Teaching
Winter term 2016/17:
Seminar and Excursion to Hong Kong:
Democracy, self-determination and Chinese rule: “one country, two systems” and the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong
This is only advance information. More details coming prior to the winter term 2016/17!
Registration for the course: Before registering please carefully read this course description to decide whether you are interested or not.
For registration, send an email to ruehlig [at] normativeorders.net and include the following information: (a) preparatory meeting you attend, (b) why you are interested in the course and what you would like to discuss there, and (c) your course of study (including majors and minors). Please do not be shy to write what you are interested in. This is not a test of your knowledge but the purpose is to get a better understanding for the planning of the course, what students are interested in.
During the preparatory meetings organizational issues will be discussed. Although it is not obligatory to participate, it is highly recommended to do so.
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me (ruehlig [at] normativeorders.net). Since I am in Beijing until the start of the term, please write an email and do not call.
Target group: This course is for motivated students who are interested in the topic. The class will require rather a lot of work. However, students will receive a close and individual supervision and the course ends with an excursion. Don’t worry about previous knowledge; it is not required!
Please note: This course is limited to 12-15 students (due to financial constraints of the excursion).
Requirements to receive a performance record:
Teilnahmeschein: Regular attendance in class including the workshop, compulsory reading, six feedback papers on the compulsory reading, preparation of the workshop with a small study group including a short summary.
Leistungsschein: All requirements from the “Teilnahmeschein” as well as either of the following two options:
(a) a term paper (Hausarbeit, 20 pages)
(b) participation in the field trip including a résumé on the field trip
Course description: This is a cooperative course with the Department of Social Science at the Hong Kong University (HKU) and includes a regular seminar and a workshop at the Goethe University in Frankfurt as well as a one-week excursion to Hong Kong!
In late 2014 hundreds of thousands of young people, mainly university students, flooded the streets of Hong Kong in order to protest for democratization of the city demanding universal suffrage for the 2017 election of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive – the “umbrella movement” was born. For more than two months, three districts of the city remained occupied before the police cleared the streets without violence. Significantly, this was the most important pro-democratic movement on Chinese soil since the Tiananmen Incident in Beijing in 1989. Hence, the Umbrella Movement is not only a local phenomenon but has to be seen in the context of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) one-party rule which has remained largely unchallenged in the mainland throughout the last 25 years and the concrete implementation of the “one country, two systems” principle under which Hong Kong is governed. Hence, the Umbrella Movement is not only a significant local occurrence but raises questions of the legitimation of rule in China and Hong Kong in particular.
While “Western” observers and media were enthusiastic about the Umbrella Movement, Hong Kong itself remained divided: About half of the city supported the protests while the other half did not. By trend, older people remained more skeptical. Especially poor people – though being present at the occupation site of Mong Kok – distanced themselves from the movement by the majority. The same holds true for the economic elites of the city. Finally, many mainland Chinese citizens live and work or study in HK. Most of them did not take part in the protests either in fear of consequences for their families living in the mainland but also because many of them did not agree with the demands of the Umbrella Movement. This seems to be in accordance with the perspectives of the overwhelming majority living in the mainland itself which is not supportive to grant Hong Kong further political privileges and is – overall – satisfied with CCP rule. At the same time, parts of the Umbrella Movement did not only call for democracy but also more self-determination if not outright independence and condemned the influx of Chinese citizens both as permanent residents and tourists. Hence, the Umbrella Movement was in part not just a pro-democratic but also an anti-CCP if not anti-Chinese movement.
Consequently, this course seeks not only to reconstruct and understand the Umbrella Movement but asks also for the perspective of other citizens of Hong Kong (both local Hong Kong and migrants from mainland China) as well as putting it into the broader perspective of Chinese politics and development:
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the Umbrella Movement can be hardly called an exclusively local affair. Instead, it questions China’s approach of “one country two systems” that it has not only applied to Hong Kong but also to Macau and that it constantly offers to Taiwan in order to achieve the reunification of the country. Furthermore, the establishment of a true electoral democracy with competitive elections on Chinese soil should be seen in the context of the CCP’s unquestioned rule in the mainland. More broadly, even activists in other parts of the country who do not call for democracy but self-determination – most prominently Tibetans and Uighurs – follow very carefully whether mass demonstrations lead to Chinese compromises. Hence, conflicts over HK clearly question the Chinese way of rule and ultimately what Chinese sovereignty means in the 21st century.
Being held in a democratic country, this course is clearly drafted in light of a pro-democratic spirit. However, it is not the aim and intention of the lecturer to simply praise the merits of democracy. Instead, three questions need to be addressed as well:
1.) Why is the overwhelming majority of mainland Chinese citizens and half of the Hong Kong people satisfied with something else than “Western-style” democracy?
2.) What are the different pro-democracy movements calling for? Is it all the same? Are they truly motivated by pro-democratic demands (or socio-economic and/or nationalist reasons)?
3.) What do the people of Hong Kong, mainland China and Germany refer to when they talk about “democracy”? Are there different understandings of it?
This complex topic is addressed not only by means of a regular class at the Goethe University in Frankfurt but a workshop and a one-week field trip to Hong Kong are included. The regular class focuses on rule and decision-making as well as the relationship of democratic practices and theory in mainland China as well as Hong Kong’s history, polity and the Umbrella Movement. The workshop which will be held by experts on the respective topics introduces the students to Western democratic theory and the history of Germany’s democratization movements from the mid-19th century until 1990 when the citizens of Communist east Germany hit the streets demanding freedom and democracy. In Hong Kong, students will have joint lectures and classes with students of political science from HKU, meet pro-democratic activists, government officials, members of think tanks etc. for discussions. The main aim of the field trip is to get a better understanding of both supporters and opponents of Hong Kong’s democratization as well as to exchange views on political and societal order with students, scholars and citizens of Hong Kong.
The course includes three parts:
1.) During the winter term 2016/17, students will attend a regular class at Frankfurt University taught once a week at the Goethe University.
2.) In the first half of the winter term 2016/17, the students have to participate in a one-weekend workshop from Friday evening to Sunday evening on democratic theory and German democratic history.
3.) One-week excursion to Hong Kong.
Please note: There is NO POSSIBILITY to take part only in the excursion without the class and the workshop!
It is my intention to secure funding for flights and housing in Hong Kong. Hence, I assume (but I cannot promise) that the excursion will be very low priced.
Literature: A reader with the compulsory reading will be made available upon the beginning oft he term. Most likely, the reader will be available at the Kopierwerk, Adalbertstr. 21a, in Frankfurt-Bockenheim.
Introductory reading list (you do not need to have read this upon the start of the term):
Barma, Naazneen and Ratner, Ely (2006): China's Illiberal Challenge. The Real Threat Posed by China Isn't Economic or Military - It's Ideological, in: Democracy. A Journal of Ideas 1:2, pp. 56-58.
Chan, Chi Kit (2014): China as "Other". Resistance to and Ambivalence Toward National Identity in Hong Kong, in: China Perspectives:1, pp. 25-34.
Chan, Johannes (2014): Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement, in: The Round Table 103:6, pp. 571-580.
Chan, Stephen Ching-kiu (2015): Delay No More: Struggles to Reimagine Hong Kong (for the next 30 years), in: Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 16:3, pp. 327-347.
Chen, Dingding and Kinzelbach, Katrin (2015): Democracy Promotion and China: Blocker or Bystander?, in: Democratization 22:3, pp. 400-418.
Chen, Yun-chung and Szeto, Mirana M. (2015): The Forgotten Road of Progressive Localism. New Preservation Movement in Hong Kong, in: Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 16:3, pp. 436-453.
Cheng, Joseph Y. S. (2009): The Tiananmen Incident and the Pro-Democracy Movement in Hong Kong, in: China Perspectives:2/2009, pp. 91-100.
Cheng, Joseph Y. S. (2014): The Emergence of Radical Politics in Hong Kong: Causes and Impact, in: China Review 14:1, pp. 199-232.
Garrett, Daniel Paul (2015): Counter-hegemonic Resistance in China's Hong Kong. Visualizing Protest in the City. Singapore: Springer.
Kurata, Toru (2015): Support for and Opposition to Democratization in Hong Kong, in: Asia-Pacific Review 22:1, pp. 16-33.
Lui, Tai-lok (2015): A Missing Page in the Grand Plan of "One Country, Two Systems." Regional Integration and its Challenges to Post-1997 Hong Kong, in: Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 16:3, pp. 396-409.
Ma, Ngok (2015): The Rise of "Anti-China" Sentiments in Hong Kong and the 2012 Legislative Council Elections, in: China Review 15:1, pp. 39-66.
Ortmann, Stephan (2015): The Umbrella Movement and Hong Kong's Protracted Democratization Process, in: Asian Affairs: An American Review 46:1, pp. 32-50.
Rühlig, Tim (2015): Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement in Search of Self-determination. UI Paper 3. Stockholm: Utrikespolitiska Institutet.
Yuen, Samson (2015): Hong Kong After the Umbrella Movement: An Uncertain Future for "One Country Two Systems", in: China Perspectives 1/2015 pp. 49-52.
Questions?: If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me: ruehlig [at] normativeorders.net
Summer term 2014:
BA course: The importance of the state for the world order in times of China's rise - an introductory reading course (in German)
