EastAsiaNet Research Workshop, Memory in East Asia: Ruptured Pasts, Contested Presents, Uncertain Futures

Sean Golden, member of the Inter-Asia research group, spoke at the EastAsiaNet Research Workshop, Memory in East Asia: Ruptured Pasts, Contested Presents, Uncertain Futures, at the White Rose University East Asia Centre of the University of Sheffield (UK), 24-26/04/2014, on the subject of:.

后折腾时代 houzheteng shidai. From the Cultural Revolution to the Chongqing Model and Beyond. What Have the Children of Yan’an in Mind for the Future?

Abstract

How do the Chinese people –and more specifically, their current leaders-- understand their contemporary experiences in relation to the Maoist period (1956-1976) of the Chinese socialist revolution? How are social institutions, power relations and communications media –including the new ICTs and social networks-- involved in the construction of the corresponding discourses, and what are the implications of memories of Maoism for economic and political, as well as social and cultural relations and institutions, in East Asia and for the 21^st century world order? The “Chongqing Model” associated with the now disgraced leader 薄熙來 Bo Xilai, contemporary debate about the famine that followed the “Great Leap Forward”, the recent fleeting appearance in the Chinese media of the image of the “tank man” from1989 and the novel «盛世:中國, 2013年» by 陳冠中 Chan Koon-chung [“In an Age of Prosperity: China 2013”, published in 2008; published in English as The Fat Years in 2011] will serve as case studies to explore how the past, present and future are mediated, negotiated and embedded in public discourses through discursive practices in contemporary China. Chan Koon-chang portrays a fictitious –but ominously realistic-- collective amnesia. The Famine seemed to have disappeared from collective memory and the events of 1989 are taboo in public, yet efforts are being made to restore those memories. People marginalised by the processes of 改革开放 gǎigékāifàng recur to Maoist terminology and analyses to defend their rights. The Party condemns Bo Xilai for his policy of “唱红” chàng hóng singing red songs but 习近平 Xi Jinping uses 毛文體 [毛文体] Mào wéntǐ “MaoSpeak” to structure his own discourse on the 中國夢 Zhōngguó mèng “Chinese Dream”. What do the 延安儿女 Yán'ān ér-nǚ “Children of Yan’an” think about the past? And what have they in mind for the future?

CHINA’S FIFTH GENERATION OF LEADERS: an Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove

The CIDOB Foundation of Barcelona think tank has published an analysis of the new leadership of the Chinese Communist Party by Seán Golden, member of the Inter-Asia research group that comments on the following topics:

• The 18th National Congress of Communist Party of China has replaced half the members of the Central Committee..
• The Red Guard generation born after the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 have come to power.
• There was a strong internal struggle between the children of veteran revolutionaries (taizidang) and the meritocrats who had risen to power through the Party’s selection processes (tuanpai).
• The taizidang promote liberalization in order to generate more wealth; the tuanpai promote redistribution of wealth to combat social inequality.
• The results of the 18th National Congress seem to indicate that the taizidang faction is winning the struggle.
• There are signs of political change in China: the social media allow people to organise themselves and publicise information the official media suppress.

The full text can be consulted here.

Taizidang versus tuanpai: What's next for China's succession?

Seán Golden, member of the East-Asia research team, has published a commentary on the Bo Xilai scandal in China in the CIDOB Foundation of Barcelona's think tank publication Opinión CIDOB, n.º 148, 11 May 2012: Taizidang versus tuanpai: What's next for China's succession?

La Cina verso la nuova Leadership. Le sfide politiche ed economiche nell'anno del drago

Seán Golden, member of the Inter-Asia research group, spoke at the conference La Cina verso la nuova Leadership. Le sfide politiche ed economiche nell'anno del drago, organized by the Dipartimento di Studi sull'Asia e sull'Africa Mediterranea, Università Ca'Foscari Venezia (Italy), on 3 May 2012, in collaboration with the journal east. rivista europea di geopolitica and the think tank Istituto per gli Studi di Politiche internazionale on the occasion of launching Numero 41, Ombre cinesi (Aprile 2012) in Venice.

Abstract

The Party-State of the PRC is going through a generational change that will be formalised by the Party Congress in October 2012. The rapidly changing status of the PRC in the new world order requires a rethinking of many of the ideological bases of the socialist revolution in China. There are epistemic and interpretive communities acting as advisers to the new leadership that are proposing new paradigms “with Chinese characteristics” for international relations theory: Qin Yaqing, Yan Xuetong and Zhao Tingyang as examples.

Il Partito-Stato del PRC sta attraversando un cambio generazionale che sarà formalizzato dal Congresso del Partito in ottobre 2012. Lo stato di rapida evoluzione del PRC nel nuovo ordine mondiale richiede un ripensamento di molte delle basi ideologiche della rivoluzione socialista in Cina. Ci sono comunità epistemiche e interpretative che agiscono come consulenti per la nuova dirigenza che stanno proponendo paradigmi “con caratteristiche cinesi” per le teorie delle relazioni internazionali: Yaqing Qin, Yan Xuetong e Zhao Tingyang come esempi.

Constructing a Discourse of "Scientific Development" and "Ecological Civilisation" in China. Ecology and Ideology in Chinese Thought

Seán Golden, member of the Inter-Asia research group, spoke at the 9th EastAsiaNet Research Workshop at Universidade de Aveiro (Portugal, 19-21 April 2012) dedicated to risk and the environment in East ASia on the subject of Constructing a Discourse of "Scientific Development" and "Ecological Civilisation" in China. Ecology and Ideology in Chinese Thought.

Abstract

Hu Jintao introduced the concept of “scientific development” into official Party discourse. This is understood to refer to the need for better environmental management, the reduction of environmental degradation and conservation of the environment. Think tanks of the Central Committee have elaborated a discourse of “Ecological Civilisation” to accompany the previously constructed discourses of “Material Civilisation” (the economy), “Spiritual Civilisation” (culture) and “Political Civilisation” (democracy and the rule of law). References to Nature in an environmental or ecological context are rare in the history of Chinese thought, much more associated with Daoism than with Confucianism, but they do exist. Lynn White (“The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis”) pointed out long ago that the book of Genesis lies behind Western notions of the exploitation of nature. Frans de Wahl (The Ape and the Sushi Master) suggested that Japanese primatologists made important discoveries about the role of culture among primates earlier than their Western counterparts because of their grounding in a Shinto perception of the natural world. This study proposes to compare and contrast the ideological bases of Euroamerican and East Asian approaches to the environment.