I have been visiting China to give speeches and join conferences for over 30 years. My image of China is the result of many personal exchanges. In 1986, my wife and I joined a Swiss tour group in order to visit the beauties of China. We marveled at the gorges of the Yangtze and admired the magic world of the Li River near Guilin. We saw the Terracotta Army at Xi’an and visited the Wild Goose Pagoda. In Nanjing, I encountered Bishop K. H. Ting 丁光訓 (Ding Guangxun) and held a speech on “Reconciliation of the Generations” at the Protestant theological seminary (Jinling Union Theological Seminary 金陵協和神學院). After the Cultural Revolution, Christianity was no longer a Western import, but rather had become a Chinese religion.
In 1997, my grandson Jonas suddenly showed up and said: “Grandpa, I want to travel to China with you.” And so we flew to Beijing for a week. I admired the progress which had taken place since 1986, and yet the majority of the Chinese were still riding a bike. I held a speech at Peking University on the “Changing values in the West” and no longer heard people speaking about Karl Marx and Mao Zedong, but rather I encountered a lot of searching and questions. One student whispered into my ear, “I am a Christian.”
In 1999, the Institute of Sino-Christian Studies (ISCS 漢語基督教文化研究所 Hanyu Jidujiao Wenhua Yanjiusuo) in Hong Kong organized a lecture trip for me, which was coordinated with a tour group so that I could take Jonas and Susanne along. I heard a lot of lamenting China’s “backwardness” and a lot of bespeaking China’s “advancements,” but there were no more references to the ancient Chinese “supreme and celestial harmony,” which I had much admired in the Imperial Palace and at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.
In 2004, I was in Beijing with my wife again. Elisabeth was giving a lecture at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and I was speaking at Tsinghua University. It is quite paradoxical: While in the West the “green,” ecological movement was discovering the wisdom of Tao Te Ching 道德經 (Daode Jing), China was discovering the Western world of progress of the 19th century for itself in terms of science and technology. Where 20 years ago, thousands of cyclists had ruled the streets, in 2004 cars were driving on new urban motorways.
In 2010, the Beijing Forum invited me to give a keynote speech. Before me, the former President of Mexico was speaking; after me the man who saved the Chinese pandas. I was striving for “A Culture of Life in the Dangers of this
In 2014, the director of ISCS, the renowned Daniel Yeung 楊熙楠 (Yang Xinan), invited me to give a keynote lecture at Peking University on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of his institute, followed by a “Dialogue with Contemporary Chinese scholars” on “Political Theology” at Renmin University of China 中國人民大學. The “Great Academy Lecture” was on Ernst Bloch’s “Thinking Means Transcending.”3 The dialogue took place in the Mozart Hall of Renmin University of China. In the afternoon, a second dialogue took place, on the topic of “Theology of Hope and the Future of China.” I visited the great Buddha Temple and the Confucius Hall in Beijing with Daniel Yeung, after which I then once more visited the Taoist monastery White Cloud. An article was published in the Catholic journal China heute: “In Dialogue with Jürgen Moltmann - a Summit in Beijing” (2014/4).4
I have the impression that a different type of modern era is developing in China from what has developed in the West. Mao sinicized European Marxism, and today Western capitalism is being sinicized. Christian theology is being translated from Europe and America into Chinese culture. Many professors have studied abroad in the West: They know everything about us – and we do not know much about China. I once attempted to approach Lao Tsu’s Tao Te Ching: “TAO – the Chinese Mystery of the World. Lao Tsu’s Tao Te Ching Read with Western Eyes” (in my Science and Wisdom, 2003).5 I have done everything I could in order to promote a dialogue between both cultures that would liberate us from prejudices. China has a different face in Mainland China, in
Ancient China, as Marco Polo described it to us, was considered to be the “Central Kingdom.” It ruled its world by magnetism, in the same way the center rules the periphery. Chinese culture and the Chinese state form of officialdom gave rise to admiration. Everything gravitated towards that “center.” Modern China orients itself towards the superpower USA. It no longer rules by attraction, but rather like the Western superpowers, by aggression. When will the ancient Chinese wisdom prevail against Western instrumental reason and guide the latter back toward the harmony of human culture and the nature of the earth? I hope for the wisdom that made Ancient China illustrious and magnetic, but I also do not overlook the urbanized world of Chinese megacities and the digital statecraft of the government. I hope for an ecological culture for humankind and the earth.
Jürgen Moltmann
Tübingen, 25 August 2020
[Editors’ note: This lecture was amended and delivered in Hong Kong in 2018 and is now included in Part III of this volume along with Hong Liang’s response.]
[Editors’ note: Hong Liang graduated in 2016 and is now a full professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China. He continues to collaborate with the ISCS.]
[Editors’ note: The original manuscript was supplied to the participants of the event for preparation and is included in Part III of this volume.]
[Editors’ note: Leo Leeb, “Mit Jürgen Moltmann im Dialog – ein Gipfeltreffen in Beijing”, China heute 33 (2014).]
[Editors’ note: Jürgen Moltmann, Science and Wisdom, trans. Margaret Kohl (London: SCM, 2003), 172–193. It is now included in the volume after the Preface.]