www.ssoar.info On Wang Hui's re-imagination of Asia and Europe Weber, Ralph Veröffentlichungsversion / Published Version Zeitschriftenartikel / journal article Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Weber, R. (2011). On Wang Hui's re-imagination of Asia and Europe. Europa Regional, 17.2009(4), 221-228. https:// nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-310877 Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer Deposit-Lizenz (Keine This document is made available under Deposit Licence (No Weiterverbreitung - keine Bearbeitung) zur Verfügung gestellt. Redistribution - no modifications). We grant a non-exclusive, non- Gewährt wird ein nicht exklusives, nicht übertragbares, transferable, individual and limited right to using this document. persönliches und beschränktes Recht auf Nutzung dieses This document is solely intended for your personal, non- Dokuments. Dieses Dokument ist ausschließlich für commercial use. 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On Wang Hui’s Re-Imagination of Asia and Europe RALPH WEBER Abstract For roughly two decades now, WANG HUI has been a prominent voice within academic, cultural and political discourses in China, but incre- asingly also in Europe and the United States. WANG’s still developing oeuvre might be understood as an attempt to ‘provincialize Europe’ (DIPESH CHAKRABARTY) from a political perspective and by drawing on historical and present-day China. In this article, the main focus is on one specifi c aspect in this attempt, namely WANG’s view of Europe, and I shall investigate that aspect on the basis of an article by WANG on the concept of Asia: “The Politics of Imagining Asia” (2007). I fi rst discuss WANG’s genealogical analysis of Asia as a “European concept” before attending to what he perceives as derivations of it in Asia itself. I then engage with WANG’s proposal to go beyond the framework of nation-state/ empire, and argue that he fails to offer an attractive re-imagination of the concept of Asia. When fi nally turning to his view of Europe, I shall issue a criticism of some misplaced anti-Eurocentrism in his work on the conceptual level. Wang Hui, anti-Eurocentrism, concepts, Europe, Asia Zusammenfassung Über die von Wang Hui entwickelte Re-Imagination Asiens und Europas Seit nunmehr fast zwei Jahrzehnten ist Wang HUI in den wissenschaftlichen, kulturellen und politischen Diskussionen in China, zunehmend aber auch in Europa und in den Vereinigten Staaten, eine prominente Stimme. Die von WANG entwickelte Vorstellung könnte als ein Versuch der „Provinzialisierung Europas” (Dipesh CHAKRABARTY) in politischer Hinsicht und in Bezug auf das historische und heutige China verstan- den werden. Der Schwerpunkt dieses Artikels liegt auf einem spezifi schen Aspekt dieses Versuchs, und zwar auf WANGS Sichtweise von Euro- pa. Diesen Aspekt untersucht der Autor auf der Grundlage eines Artikels von WANG über den Begriff Asien: “The Politics of Imagining Asia” (Die Politik der Imagination Asiens) (2007). Zunächst diskutiert der Autor WANGS genealogische Analyse Asiens als „Europäischen Begriff”, bevor er auf Abweichungen von diesem Begriff in Asien selbst eingeht. Danach setzt sich der Autor mit WANGS Vorschlag auseinander, über den Rahmen des Nationalstaates/Reiches hinauszugehen, und weist darauf hin, dass WANG keine attraktive Re-Imagination des Begriffs von Asien anbietet. Wenn der Autor abschließend auf WANGS Sicht von Europa eingeht, kritisiert er einen gewissen deplazierten Anti-Eurozentrismus in dessen Arbeit auf begriffl icher Ebene. Wang Hui, Anti-Eurozentrismus, Begriffe, Europa, Asien In his new preface to Provincializing Eu- ding the universality of capitalism. It is “established by itself, not as forms of its rope, DIPESH CHAKRABARTY writes that the very kind of universalistic thinking own life-process.”6 In CHAKRABARTY’s “there must be many different locations which underlies what he calls History 1, view, Marx thus anticipates the relevan- […] from which one could provincialize i.e. “the past posited logically by the ca- ce of singular and unique histories of Europe with different results.”1 For CHA- tegory ‘capital’.”4 Yet, taken by itself and places, but fails to develop the point. KRABARTY, unlike Marxist scholarship in as the only kind of thinking applicable to Places and their histories, however, which “the ‘local’ is a surface phenome- social life, it “evacuates all lived sense of are crucial for the idea of provincializing non of social life [and], in the ultimate place assigning it to what is assumed to Europe from different locations. These analysis, some kind of an effect of capi- be a deeper and a more determining le- are the histories “that capital anywhe- tal”, locations and places clearly matter.2 vel, the level at which the capitalist mode re – even in the West – encounters as This is not to say that he is anti-Marxist. of production creates abstract space.”5 its antecedents”.7 CHAKRABARTY refers He himself argues for the importance of CHAKRABARTY quotes Marx as saying that the local precisely by offering a “selec- capital also encounters “antecedents” not tive but close reading of Marx”.3 CHAK- RABARTY embraces Marxist claims regar- 6 CHAKRABARTY, 2008, p. 63. In German: „… nicht als von ihm gesetzte Voraussetzungen, nicht als Formen seines eignen Lebensprozesses.“ See: Karl Marx, MEW 26.3, p. 4 CHAKRABARTY, 2008, p. 63. An example, which Chakra- 460. Marx’s examples are “money circulation” (Geld- barty off ers, is the necessary severance of the connec- zirkulation) and “commodity” (Ware), both of which 1 CHAKRABARTY, 2008, p. xviii. tion between land/tool and labourers, without which do not necessarily belong to capital’s life process or to 2 CHAKRABARTY, 2008, p. xvi. workers cannot be available to capital in the fi rst place. the past. 3 CHAKRABARTY, 2008, p. 47. 5 CHAKRABARTY, 2008, p. xvii. 7 CHAKRABARTY, 2008, p. 69. 221 to them as History 2s. Their function is also the present, cannot be adequately Asia itself as WANG fi nds it in the work constantly to interrupt “the totalizing understood only within the framework of several Japanese sinologists, Lenin, thrusts of History 1,” i.e. capital’s att- of European modernity (i.e. capitalism, and Sun Yat-sen. In a next step, WANG’s empt “to subjugate or destroy the multip- liberal democracy and the nation-state), proposal of a political perspective beyond le possibilities that belong to History 2.”8 which is itself a local framework and a the nation-state is critically assessed with No global capital, in CHAKRABARTY’s historical form. a view to how his concept of Asia relates words, “… can ever represent the univer- Yet in spite of all similarities WANG to place. Although Europe will be present sal logic of capital, for any historically very clearly occupies and writes from as a topic throughout the article, I address available form of capital is a provisional a very different location than CHAKRA- it explicitly only in the concluding step, compromise made up of History 1 modi- BARTY does. His four-volume The Rise of when the consequences of WANG’s re- fi ed by somebody’s History 2s. The uni- Modern Chinese Thought has been wide- imagination of Asia on his view of Eu- versal, in that case, can only exist as a ly acclaimed as a landmark publication, rope are examined. It will become clear place holder, its place always usurped by and is intriguing in its historical and that WANG views Europe mainly as an ori- a historical particular seeking to present epistemic scope as well as theoretical ginator of concepts, which dominate the itself as the universal”.9 ambition.12 In ZHANG YONGLE’s opinion, new imperial neo-liberal order and which Hence, when CHAKRABARTY, for in- it “can be safely said that nothing compa- only for the reason of their verbalization stance, sets out to investigate Bengali rable to WANG HUI’s work has appeared and use in 19th century European history modernity by drawing up an affective in China since the late Qing-early Repu- he understands as defi nitely “European narrative of human belonging around the blican period.”13 His developing oeuvre, concepts”. I will object to this conceptual social practice of adda, he is translating generally speaking, is on the location(s) anti-Eurocentrism, which I fi nd philoso- into his Marxist categories “the existing of China, its history and modernity, and phically problematic and which motivates archives of thought and practices about its present condition in an age of neo- esoteric political arguments of presumed human relations in the subcontinent,” liberalism and the ‘war on terror’.14 And traditional or cultural internality.16 but is wholly aware that this also means writing from a different location may, It is important to be clear from the to “modify these thoughts and practices as CHAKRABARTY suggests, also mean outset that WANG is here not understood with the help of these categories.”10 to arrive at different results. It is in this as representative of China’s intellectuals. It takes not much to see that WANG HUI spirit and to this end that I seek to enga- His view is not ‘the Chinese view on Eu- (1959*) – a scholar of Chinese intellectu- ge WANG’s work and to assess his view rope’.