavily subsidized and can be used for all sorts of public transport as well as for other services. Hopping on subway or bus lines, riders swipe their cards over readers, thus generating an immense data pool waiting to be analysed.

In a recent pioneering project, several Chinese researchers led by Long Ying studied the ubiquitous smartcard records of more than eight million passengers of the city's subway and bus systems from the years 2008 and 2010, respectively. In doing so, they were able to assess distinct travel patterns and to identify and characterize economically underprivileged residents.

Testing their hypothesis against the household travel survey (2010), a small-scale study (2012) and their own interviews with locals, the team discovered that those who frequently cover long distances tend to reside in faraway corners that are shunned by more affluent inhabitants of Beijing. In addition, erratic transit patterns might be an indication that the persons in question don't have steady employment or permanent housing.

Using both a traditional household survey and emerging new sources such as public transportation smartcard data, Long and his co-workers also developed a typology of four different groups of so-called 'extreme' commuters they dubbed 'early birds', 'night owls', 'tireless itinerants' and 'recurring itinerants'. Their tentative profiles reveal further details with regard to the close connection between specific travel patterns and social class.

Evidence from such big data surveys can be instrumental in revising public transit planning and design in general, and what is more, it can also help to devise a more equitable provision of social welfare or to direct resources for the construction of affordable housing, to name just two examples of social policy programmes.

New Scientist quotes Long as follows:

'Chinese people do not like to tell others their income. The government does not have a very effective way to know people's social economic status ... We hope our research can contribute to these projects.'

If you want to know more about survey methodology and findings, download the two relevant working papers (44 'Profiling underprivileged residents with mid-term public transit smartcard data of Beijing' / 57 'Early birds, night owls, and tireless/recurring itinerants: An exploratory analysis of extreme transit behaviors in Beijing, China') by Long Ying and his respective collaborators here.

china beats presents :: Wang Wen

Founded in 1999, China's premier post rock band Wang Wen from Dalian in northeastern Liaoning province has been around for incredible 16 years by now.

Last June, the genre veterans celebrated their 15th anniversary with the release of a new masterpiece (if you ask me) that took them three years to finish.

'Eight Horses', Wang Wen's eighth studio album in total, was recorded in the presence of visitors in a makeshift studio at Echo Library in their hometown of Dalian. The eight tracks on 'Eight Horses' are the outcome of a long process of refining their unique brand of post rock, showcasing grand melancholic, but also dynamic and daring soundscapes.

Most often named in line with Mogwai and Mono (with whom they have shared a stage more than once), current band members Xie Yugang, Geng Xin, Xu Zengzheng, Zhou Lianjiang and Zhang Yanfeng succeeded admirably in their efforts to make this latest album their most creative to date. And, in my humble opinion, they easily stand comparison with the two genre giants.

The digital album (as well as other work) is available on Wang Wen's Bandcamp page (please beware: the player below links to the far more expensive double vinyl LP!). For a recent interview with Xie Yugang (guitar & vocals), look here (where you can also watch a video of the song 'Welcome to Utopia').

Attention:

In the lovely month of May, the band starts an extensive European tour (their third, I think). The acclaimed post rockers will be on stage in the cities of Copenhagen, Dortmund, Berlin, Hamburg and Amsterdam, at the Dunk!festival in Zottegen (Belgium) and in Paris, as far as I know.

So, if you are based in old Europe, check out tour dates and locations here.

Chinese art :: politics and Western bias

Screenshot The New Yorker

Oh my, was I delighted when I came across this. In case you are not a regular reader of The New Yorker, you may have missed it.

Last Friday, an outstanding article by Christopher Beam in the esteemed highbrow magazine really made my day. At last, somebody who realizes that there are actually artists from China whose name isn't Ai Weiwei! That's a start, I guess.

Reporting from the international Art Basel fair in Hong Kong, the author interviewed several Chinese artists and art dealers who were present at the illustrious annual event (held alternately in Basel, Miami and Hong Kong).

He also took the opportunity to reflect upon the complex relationship between Chinese art and politics and Western media bias. Beam's piece deserves an extensive quote: 

'Westerners are often criticized for looking at Chinese art through a narrow political lens. Ask an American to name a Chinese artist, and the response is most likely Ai Weiwei, whose brand of political provocation ranges from mocking the government on his blog to collecting the names of more than five thousand children who died in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake as a result of shoddy building construction. 

He has become all but synonymous with Chinese art. (Evan Osnos profiled Ai Weiwei in 2010.) 

This focus on the political has persisted in the West for decades, fostered in part by the journalists who reported on China in the nineteen-seventies and nineteen-eighties, when relatively few international art critics had visited the country. 

Back then, the Chinese artists who drew global attention were those who criticized the Communist Party, including Huang, who organized one of the seminal independent art displays of the era, the unauthorized "Stars" exhibition, in Beijing in 1979. 

This journalistic bias persisted into the nineties, when several avant-garde Chinese artists, including Fang Lijun, Yue Minjun, and Wang Guangyi, gained international fame after their art was labelled "cynical realism" or "political pop", and described by Western media as an expression of disillusionment with Chinese society following the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square. 

By the mid-aughts, their paintings were selling for millions. 

More recently, the mantle has passed to Ai, whose success owes to many factors: his quotability, his gift for social-media engagement, his family background, his physical appearance, his humor, his excellent English, and his well-regarded body of work. 

But it's his defiance of the government that has made him an icon - outside China, at least.'

I couldn't agree more. Honestly, I am more than a bit unnerved by the omnipresence of self-styled Western poster boy Ai Weiwei. It may sound a little harsh, but I really can't stand the old chatterbox any more. The West (yes, I know, this is a highly controversial one-for-all label) is so incredibly obsessed with the protagonists who exhibit an impassioned anti-government attitude that different Chinese perspectives and divergent domestic discourses play no role at all.

The same pattern emerges over and over again; the coverage of other art forms, be it the literature business or the film industry, is not an exception.

I still vividly recall the shrill collective outcry in Western media outlets when the holy Nobel Price in Literature was awarded to Mo Yan in 2012. His whole body of work as well as his personal biography was meticulously dissected for the slightest trace of regime affirmation or appeasement.

The same holds true for the Chinese film industry. You have shot a flick with a shaky hand-held camera, depicting gritty locations and severely depressed characters? Well, chances are you will be invited to big international film festivals and hailed as the next icon of contemporary Chinese cinema.

Personally, I find it very disturbing and not only a bit arrogant & ignorant that fervent regime critique seems to be the sine qua non for the evaluation of Chinese art works and artists.

Sadly, the predominance of political defensive reactions is an ongoing and widespread trend that is also discernible in a large part of general China coverage.