Showing there is still some major differences between the European Union and China in areas such as free speech and human rights, a clash about censorship of books and the Internet led German Chancellor Angela Merkel colliding with Beijing and ripping Communist dictatorships for blocking freedom of speech.
Representing China, which is this year’s guest of honor at the annual book publishing fair in Frankfurt, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping rebuffed criticism by German commentators of Beijing’s censorship of books and the Internet and demanded respect for China’s own ways. “Various ideologies must not hamper mutual development,” he said, as Chinese in the audience clapped, while the German guests in a theatre at the Frankfurt fairgrounds listened impassively.
“We are open to accepting elements from outside, but on our own cultural foundations,” Xi said. A few moments later, Merkel won applause from the German side of the room with a plea for competition of ideas. Describing her own childhood under the now vanished East German communist dictatorship, she said people had yearned for books smuggled in from the West. “Books emphasize all those differences that are so threatening to dictatorships,” she said. But Merkel, who had met with Xi for 90 minutes the previous day at her Berlin office, kept the disagreement gentle, saying she welcomed China as a guest and Germans were immensely curious about China and its economic achievements.
Human rights groups have accused the fair organizers of pandering to China at a pre-fair symposium on Chinese literature in Frankfurt last month. Beijing demanded two dissidents not be invited to the pre-fair event. When the two Chinese writers showed up anyway, Beijing officials briefly walked out.
The chief organizer, Juergen Boos, toughened his stance towards China, saying, “We strongly condemn the human rights breaches and the restrictions on freedom of opinion and the press in the People’s Republic of China.” Guest-of-honor status allows China to win special attention from the German arts media and to stage a cultural exhibition at the fairgrounds. That show emphasizes the long history of calligraphy and printing in China, with replicas of its early books.
Boos insisted China had been an excellent choice as this year’s focus nation, saying, “You can marvel at China, fear it or criticize it, but you can’t ignore it.” He said dialogue with China was likely to bring change, but a book fair was “not the United Nations.” He added that, “The subject here is literature. We can describe conflicts, but we can’t solve them here,” he said. Xi met with Merkel before the opening. Their “intensive, 90-minute discussion in a particularly friendly atmosphere” covered Iran’s nuclear program, the upcoming climate change conference in Copenhagen and the state of China’s economy, Merkel aides said in a statement. In a foretaste of Germany’s change of government, Xi also met at his hotel with Guido Westerwelle, leader of the Free Democrat Party (FDP), which is about to enter into government with Merkel’s party. Westerwelle is tipped to become foreign minister.
Earlier, she spoke of the opportunities offered by the fair. “This is a unique chance for China to present the richness of its culture and literature,” Merkel said. Merkel added that she expected controversial discussions about freedom of expression in China. “In my conversations with Chinese representatives I will make it clear that freedom of expression is not a threat but an opportunity. At least, that is our experience in Germany,” Merkel said. Beijing has spent lavishly on a special display and artistic performances during the book fair, where special-guest status attracts the attention of the German arts media to the guest nation’s books. Beijing-Berlin relations have become even again after a period of strain in 2007, when China was upset at Merkel for meeting in her office with the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. The Chinese occupied Tibet in 1951 and say it is an integral part of China.
However China’s bid to shut dissident authors out of its official events program provoked anger among German commentators. Amnesty International appealed to Beijing to end censorship. “Even if it is here as a guest, China must be constantly reminded that it needs to observe human rights,” said Monika Lueke, secretary general of the German section of the human rights organization, in an interview with the German Press Agency Deutsche-Presse-Agentur (dpa.)
Lueke said China routinely prevented certain authors from publishing their writings or travelling abroad. It also censored what its people could read on the Internet, she said in Berlin. “They have a censorship authority with 30,000 employees that monitors the Internet day and night,” she said, demanding this cease. “Of course one is polite to guests. But you are also frank with a guest: you don’t mislead your guest. The Chinese have to be told that there are certain basics which need to be observed,” she said. Beijing sent nearly 1,000 performers, authors and officials to Frankfurt for the special show. The five-day fair  is the world’s biggest trade show in book publishing.
Two academics criticized the German media’s coverage of Chinese news as shallow, but a former German TV correspondent rejected the claims in a debate at the Frankfurt Book Fair. “They create the impression among German people that any dissident point of view in China is instantly suppressed,” said Thomas Heberer, a political science professor and China specialist at Duisburg University. “That’s the bias.” Heberer said that hearing about biased and shallow reporting had prompted ordinary Chinese to feel solidarity with the government last year and thus increased the sense of legitimacy of the political elite.
“The main problem is that the media are highly selective,” said the other professor, Kai Hafez of Germany’s Erfurt University. “They don’t report day-to-day politics, but sensational oddities.” Describing his analysis of reports during unrest in Tibet and the Olympic Games last year, he appealed to German correspondents to interview more ordinary Chinese instead of always calling the same experts, human-rights activists or dissidents.