On Friday 30 October, the Eddie McGuire, Fong Liu and Kimho Ip, members of the Harmony Ensemble, delivered a seminar on the history of Chinese music, and on Saturday 31 October they held a concert at Zeste. Below is a review of the concert by Professor Peter Stollery, head of the Music Department.

The lecture was followed by a brief wine reception.

1 March 2011: Natascha Gentz: The Chinese Press and Press Law in the late Qing Dynasty

  Professor Natascha Gentz from the University of Edinburgh gave a lecture on the topic above.

 The arrival of the press in early 19th century China brought a new player into the public  discussion of current affairs. Subsequently different understanding of what constitutes “fair public discussion” and what was to be regarded as “rumours”, “slander” or even “false accusation”. Disputes arose not only about correct distinctions between rumours, state secrets and legitimate public information, but also bootlegs and copy right violations, as well as illegitimate usage of print plants. While many of the conflicts were negotiated between missionaries, officials, journalists and workers, many cases also led to legal conflicts brought to the court.

        The seminar discusses different approaches and views on what role the new press should play against the background of legal arrangements of the Qing Code as well as concession laws. By analysing conflicting positions of a variety of stakeholders in a transnational context, it is shown how the early Shenbao was successful in skilfully negotiating conflicting claims and visions to establish itself as an authoritative voice in Late Qing China.

        Professor Natascha Gentz is also the Head of Asia Studies, Director of the Confucius Institute for Scotland, Director of the Scottish Centre for Chinese Studies.

22 March 2011  ; Dr Martin Mills, A Kind Thought is Better than Pure Religion: Tibetan mythologies of law and state violence

Dr Martin Mills, University of Aberdeen, gave a lecture on the topic above.

Modern depictions of Tibet as a peaceful haven of Buddhism have rarely tallied with the facts of its own history, which is as rich with war, insurrection and violence as anywhere else in the world. But how have Tibetans resolved their own tumultuous history with ideas of Buddhist government? This paper examines the Tibetan mythologies which surround the life of Tibet’s first Buddhist king, Songtsen Gampo – regarded by Tibetans themselves as the epitome of righteous Buddhist kingship, and of whom the Dalai Lamas are claimed to be reincarnations. At the heart of this mythology is the medieval tale of two unfortunate Buddhist monks from Khotan, who journey to Tibet in search of the great bodhisattva king, only to find life there a lot more violent than they expect ed, and the king apparently at the centre of it all..

 26 April:Dr Han YongQiang, Contemporary legal education in mainland China 

        Doctoral candidate Mr HAN YongQiang gave a lecture on the topic above.

        Major law schools and departments were re-established at a limited number of universities in mainland China in late 1970s. Many others have mushrromed at more universities since mid-1990s, as a result of which there are now more than 600 law schools, which can be grouped into certain types. The big number should  be not a problem,though it is claimed to be. The real problem, among others, lies in perplex over the desired role of legal education both in general and at different degree  levels as  well as the lack of bridge between legal education and legal career. Tentative and sporadic reforms have started, yet their achiement reamains to be seen.

 Does the Chinese Law of  Criminal Procedure Belong to the Socialist, or Civilian, or Traditional Legal Family?

        Doctoral candidate Mr YIN Bo gave a lecture on the topic above.

        It is not desirable to have a rigid classification of a legal system, or branch of law in a particular system, as belonging to a general legal family. It is dangerous to rely on one criterion if one acknowledges that individual characteristics of each legal family can be found in any of the others. Thus, to a purist’s eye, all legal systems are mixed to some extent. However, in terms of a ‘legal genetic map’ referring to several criteria, one might consider Chinese criminal procedure, and perhaps the current legal system in China, to be socialist rather than falling into any of the other families. We have argued that Chinese criminal procedure cannot sensibly be classified as ‘civilian’ or ‘traditional Far Eastern’. More interestingly, even though the current democratic tendency in Chinese legal culture is resulting in the revision of criminal procedure law by drawing on Western countries’ experience, the legal establishment is still primarily influenced by Soviet law and adheres to socialist ideology based on Marxist-Leninist epistemology. This means that the fundamental doctrine—‘socialist legality’ or the ‘rule of law with Chinese character’—which is officially advocated, is not equivalent to the Western concept of the ‘ rule of law’, but simply implies broad adherence to the law while being able to act beyond the formal and detailed legislative provisions. In other words, ultimately ‘socialist legality’ and, to Western eyes, the extra-legal factors this involves, will at present prevail in the field of criminal procedure and elsewhere in the Chinese legal system when deemed necessary by political authority.

21 June 2011 Representations of Bees in Pre-modern Chinese Culture 

        Dr David Pattinson, Lecturer in Chinese Language and Literature, University of Leeds, gave the lecture on the topic above.

        He examines the cultural representations of bees, and to some extent wasps, in Chinese culture up to the nineteenth century. Although bees were not studied and written about to the same extent as they were in Europe, the combination of order and violence, production and wandering, still fascinated many Chinese writers. However, cultural representations of bees in China have received very little scholarly attention, so my intention here it to begin to fill this gap. He shows how representations of bees evolved over the centuries, and in what ways these representations were a response to the political, social and philosophical contexts in which they were produced.

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MUSIC IN THE UNIVERSITY, In association with S-O-U-N-D,

THE HARMONY ENSEMBLE with the ELPHINSTONE FIDDLERS,

ZESTE AT CROMBIE HALL, Saturday, 31 October 2009

In the past, University Music has occasionally dared to dip a toe into the vast ocean of World Music. Last year for instance we enjoyed the Taiko Drummers and when he was in charge of the Department, Raymond Dodd brought groups of Indian musicians to the Mitchell Hall. This year, in association with S-O-U-N-D, The  Harmony Ensemble with Eddie McGuire allowed us no more than a momentary glimpse into the boundless musical cultures of China. I am not going to try to fool anyone into thinking that I know anything at all about Chinese music, in fact until tonight, my only experience of the culture has been the ersatz “chinoiserie” in works like Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. Surprisingly though, Mahler’s use of a mandolin in his score seemed a reasonable approximation to the sounds of the liuqin played by Cheng-Ying Chuang in Saturday’s concert.

The first thing to say about a performance in which most things were new to me was how strangely beautiful much of the music was, full of sounds both unfamiliar yet strangely familiar as well. There were fascinating parallels between Chinese and Western instruments. I have already mentioned the liuquin and the mandolin. There was also the zheng which Hooi Ling Eng often caused to sound like a harp. The yangqin or hammered dulcimer recalled Irish folk music or the cimbalom used by Kodály in his Háry János Suite. Cheng-Ying Chuang’s countertenor or falsetto singing was beautifully done, in fact it sounded far more natural than some of our Western exponents but there is nothing in our culture anything like some of the singing styles used by Fong Liu. From fairly familiar Western styles she was able to switch effortlessly to Beijing Grand Opera or to Inner Mongolian, Tibetan or Han styles with stunning catch-like ornamentations of amazing complexity. I found these styles particularly attractive especially in the opening and closing songs where the complex female vocalisations were contrasted with the simpler male countertenor.

What did I learn from Saturday’s performance? Firstly, that China is a vast country with many different musical cultures marked out by different tribes in different regions. Secondly, that Chinese civilisation is very old and that different styles of music have developed and changed over the years. Lastly, I discovered that purely by chance, our own Scottish Musical Culture has developed many interesting parallels with Chinese music. This of course brings me back to Eddie McGuire and some of the other musicians who have turned to exploiting and developing these parallels to create new music.

We heard several new pieces that followed this route in different directions at Saturday’s concert. Eddie McGuire’s song entitled Harmony with Chinese words by Fong Liu was very attractive with thrilling rhythmic patterns. Alexander Davidson, leader of the Elphinstone Fiddlers had written a beautiful piece entitled Glen View fusing Scottish and Chinese flavours with astonishing expertise while Kimho Ip’s composition featuring Yangqin, percussion and feedback echoes must surely have appealed to the electroacoustic experts in the audience. For those with more conservative classical tastes there was even a movement of a concerto, Fishing Song, complete with full blown cadenza expertly played by Cheng-Ying Chuang.

This small “taster menu” of Chinese music has certainly whetted my appetite and I hope we will have the chance to hear and learn more.

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On 4 November, Dr Kerry Brown, Senior Fellow at Chatham House, gave a talk on "The Future of Political Reform in China." Dr Brown pointed out that China today is a contradictory entity. On the one hand, its development is one of the great success stories of the last few decades. Since 1978, Chinese economic reforms have created a non-state sector and unleashed huge entrepreneurial dynamism. It has about $2.2 trillion in foreign currency reserves, about half of which is American debt. On the other hand, it shows signs of fragility and complexity. Political reforms have proceeded slowly. After the Cultural Revolution, much of the Chinese countryside was in chaos. Experiments with multicandidate elections at village level led to the creation of Village Committees, which the central government called on to assist in collecting taxes and delivering the one child policy. Gradually, this led to the practice of multicandidate elections, which were recognized in a provisional law passed in 1987 and a revised law passed in 1998. The law allows for open and competitive elections to Village Committees every three years. These elections at the lowest level of government have been seen as a partial success. However, experiments with similar elections at township level in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces have been seen as a failure. China's leadership is aware of the need for poltical reform, but there is no agreement on how to take things further. Dr Brown argued that in the next 10 years, China will face big challenges. These include, on the domestic front: demands from the legal sector for more judicial independence, the proliferation of non-governmental organizations and movements, an aging population, gender imbalances (more males than females), and the inevitable slow down in GDP growth; and on the international front: adjusting to China's new status and visibility in the world, improving relations with India, dealing with Taiwanese demands for a greater international role, and developing a cooperative relationship with the US. The challenge for foreign governments is to decide how to engage with China. The situation presents both limits and opportunities. On the domestic side, most foreign governments and investors dramatically underestimate the risks. On the international side, foreign governments need to consider how to work with China, including how and where to accept Chinese investments. Dr Brown emphasized that the CCP has signed up to the goals of rule of law, accountability and social justice, but the challenge is to find a model for the political system which is able to deliver all of these simultaneously. Questions from the audience concerned party organization, regional development imbalances, the relationship of economic to political reform, and whether optimism or pessimism is more justified.

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 On Friday 20 November, Professor Dan Waugh of the University of Washington gave a visually stunning and musically evocative presentation on the history of China’s northern borderlands. He began with a discussion of “borderscapes” defined not by their peripheral location vis a vis capital cities, but as zones of varied ecology, languages and ethnicity which profited from cultural, commercial and technological exchange. The Great Wall, he reminded us, was not one wall, but many. The traditional perception is that it was made to keep the barbarians out, but in fact some walls were made to keep control over conquered territory. Professor Waugh discussed the history of three northern peoples whose histories were intertwined with that of the Han over long periods: the Xiongnu, the Xianbei and the Khitan. During the Han Dynasty (206-220BC), the Xiongnu formed a loose federation controlling a vast territory from west of Alma Ata to Beijing. Han dynasty accounts as well as artefacts recovered from Xiongnu burials show the Xiongnu had much interaction with neighbouring peoples. The Xianbei, originating in Manchuria, were of central importance in northern China during the Six Dynasty period (220-581 AD). Treasures from their tombs include glassware from Iran and coins from Byzantium. The Khitan ruled the Liao kingdom (907-1125 AD) whose territory extended from north of Lake Baikal to the Sea of Japan. The kingdom had five major cities and an ethnically diverse population. Liao pagodas and Buddhist scripture deposits suggest a wealthy and devout society. China’s northern borderlands absorbed much from the Han, added much of their own and gave back to the development of Chinese civilization. Questions and observations from the audience concerned the logic of cultural transfers, Muslim influence in Ningxia and nomadic lifestyles in Mongolia. A bibliography from Professor Waugh's talk is available on request.

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On 20 January, Don Starr of Durham University gave a talk entitled "Will Chinese replace French as the UK's first foreign language? The Chinese Government's Confucius Institute Programme." Confucius, he reminded us, was out of favour in China throughout most of the 20th century. Now "the sage" is back in fashion. The PRC has also re-engaged internationally, culminating in 2001 with its joining the WTO. The idea of "soft power" that is, using attractiveness to get what you want has positive overtones in Chinese. It is linked to China's foreign policy goal of ensuring a peaceful environment for development. The Confucius Institutes are modelled on European institutions such as Alliance Française, the Goethe Institute, the British Council, the Cervantes Institute, Portugal's Camoes Institute as well as the Japan Foundation. Its primary activities are language teaching and cultural events. It does not offer any research funding. The institution behind the Confucius Institutes is the Office of the Chinese Language Council International known more simply by its Chinese acronym, Hanban. It is headed by a member of the State Council. The first Confucius Institute was opened in Seoul in 2004. Originally, 100 were planned, but there will be 500 worldwide by 2010. The Confucius Institutes in the UK have been active in language teaching, exams, cultural activities, textbook production, community engagement, conferences and curriculum development for schools. The UK has a poor record in learning foreign languages, but educational policies in relation to languages are changing. In 2005, 2% of UK schools offered Chinese. By 2008, 14% offered it. Amongst independent schools the proportion was 24% and amongst state schools 6.5%. The Confucius Institutes are contributing around £2m annually to UK higher education. Criticisms of Confucius Institutes, such as the Centre for Social Cohesion Report A Degree of Influence, include suggestions that they engage in political propaganda. UK academics involved with the Confucius Institutes generally refute such allegations as speculative. Questions from the audience concerned whether the CI's real purpose is to generate cultural legitimacy for economic expansion, comparisons with India, the extent to which Chinese may be considered one language, and the Google hacking incident.

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On 17 February, Professor Nick Pearce of Glasgow University gave a seminar entitled “A Flash in the Pan or the Bushell Bowl Debate.” Dr Stephen Bushell was a former medical attendant to the British Legation in Beijing who became an “authority” on Chinese art. In 1870, Bushell purchased in Beijing a cast bronze ritual vessel called a pan, 33¼ inches in diameter with a 538-character inscription on the bottom. In 1899 he sold it on to the Victoria and Albert museum for 80 pounds. The bowl featured in Bushell’s 1905 volume, Chinese Art, in which he dated it to the Western Zhou dynasty. French sinologists questioned the authenticity of the bowl on the basis of a lack of Chinese interest in the piece and historical inaccuracies in the inscription. In the second edition of Chinese Art published posthumously in 1909, Bushell stuck to his guns, citing Chinese experts as authorities. Decades of sometimes vitriolic exchanges ensued as various Sinologists took up positions. A Canadian scholar declared the bowl to be authentic on the basis its sound when struck and its smell when rubbed. However, to Chinese the bowl was an obvious fake. Feng Hao, a Chinese scholar of the 18th century, was the first to question its authenticity, noting in particular the use of characters in the inscription which did not exist during the Western Zhou dynasty. An examination of the bowl using modern techniques during the 1980s revealed that it is made from different kinds of metal, including possibly some scrap. The bottom of the bowl is patinated to simulate age and the characters are cut rather than cast.

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 Dr Neil Munro of University of Aberdeen gave a seminar entitled "Ways of getting a government permit in China: strategies and their determinants." Using data from the Asia Barometer nationwide survey in China of 2006, this paper took as its dependent variable a question on strategies for overcoming delays in obtaining a government permit. When confronted with official obstructions, the modal Chinese response is to wait patiently; use of connections and writing letters of complaint are close rivals, whilst bribery and acting without a permit are marginal strategies. The paper tested theories concerning what influences choice of strategy, including contextual influences and variation at the level of individuals and households. A multinomial logit model was estimated first across all of China and then for urban and rural sub-samples using GDP per capita as a proxy for level of development. In terms of context, rural institutions marginally discourage engagement, and region matters, too, but, contrary to expectations derived from modernization theory, level of development does not influence choice of strategy. In terms of characteristics of individuals and households, generational differences, gender, political values and evaluations of government performance are all important influences. The dependent variable is found to be a useful measure of cultural norms affecting China’s chances of evolving into a modern state. Questions from the audience concerned the wording of the question in Chinese, the areas of social life in which permits are required under statutory law, and differences between generations, levels of bureaucracy, and responses to the same question in other countries.

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 14 April 2011: Graham Thompson, The Blackford Trust

On 14 April Graham Thompson, chairman of The Blackford Trust, gave a talk on the activities of this Scottish charity and the wider NGO scene in China. The Trust’s aim is to provide opportunity—a “hand up” rather than a “hand out” as Graham put it. It works through partner organizations and since 2008 has awarded £43,000 of which about half has gone to various parts of China. Projects include a microfinance project for women in a poor rural county, library projects for village schools, including some areas with high levels of HIV infection due to blood donor contamination, a project to train students in Shanghai in the skills and ethos of voluntary work, a project to find domestic foster families for abandoned girls, and a project supporting apprenticeships in traditional skills relevant to preservation of cultural heritage. Graham noted that although China’s spectacular economic growth has raised 600 million people out of poverty since 1978, according to a recent DFID report there are “diminishing returns on growth” for the poor, and 135 million still live on less than a dollar a day. The NGO sector in China is growing rapidly: between 2003 and 2009, the number of registered NGOs increased from 270,000 to 410,000 and donations increased from RMB4.5 billion to RMB33 billion. The legal framework for charitable activity in China is presently undergoing revision. Specifics of China’s social and political system present particular challenges to NGO activity: establishing non-governmental organizations can be difficult, and it is not possible, for example, to create organizations spanning several provinces. Questions from the audience concerned the philosophy of the Trust and its proof-of-concept approach to charity work, as well as such issues relating to the wider charity scene as corporate giving, the role of the Chinese diaspora, cultural values, government policy, and the different registration requirements for foreign as opposed to domestic charities.

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5 May 2010: Professor Ian Taylor,  China’s Rise in Africa: History and Trends”

The last meeting of the 2009-2010 session was held jointly with the Department of Politics and International Relations on Wednesday 5 May. Professor Ian Taylor from the University of St Andrews gave a talk entitled “China’s Rise in Africa: History and Trends”. Professor Taylor argued that China’s recent intense engagement with Africa constituted the most important development in Africa since the Cold War. This engagement has a long pre-history, going back at least to the fifteenth century voyages of the Chinese admiral Zheng He. In more recent times, China’s official self-image in its engagement with Africa has been that, unlike the interest of western powers, it is not colonial in character and is based on mutual benefit. Professor Taylor traced this engagement through four phases: (1) 1949-76, characterised by attempts to export China’s revolutionary model, which was successful in some cases and which resulted in heavy African support for the PRC to take over the China seat at the UN in 1971; (2) 1976-89, a period which saw a decline in China’s interest in Africa (though officially this is denied by the PRC) as not useful for the strategy of socialist modernisation; (3) 1989-2000, a renewal of interest and engagement with Africa, partly driven by China’s leadership’s response to Western attacks on its suppression of the movements of 1989, criticisms which were not echoed by many African leaders who feared popular resistance to their own rule; (4) 2000 to the present, the period which has seen exponential growth in trade between China and Africa. This is overseen by FOCAC, the Forum on China–Africa Cooperation, which is more active than, for example, EU conferences on Africa and which has formed a model for other countries’ relationships with Africa, such as those of Turkey and India. However, Professor Taylor ended by stressing difficulties that China has in pursuing consistent policies in engagement with Africa. There has been a decline in the capacity of the Chinese state to control other actors in this engagement, such as provincial governments and major energy companies which compete with each other for African oil. China is not monolithic, and does not have a single, united, Africa policy. The talk was well attended and generated a lively question and answer session.