(Editor’s notes)The conference “Defending Freedom, Democracy and Human Rights — 2022 International Media Symposium on China’s Democratic Future“ was held at the Ku’Damm 101 Hotel in Berlin, Germany from September 29th to October 1st, 2022. It was hosted by Sino Euro Voices e.V. and the Federation for a Democratic China. We will publish gradually the original conference papers and the Chinese translations at this website.
Thank you for inviting me to this important conference.
Berlin has become a place where dissidents not only from China but also from many other countries meet and organise resistance.
Today, it is important that the voice of the Chinese critical diaspora is also heard, especially when China is often reduced to the voice of one man named Xi Jinping….
But there is another reason why it is important to gather here:
The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine not only let us wake up in a different world on the morning of 24 February – as our Foreign Minister said…
It also signalled the end of an era in which we all hoped that not only Russia but also China would gradually but irreversibly turn towards democracy and liberalism.
Instead: It is common knowledge now that China and Russia have become revisionist powers with domestic repression and nationalist expansion as a common feature.
Not everyone here in Germany has heard or understood this wake-up call yet, especially when it comes to China: Many still believe or hope that appeasement or muddling through is possible when confronted with the reality of aggression and war. And we have to be aware of the many deep seated ideological convictions regarding the role of Western powers in the world, many of forms of self-hate of the West seem to exist in particular in German media and cultural circles.
But we are also seeing progress: established certainties in political discourse have been shaken, new fundamental questions about the political self-image of a democracy, not least regarding its resilience, have been raised and are up for debate.
Ivan Krastev – a very important public intellectual from eastern Europe – rightly speaks of the need for Western societies to move from the ‘age of soft power’ to the ‘age of resilience’.
I quote: ‘Soft power’ was the West’s strategy of using its attractiveness as a weapon. Resilience is the ability of liberal democratic societies to prevent others from using their vulnerability as a weapon.’
To make this transition towards a better awareness of the new threats for the international order we need to involve all sectors and subsystems of our society. This will be a slow and difficult process and – basically – a generational task, but I see a lot of the positive signs.
In the following, just a few ideas on which level a new China – and Taiwan for that matter – competence needs to be established.
First let us take a look at the level of politics.
It is undeniable that for several years now, a paradigm shift has been taking place in the public debate about China:
- mistrust and criticism of China’s domestic and foreign policy behaviour is growing:
- whether it is about the repressive measures in Xinjiang, the suppression of the opposition in Hong Kong and in China itself, or the threatening gestures towards Taiwan.
I argue that Russia’s war of aggression has much accelerated this turnaround: it is now clear that China – despite tactical distancing from Putin – is forming a united front with Russia against the liberal democracies of the West.
Likewise, many in German politics have now realised that the principle of hope, also called ‘change through trade’ (Wandel durch Handel) (which can be traced back to a famous article on China’s integration in Foreign Affairs, written by Richard Nixon) has become obsolete as a guiding principle….
As the Economist put it a few years ago: The West’s 25-year bet on China has failed.
In the meantime, the German Foreign Ministry is working on a new China strategy, which – as the Annalena Baerbock, our foreign minister recently said in New York – will be published next year. We should take note that she also said that the China strategy will be ‘very much in line with strategic thinking in the U.S.’ (!!)
But at the same time the fact remains that there is virtually no public debate on that topic. I therefore like to urge the Foreign Office to live up to its progressive, participative claim, by organising a public debate regarding China and Taiwan as new and challenging issues for Germany’s role in the world.
A new China strategy needs to articulate Germany’s interests in a peaceful solution to the Taiwan question more clearly than before: After all, in the last progress report of the Guidelines for the Indo-Pacific (for the first time!) Taiwan – or more precisely the Taiwan Strait – is clearly named as a conflict zone: Just a short quote:
‘Together with its partners, the Federal Government is of the view that the status quo in the Taiwan Strait can only be changed by peaceful means and by mutual agreement.’
Maybe we should ( peaceful means and a change of the status quo only by mutual agreement) define this as OUR ‘red line’ as suggested by Angela Stanzel in a very illuminating online seminar two days ago.
In addition, the further expansion of political, economic and cultural relations – below the level of diplomatic recognition – and last but not least the expansion of contacts with the lively and creative Taiwanese civil society should be massively promoted.
Just a thought: Why not establish something similar to a German Taiwanese Youth Office? (Along the lines of the existing German French, German Polish Youth offices)
In summary, it can be said that a new, intelligent China policy should commit itself more strongly than before to Taiwan. The country is a proof of a living democracy in the Chinese cultural area and belongs to ‘us’ in many senses. There is both: a clear moral obligation to stand with Taiwan as much as a geostrategic necessity as regards our core interests in a peaceful international order
But it should also be clear that a emphasis on Taiwan must not turn into a zero-sum game. It is also important to build up new ‘competence’ with regard to the People’s Republic of China: a field which needs to clearly discuss the geopolitical threats/challenges, but also continue to explore the possible scope in scientific and social contacts.
Finally: let me make two more comments on the challenges for the education system.
To start with a basic idea:
All important initiatives for ‘China competence’ in schools and other educational institutions should systematically include Taiwan as evidence of a living democracy.
Taiwan is still a ‘blind spot’ in the German educational landscape – not least in the landscape of civic or political education here in Germany. We need to take a strategic look at the issue of knowledge and the battle of ideas and narratives. In the case of Ukraine, for example, the lack of knowledge about the history of Ukraine has led to misjudgements and misunderstandings in the public and in politics. The same obviously is true for Taiwan /China.
There is an enormous need to catch up in schools, textbooks and also in extracurricular education. Taiwan’s ‘soft power’, which has grown over the years, can play an important role here – be it on the economic, technological or cultural level, but also in dealing with minorities.
A good example from academia: the project ‘Taiwan as a Pioneer’ at three German universities, funded by the Ministry of Education and Research, will focus on Taiwan’s role as a political and social pioneer in the coming years. The project aims at studying in-depth the historical, socio-political and cultural reasons for Taiwan’s role as a trailblazer.
This highly innovative and interdisciplinary program should be seen as an entry point to a broad based build-up of public knowledge regarding Taiwan its contribution to the world in the 21st century.
Last but not least civic and political education needs – to come back to Ivan Krastev’s point – to discuss the resilience of our societies against the new geopolitical threats and aggressions.
We need new long-term and profound educational processes that take a closer look at the vulnerabilities and strengths of our societies than before.
Taiwan and Ukraine offer important reference points for this – despite all the differences. For both conflicts are – to quote Timothy Snyder’s great essay in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs – ‘about establishing principles for the twenty-first century. It is about policies of mass death and about the meaning of life in politics. It is about the possibility of a democratic future’.
Thank you for your attention.
Christoph Müller-Hofstede is a sinologist and political scientist who has worked in civic education for more than three decades, with a focus on China, Asia, Migration and Democracy among other topics. After moving back to his hometown Berlin, he has started to work with the NGO ‘Dialogue at School’ which promotes democracy learning and civic education in Germany.
重新審視中國能力：德國政治和教育面臨的新挑戰
親愛的同事們，
謝謝邀請我參加這個重要的會議。
俄國侵烏驚醒世界，重新審視中俄兩個強權國家
柏林已成為中國和許多國家的持不同政見者聚集並組織抗議活動的城市。中國往往淪為習近平的一言堂，所以聆聽中國流亡人士的批評聲音是極為重要的。
我們在這裡聚集開會還有另外一個重要的原因：
正如德國的外交部長所說，俄羅斯對烏克蘭的侵略戰爭不僅讓我們在 2 月 24 日早上在另一個世界中醒來，它也標誌著一個時代的終結，在這個時代裡，我們曾希望俄羅斯和中國能逐漸、並且不可逆轉地步向民主和自由主義。
然而事與願違，中國和俄羅斯都已成為對內壓制異議，並大力擴張民族主義的修正主義大國。
在德國，並不是每個人都聽到並理解這個警聲，許多人仍然認為，在侵略和戰爭面前，綏靖或蒙混過關是可能的。
當然，進步還是有的，比如政治話語中某些理所當然的想法已經開始動搖，人們重新提出並討論民主政治的自我形象和其承受能力這類基本問題。
東歐的伊万·克斯特夫（Ivan Krastev）振聾發聵，明確地指出，西方社會必須從軟實力時代邁向韌性時代。「軟實力」指的是西方戰略能利用其吸引力作為武器。韌性則意味著自由民主社會具有能力，防止對方利用他們的脆弱性作為武器。
要在智識和政治層面上實現這一轉變，需要讓社會所有部門和次級系統參與進來。這將是一個緩慢而艱難的過程，而且基本上是幾代人的任務，我們總算能看到一些積極的跡象。
台海現狀只能通過和平方式及雙方同意的前提下才可改變
一個有新方向的中國和台灣是否能建立起來，我想就這個主題談談自己的想法。
首先我們來看一下政治層面：近些年來，公眾界關於中國的公開辯論已經發生了範式轉變，這是無可否認的。人們對中國內政外交的政策與行為，越來越不信任，批評也越來越多。這包括對新疆的鎮壓措施、對香港和中國本土反對派的打壓，以及對台灣的威脅態勢。
我認為，俄羅斯的侵略戰爭大大加速了這種轉變，顯而易見，中國儘管在戰術上與普京保持距離，卻依然跟俄羅斯結成反對西方自由民主國家的統一戰線。
同時，許多德國政界人士現在已經意識到原來那種樂觀的希望原則——也就是所謂的「以貿易促進改變」（Wandel durch Handel）作為指導原則，已經被顛覆了。其源頭可追溯到美總統尼克松 1967 年關於中國融入外交事務的著名文章。
正如《經濟學人》幾年前所說：西方對中國投下的25 年賭注失敗了。
與此同時，正如德國外交部長最近在紐約所說的那樣，德國正在制定一項新的中國戰略，並將於明年公佈。她還表示，中國戰略將「非常符合美國的戰略思維！」
目前幾乎沒有關於這個話題的公開辯論，我們的外交部具有進步思潮和參與性，它應當組織一場討論會，來探討關於德國在這場中國和台灣對立的新型、具挑戰性的局面中，所應當扮演的角色。一種新的中國戰略可以比以往更清楚地呈現，德國在和平解決台灣問題中是能獲利的。畢竟，在首次發布的《印太指南》最新進展的報告中，台灣——或者更準確地說台灣海峽， 明確地被命名為衝突區。
「（德國）聯邦政府與合作夥伴皆認為，台海現狀只有通過和平方式和雙方同意的情況下，才可以改變。」（摘自9 月 28 日Angela Stanzel博士於在線研討會Chinatable上的發言）
擴大並提升跟台灣的政經、文化關係
是否可以將這個定義作為我們（不可越逾的）的「紅線」呢？
我認為，只要低於外交承認的水平，是可以進一步擴大政治、經濟和文化關係的。還有很重要的一點是，擴大並提升與台灣公民社會的聯繫，因為它們十分活躍並富有創造力。另一個想法是，可參照現有的德國法國、德國波蘭青年辦事處，也建立起德國台灣青年辦公室這樣的設施。
總而言之，可以說，一項新的、明智的中國政策應該比以往更加堅定地支撐台灣。台灣是中國文化領域中，一個活躍的民主例證，在許多意義上屬於「我們這邊」。
但我們應該明白，這絕不能變成零和遊戲，也就是說，同中華人民共和國建立我們新的「中國能力」也很重要，這個領域需要明確討論地緣政治的威脅或挑戰，也應繼續探索科學和社會接觸的可能範圍。
德國教育應將台灣和中國並列
最後，我對教育系統面臨的挑戰有兩點評論。
先說一個基本的想法：在德國學校和教育機構中，但凡關於「中國能力」的重要課題，都應系統地包括台灣，把台灣當作富有生機的民主制度的例證。
台灣仍然是德國教育領域的「盲點」，尤其是在公民或政治教育領域。我們需要戰略性地看待知識問題，在思想和敘事方面也應如此。以烏克蘭為例，由於缺乏對烏克蘭歷史的了解，導致公眾和政治上的誤判和誤解。對於台灣和中國，顯然也是如此。
在學校、教科書和課外教育方面，我們都需要迫切趕上。台灣多年來，無論是在經濟、技術或文化層面，還是在與少數族裔打交道方面，「軟實力」成長很快速，它可以在這裡發揮重要作用。
德國大學中的「台灣先鋒」項目
學術界有一個很好的例子：由教育和研究部資助的三所德國大學的「台灣先鋒」項目，將重點放在台灣未來幾年將扮演政治和社會領域先鋒性的角色。該項目旨在深入研究，台灣作為開拓者的歷史、社會、政治和文化諸多方面。
這個高度創新和跨學科的項目應該被視為一個切入點，讓公眾廣泛了解台灣在 21 世紀對世界的貢獻。
最後，而且很重要的一點是，我再提出伊万·克斯特夫的觀點：公民和政治教育需要討論，當我們社會面對新的地緣政治威脅和侵略時，具備怎樣的的抵抗實力。
我們需要新的、長遠而深刻的教育政策，比以前更細緻地審視我們社會的優勢和脆弱性。
台灣和烏克蘭儘管彼此存在很多差異，卻為此提供了重要的參照係數。因為在這兩個地方發生的衝突——引用蒂莫西·斯奈德（Timothy Snyder）在外交事務中的優秀文章——都能為 21 世紀樹立一種原則規範。這是涉及造成大規模傷亡的政策、有關政治生活的意義，以及關於民主未來的諸多可能性。(完）
譯者：廖天琪，中文版小標題為譯者所加
作者Christoph Müller-Hofstede 是一位漢學家和政治學家，從事公民教育工作超過 30 年，專注於中國、亞洲、移民和民主等主題。他定居於柏林，與非政府組織「學校對話」（Dialogue at School）合作，該組織在德國促進民主學習和公民教育。
汉学与政治学者克利斯朵夫·穆勒－霍夫斯特德（Christoph Müller-Hofstede）在柏林「自由民主人權的保衛戰——2022年中國民主化國際媒體研討會」上演講視頻：
