MCLC: interview with Yang Fenggang

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Ian Johnson <iandjohnson at gmail.com>
Subject: interview with Yang Fenggang
***********************************************************

Source: Sinosphere Blog (10/18/13):
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/q-a-yang-fenggang-on-the-oxf
ord-consensus-and-public-trust-in-china/

Q. and A.: Yang Fenggang on the ‘Oxford Consensus’ and Public Trust in
China
By IAN JOHNSON 

In late August, two dozen Chinese public intellectuals from four of the
country’s main ideological schools — Confucian, New Left, Liberal and
Christian — met at Oxford University’s Wycliffe Hall
<http://www.ocms.ac.uk/content/sites/default/files/Report-Forum_for_Chinese
_Theology_Sixth_Annual_Symposium_9_9_2013.pdf> to discuss their country’s
problems. Remarkably, for a group of people who in Chinese public life are
often at each other’s throats, they came up with what is now being dubbed
the “Oxford Consensus” — four theses expressing their hopes for a
pluralistic, liberal China.

The statement is mild compared with more controversial documents like
Charter 08 <http://en.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/Charter08-2.pdf>, the brainchild of
the imprisoned Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo. The consensus simply
states the hope that China will remain committed to pluralism, as well as
fairness and justice in the political realm. The full text is posted here
<http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=627>.

The signatories include some of the country’s most prominent scholars and
writers who publish and speak out on social issues, like Cheng Ming, a
leading Neo-Confucian; the Christian sociologist He Guanghu; the New Left
film critic Lü Xinyu; and the liberal philosopher Xu Youyu. The statement
has not been widely reported in China, although a long feature
<http://www.nfpeople.com/story_view.php?id=4824> appeared in the
influential newspaper Southern People, or Nanfang Renwu, a sign perhaps
that the initiative has not completely run afoul of the government’s
continuing tightening of public discussion.

One of the participants was Yang Fenggang, a Christian and a pioneer in
the study of the sociology of religion in China. Mr. Yang is a professor
of sociology at Purdue University and director of its Center on Religion
and Chinese Society, one of the most influential institutions studying
religion in China, regularly hosting conferences and academic exchanges.

I recently spoke with Mr. Yang about the consensus and its meaning for
public debate in China.

Q. How did this get started?

A. The founder is a Wenzhou Christian named Wang Wenfeng. He went to a
seminary in Singapore, and that’s where he started the forum. The first
three were there and were just about Christian theology. The fourth was in
South Korea, and the previous one, the fifth, included Neo-Confucians. But
this time they pulled in the New Left and Liberal groups, too.

Q. In the West, this might be unremarkable — a group of intellectuals meet
and issue a statement. What’s the significance?

A. I think it is severalfold. The New Left and the Liberals, those public
intellectuals have stopped talking to each other. When they get an
invitation, one of the first questions is, Who else have you invited? If
the invited people include those from the other camp, they won’t
participate. It got to that level of tension. But this time, they
willingly sat together for three full days.

Q. Is this because it’s abroad?

A. Well, on the surface, Oxford is attractive. No matter which camp you’re
in, if it’s Oxford, it’s prestigious. Also the organizer, Wang Wenfeng, is
really humble. He never got into disputes with any of them. That persuaded
many.

Q. In China, these political labels have different meanings than in the
West. How would you define New Left and Liberal?

A. It’s hard. The New Left, in my view, is different from the old Left or
the Maoists. The New Left made clear that they don’t like to be called
leftists. But they like to be called xinzuoyi, the left wing. Many ideas
and terms are borrowed from the left in the West. They are critical of
capitalism, imperialism, globalization. This is where they draw their
theory, rather than the old Marxist, Leninist or Maoist theory. But every
conversation they’ll turn to it being the fault of the U.S. Growing
inequality, people losing houses — they’ll say it’s because of capitalism
from the U.S.

Q. And the Liberals, which some people call the “right”?

A. They have classic liberal ideas: free markets, individual rights,
constitutionalism. But, interestingly, there are some closer to the left.
These people began to say things like: In the Chinese situation, we need a
stronger government. Only a stronger government will make things happen.
I’d say there’s a new reshuffling of the camps. I personally came out of
the meeting thinking there were only two camps: There are people who
advocate a bigger role of the state and those who argue for individual
rights. So I think statism and individual rights is a bigger division. So
the four camps may not make as much sense. I can think of people from the
Liberals who speak for the need of a stronger state. Neo-Confucians, most
of them, argue for that, and even Christian scholars like Liu Xiaofeng
have become strong advocates for a stronger state.

Q. So all these people could sit together and talk.

A. Yes, we managed to come up with this public statement. Even though
there’s nothing big in it, that these four camps could form a consensus,
that itself is important.

People in China talk about the country being torn apart, that’s how bitter
the camps are. But here they can talk about it and start with what we have
in common and then see what our differences are. I think this is needed in
Chinese society at this point. The four points of consensus take into
account the concerns of the Left, the Liberals, the Confucians and
scholars of Christianity. Even though the language, everyone had to
compromise. Nonetheless, you can see it expressed their views.

We had very interesting debates during the evenings. But there was this
trust, and some people said, “It’s O.K., I trust you to formulate the
language.” There was this feeling that they had to move forward and agree
or else the country could be torn apart.

Q. The choice is interesting. You have Christians or scholars of
Christianity, but no representatives of traditional religions such as
Daoism and Buddhism. Is there a lack of scholars in those areas?

A. The main idea was, Who are the public intellectuals? Those who have a
public voice in China. When you think of it, there are almost no Buddhist
or Daoist public intellectuals. On Weibo I follow a lot of Buddhist
monks,fashi. Almost none talk about public issues or concerns.

Q. Why do you think that is? Are they co-opted by the government because
they get more benefits from the government — for example in temple
reconstruction, soft loans and so on?

A. Certainly I think that’s an issue. They comply more to the government’s
viewpoint. But also I think they may not be equipped to be part of this
public debate. Active public intellectuals today are not only
college-trained but have graduate degrees. But you’ll find few of them in
Buddhism and Daoism.

Q. This gets me thinking there isn’t much interfaith dialogue in China.
You almost never see religious groups getting together to meet. It is like
the party’s view is, if there’s a problem, tell us, and we’ll solve it,
but don’t you guys start talking about it because it might develop into
something independent, and we don’t want that.

A. That’s something that came up in the discussions. There was a feeling
that as long as we come up with something, it’s meaningful. We don’t know
how the authorities will react, but at least we can show that we can work
together. This group of people have the concern that the authorities may
simply go their own way without taking any input. When we sat together we
were conscious of this.

Q. It’s interesting that Christians were included. Of course, it started
as a Christian theological forum, but the participants from the other
groups evidently felt it was appropriate to be talking to Christians and
scholars of Christianity. The government sometimes views Christianity as a
foreign religion and less favorably than other religions.

A. A few years ago someone published a book which listed the main groups
in China. It included the traditional Left, social democrats, socialism
with Chinese characteristics, plus some newer groups — but no Christians.
You could ignore Christianity because it had no social impact. But now
Christians are part of the discussion. I see this as an introduction of
Christian scholars to the public forum.

Q. But wasn’t there the “cultural Christian” movement a decade ago?

A. What they did was to introduce Christianity as a cultural phenomenon
and a cultural resource, but not to express social or political concerns.
It was cultural: theology, history and the arts. But this time it’s about
expressing social and political concerns, like rule of law and that power
should come from the people, equality, justice.

Q. A key Christian contribution to this debate is the idea that rights are
God-given and not state-given, meaning a state or government can’t take
them away as it pleases. Was this brought up?

A. Yes, definitely. An interesting case is He Guanghu. He signed Charter
08. He was the only scholar who studies religion who was among the initial
signers. Since then he has been more public in making his position known.
His Christian faith has become publicly known. For many years he tried not
to say anything about it, but now he feels confident to be out.

Q. When we talk about public intellectuals, how do you define that in
China? Public space is limited in China, and Westerners often see it just
in terms of Weibo. How do these intellectuals participate in public life?

A. Weibo is one. Those who aren’t on Weibo participate in other ways. They
get invitations to give talks, sometimes appear on television, or write
articles to newspapers and magazines. And especially they participate in
conferences. Interestingly, in China, the media pay attention to
conferences. If a conference like this one here were in the West,
journalists wouldn’t care about these sorts of things. But in China the
media report on them. Conferences become platforms for people to express
their concerns, and their voices can be heard.

Q. What is the next phase? Will you meet again?

A. They hope to hold another one, perhaps in Brazil, to put China in a
global context. I think they hope to invite people from all four camps,
but this consensus is thin, delicate. It depends how people react.
This is not like Charter 08 or anything like that. The language is very
toned down. Even the old Left can’t really object. I think the government
will not be able to say much about it.

Q. Maybe in the future it’s not necessary to have a consensus, but just a
platform to discuss topics. People should have different viewpoints,
because no country has just one viewpoint, one consensus. The key is that
people are expressing themselves in a polite, constructive way.

A. That’s my thinking, too. In the future we could have real debate. We
did 
have some debates and some interesting moments, but the general tone was
most people felt this was hard to achieve and let’s maintain good
relationships, rather than pushing one’s views too hard. So they want to
start with this, but a healthy way is to have genuine debate, to show the
differences — not emotional and sentimental, but to make good arguments.
If that happens, it would be great. Hopefully this is the beginning for
that.