Assessment

In two weeks from today, I will fly down to Stockholm and have lunch with Ally before taking the train to Örebro for the last meeting of the course that I have been taking this semester. In preparation for this, I have completed the final course assignment, which consisted of making a complete assessment of a teaching portfolio – in this case, a portfolio written by someone applying for promotion to a permanent position at a technical university. Assessing someone who works in a different field really helps when it comes to focusing on the pedagogical side rather than the subject matter.

Meanwhile, the last days of protests in China seem to have calmed down a bit in reaction to greater police presence and colder weather. It is hard to imagine how much courage it must have taken for people to join these protests, especially as the prospects of real change remain so low. After all, admitting that you were wrong is not a big thing among leaders in authoritarian societies –  or in democracies for that matter – but in the latter, it is at least possible for the people to elect new leaders and thus facilitate institutional learning.

While “zero-covid” may have made some sense at some point, in an age of Omicron, it is wholly unsustainable (something we have all known for many months now). Although the Chinese government today announced the easing of some restrictions (which, in turn, will undermine the zero-covid policy even further), a fundamental reorientation would signal that political change can be accomplished through protests, which is obviously a very dangerous message to send for an authoritarian regime. All of this reminds me that human fallibility and the possibilities of learning should really be at the forefront of our arguments for democracy. Even if initially correct at some point, authoritarian leaders will inevitably invest so much prestige in their decisions that, over time, they lose touch with reality.

Five years

Though perhaps not out of the woods just yet, my Omicron encounter has so far been exceptionally mild. While I recognize that this is not a regular cold and that people are still dying from Covid, my own experience as a triple vaxxed healthy adult is still not that unusual with many cases being completely asymptomatic. As such, it is not surprising that domestic resentment with China’s zero-covid policy is growing. A recent declaration from Beijing to “unremittingly grasp the normalisation of epidemic prevention and control in the next five years”, has clearly not gone down well with its lockdown-tired urban population, many of whom are now looking for a way out, with internet posts on “run xue” or “run philosophy” becoming increasingly popular. Considering the global spread of Covid, including among animals (!), zero-covid is obviously not going to work but for different reasons, not the least its fondness for social control, the Chinese communist party does not appear ready to admit defeat just yet.

Under the smog

Reading the news this morning, I saw that Beijing is experiencing heavy smog with sandstorms turning the skies orange. After 6+ years in Umeå, it is hard to even remember what that felt like. Looking through my Google Photos, I did find this picture taken from our hotel room back in 2011 though when Anna and I spent a few feverish summer months in the Chinese capital. Apparently, the Air Quality Index (AQI) is right now many times worse (actually, it is off scale), but already back then I used to ge headaches just by walking to the subway. At least, the Chinese government is working on the problem by planting trees as a “Great Green Wall” and stepping up its nuclear programme to reduce coal use.

Arab spring

Of slightly greater importance than me defending my PhD and moving to Asia, the Arab Spring also started ten years ago. I remember being in Shenzhen with Anna when the CNN broadcast at the hotel would be interrupted by a message saying “satellite connection lost” every time there was reporting on the tumultuous events going on in Tunisia and then later across all of Northern Africa.

With the possible exception of Tunisia itself, little progress has been achieved in the decade hence. Instead, with authoritarianism spreading around the world, liberal optimism has become a source of ridicule rather than inspiration. Today, few people are willing to argue for engagement over sanctions or even defend basic democratic norms at home against those calling for ever greater surveillance. The most worrying aspect of this is perhaps the loss of a long-term vision, that it has become seen as outrageous to suggest that all of the world can one day become like the Nordic countries, that people everywhere should have the right to live free from want and oppression.

Thinking back to 2011 when I was blogging under the sulphurous haze in Beijing and visited Art District 798, the repressive reign of Xi Jinping was still in the future. Dark as things have become, in particular in Xinjiang, it is strange to think how curious and tolerant Chinese society seemed at the micro-level back then. I often wonder how much of that that remains.

Vaulting ambition

Over the winter, my main goal at the gym has been to run 10 km in less than 50 minutes. Today I once again fell short of that goal but at least I was able to bring the total accumulated distance on the treadmill this year above 100 km. As I sit down to write what will be my 700th post here on Rawls & Me, I am thinking of insomnia on the west coast of Sweden, of lingering jetlag and that spring in New York with Patrick Stewart playing Macbeth: “vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself”.

Meanwhile in the real world, the plot of the detained Swedish bookseller Gui Minhai thickens, Thomas Friedman declares that it is now “code red” with regard to Trump in the White House and, in Italy, fascism is becoming normalized. It would be one thing if irrationality would be limited to such anti-democratic forces but watching Al Gore’s ”An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” I was reminded of the same strange mix of lying and delusion that we have come to associate with Trump. I do not know what is worse, if Gore actually thinks that “the world can easily be powered by renewables” or if he knows that it is not true and lies about it?

Maybe, as my long-time Australian co-author suggests in a recent article on geonengineering, it will be the developing world that finally cuts through all this hypocrisy and forces the rich countries to take real responsibility for climate change?

Aloft

From Aloft Beijing Haidian to Atlanta or SFO, there is something deeply confusing with hotel rooms that look identical across continents. For the moment, the windows come with the half-abandoned warehouses and factories of East London.

In China, Aloft was like a sanctuary when the cultural shock became too overwhelming. Today it was just the cheapest hotel closest to London City Airport. Still, it brings back memories of long evenings with endless manuscripts and a highly globalized teddy bear.

Contradictions

A decade ago, I read an article entitled “When Will the Chinese People Be Free?”. In it, the American academic Henry S. Rowen argued that growing economic prosperity would automagically make China “Partly Free” by 2015 and “Free” by 2025 (using the labels from Freedom House). What a difference ten short years can make.

When working in China, I was often asked how I could “support” such a regime by living there. While I understood where that question was coming from, my answer has always been that more engagement is better than less. As long as one avoided certain sensitive topics such as Tibet or the Falun Gong movement, I was in fact surprised by how open both Chinese students and fellow faculty members were about the dysfunctionality of authoritarianism.

Now, as I find myself writing about Russia (and wanting to travel there), similar questions have returned. However, far from discouraging me, they have made me even more convinced of the need for new, more positive narratives about Russia’s role in the world. Otherwise, just like in a preschool, if one child is seen as a troublemaker, that may quickly become the only role that child knows how to play.

Winter is coming

Biking through an icy mix of sleet and freezing rain, I have to admit that it has been a rather rough day, with a journal rejection letter and a lecture that somehow failed to connect with the students. Although everyone in academia probably has days like these, they still make you doubt your abilities.

Once at home, I make myself an Inferno Blend espresso. With the Plane Finder app informing me that the plane passing overhead is an Etihad 777-200 on its way to Dallas/Fort Worth, I quickly feel much less miserable, especially after some Swiss dark chocolate. Sometimes escapism can be such an easy fix.

Meanwhile, in the real world, Xi Jinping is cementing his rule and pushing China further away from any future of liberal freedom and democratic citizenship, with “Sesame Credit” being the latest, and perhaps most ominous, example of what essentially amounts to the gamification of authoritarianism. Yet, I maintain, the real threat to democracy comes not from regimes like these, but from our own inability to uphold democratic values and ideals at home. In a darkening world, the power of our example is needed more than ever, something that seems forgotten with every new round of anti-terror laws.

When I lived in Beijing, the banality of authoritarianism was everywhere to be seen. No one would seriously want such a future for their children. I remain confident that, in time, liberal democracy will prevail and become universal. But right now, it does seem like winter is coming.

Vineyard Cafe

Walking up the jet bridge from SK527 last night, there was a very discernible smell of coal in the air. For someone who has spent the last half decade fighting fossil fuels and coal in particular, it may seem strange to admit that this filled me with an almost overwhelming sense of nostalgia. Memories of cold morning runs through Ehrenfeld but also long dizzy summer afternoons marking exams at the Vineyard Café in Beijing, sensations so very different from any sanitized global future.

A coffee and an apple juice later, Monocle24 informs me that it is 9 am here in London and 12 pm in Nairobi, meaning that it is soon time for me to catch my train from St Pancras.

And since no counting had begun
we lived a thousand years in one

Lost Heaven

Five years ago, I was returning from Shanghai and a stunning dinner in an old villa in the French Concession. Situated in a garden with hundreds of candle lights, the restaurant served up some of the best Yunnan cuisine I ever had. In an era of cultural capitalism, it is of course not surprising that this restaurant has since turned into a chain. What sparked my interest however was that this very chain has now opened a restaurant in Qianmen 23, a building which used to house the American Legation in Beijing, and which plays a very special role in a novel that I wish to finish writing one day.

Anyway, after a very stressful week, I am happy that it is finally Friday and that I can open a bottle of Grüner Veltliner and begin packing for my upcoming expedition to the Sherwood Forest. Next time I write here, it will be from the British Isles.

Fudan International Summer Session

Back in 2011, I was teaching a summer school at Peking University. The experience was extremely gratifying and I learned a lot from my students who came both from China and the rest of the world. Due to a somewhat unexpected twist of events, I am now scheduled to return to China for one month of intensive teaching in July 2015. This time however the setting will be Fudan University in Shanghai and it will be a trip with the whole Eriksson-Karlsson family. Yet, like in Beijing, I will offer a course on global environmental governance:

“In a time of great power rivalry but also global cooperation, this course examines new and old forms of environmental governance at both the national and international level. Taking China as its natural starting point, the course looks at what role China could play in driving the global transition to sustainability. The course is primarily focused on climate change but seeks to offer a more general introduction to the environmental challenges facing humanity in the 21st century. By taking the course, students will not only learn about environmental sustainability but also develop a deeper understanding of how science influence policy and how international regimes are designed, negotiated and implemented”

Eine andere Welt ist möglich

It can be a morning commuter train in the Rhineland or school children walking along the river banks in Phnom Penh. As we travel the world, we experience the physical communality of humanity, how it finally seems to be within our grasp that we share the same common destiny as a species. Working on humanity’s long-term prospects as I do, it can be a brutal reminder that not everyone shares this insight and that many, even educated people, still think that we can afford a future of armed conflict and interstate animosity. At least to me it seems obvious that these people, while clinging to scientific euphemisms such as “security architecture”, “geostrategic balancing” and “power projections”, are not neutral observers but actually, to a large extent, the makers of the nightmarish futures that they fear.

Today at HUFS, the Graduate School of International and Area Studies together with Vrije Universiteit Brussel organized an EU-sponsored conference on “Europe and the Shifting Strategic Trends in East Asia”. The first presenter was a Dr Louis Simon who gave a paper entitled “Offshore Power Europe? A European Geostrategy in an Asian century”. Although I have spent many hours in conference rooms listening to the misanthropic autism of IR-realism, the last months of peaceful hikes and lofty scholarly pursuits had left me somewhat unprepared for what I was to hear:

“...the rise of China incentivises Europeans to think strategically – something that has been prevented by America’s benign penetration since WWII. It also offers Europeans an opportunity to get Russia off their backs, as China demands greater attention from Russian in eastern Eurasia. Europeans should therefore assist the rise of China as a means of shaking off external penetration in Europe and its greater neighbourhood. In turn, a united Europe playing an offshore power role in eastern Eurasia could, by threatening to provide China’s rivals with the necessary power to crush Beijing, extract key concessions from China in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East or Central Asia”.

At first, I could not wait until the floor would be open for comments. But soon I realized that this was a battle that I could ill afford in front of all my new colleagues. So, in a most unusual move, I decided to simply leave the room. Instead of investing more frustration into this, I will now have a beer with my friends from all over the world living here in Globee Dorm because I am absolutely confident that “eine andere Welt” is not only possible but necessary.

High-speed through China

At 307 km/h, train G14 makes its way North on an elevated track high above rice paddies and endless suburbs as Anna and I finally take the train from Shanghai Hongqiao to Beijing South. Even if seat 61 was taken, this is undoubtedly a classic train journey, the kind that one would sit at home with a large map and plan on long November nights. At the same time, the journey brings a very concrete human scale experiential dimension to distances that previously were just abstract air miles.

Seeing China this way leaves no reason for doubt: we are truly living through the end of nature. Everywhere, human intrusion into what was once dense forests, silent lakes and majestic mountains. I cannot help feeling sad about this tremendous loss, about what we have done to the planet and its natural habitats. It may be that I believe that humanity, in the future, could reverse much of this environmental destruction and decouple itself from the natural world. But doing so will require the emergence of a global subject, an understanding that we, as a conscious species, have a unique responsibility for the future of all life on this planet and that we cannot continue along the current trajectory.

Witnessing the last weeks of political mayhem, not least the debate over the debt ceiling in the US, has been a powerful reminder of how far we actually are from the kind of enlightened cosmopolitan politics that will be needed to safely take humanity through the mid-century canyon of environmental stress. And browsing all those weblogs teeming with racism, hate and narrowly defined conceptions of "national interests", it is difficult to maintain the Habermasian hope of a new shining Republic of Letters emerging online. But let's not forget that it has always been like this, that it always has been more difficult to formulate good ideas than bad ones, and that history will always be a "race between education and catastrophe" (to quote H.G. Wells).

Beijing

Back in Beijing since about a week, busy finishing an article for my Hong Kong employer on climate justice and China. Little time to post things here on Rawls & Me plus I am still having problems finding a decent VPN-connection. But later in the summer, I hope to at least write something about my upcoming ride with new super-high speed train Shanghai-Beijing as it commences on 20 June.

Below the sulphurous haze

With 35 million blogs here in China, it feels appropriate to post something on Rawls & Me as I land in Beijing. That I need to use an encrypted network tunnel to get this post online, however, also says something about blogging from China.

Today, I visited the Faculty of Law at Tsinghua University, which will be our partner in the EU-funded exchange programme I am taking part in this summer.

After the conference euphoria in London last week (see previous post), I went up to Stockholm for Easter to see my sister and her boyfriend. As often, we drifted into long political debates about everything from labour-market mechanisms to cultural politics. I enjoy these conversations because they allow me to be wholeheartedly “Left”, whereas I otherwise often find myself defending more market-liberal views. The funny thing is that my sister’s boyfriend, in turn, is considered rather left-leaning by his colleagues at work. Talk about relative denominations. Apart from politics, we also went for a run in the forest and took a long walk around Söder.

All of that now feels very distant – not only after the endless hours spent flying over Russia, but also mentally. If anything, Beijing reminds me of a Warsaw on steroids, with its colossal scale, coal-infused inland air, and vast roads. And yet, beneath the sulphurous haze, one finds pockets of comfort: places with large sofas, green courtyards, and travel-planning expats. Walking down a trendy hútòng near the Lama Temple, I stumbled upon The Vineyard Café, a place I am certain I will return to over the summer. There is a strange kind of reassurance in this – that despite the recent wave of repression, post-modernity seems to be very much alive.