Sinology is one of those unenviable disciplines that have to work in the shadow of a dictatorship.
This repeatedly forces the subject to come to terms with a power that is suspicious of freedom and thus the lifeblood of science.
Even more: a power that strives to rule into the territory of Sinology, which it considers its sovereign territory, and to establish a political sovereignty of interpretation.
This includes attempts to influence the offers of foreign universities, including German ones, although it is debatable how far the efforts have progressed.
In any case, they cannot be overlooked and one would do well to keep an eye on them.
Naturally, China has much greater organizational possibilities for controlling foreign research and other academic activities in the country itself. Because the regime relies on the uniqueness of Chinese culture for its legitimacy, this basically affects all humanities subject areas.
Above all, however, it applies to political and social science field research.
Debate on the relationship between science and morality
Some sections of sinology, namely the "understanders of China", are finding it difficult to recognize a serious problem in Chinese politics at all.
Nevertheless, in view of the described situation in the subject, sooner or later a debate about the relationship between science and morality was bound to ignite, with the most recent articles in the FAZ (“Against the moral crusade” and “Limitless compromise?”) with reference to the question legitimate research has entered a new round.
China, it seems, is in the process of raising awareness of a problem that the humanities and social sciences, which are becoming increasingly subject to economic constraints, have too much repressed in the name of value-freedom and cultural relativism.
In the debate, which is exemplary in this sense, one side (Andreas Fulda, Mareike Ohlberg, David Missal, Horst Fabian, Sascha Klotzbücher) builds on exactly such considerations and emphatically advocates a primacy of criticism that renounces unfree, political guidelines diffractive research implies.
The other side (Björn Alpermann, Gunter Schubert) formulates a primacy of research that must not be hindered by the "normative purism" of "moralizing crusaders".
The acquisition of knowledge, it is said, for which there is ultimately a public mandate, should be separated from the "normative level".
But how, the critics rightly object, is research supposed to produce the promised “empirically proven knowledge” that supposedly cannot be obtained in any other way if it has to be carried out under the aegis of the Chinese Communist Party and its own normative agenda?
In fact, one does not have to accuse the critics of hindering research – China is already concerned about that itself. However, the “researchers” believe that they can outsmart the Chinese side through “tactical compromises” and “mimicry”.
It is probably in the nature of things if it is not specified what such “compromises” look like.
However, one has to ask oneself what understanding of science is actually involved if one thinks one can pursue it with the ethos of a secret service.
Could it be that there are other ways to evade Chinese control than deception - namely through research that does not even submit to it?
And isn't Björn Alpermann's remarkable and extremely critical book about Xinjiang, the irritated reader asks, proof of this?
The author is Professor Emeritus of Sinology at the University of Bochum.