Ho-fung Hung, "The China Question: Eight Centuries of Fantasy and Fear" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Summary

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Episode Summary

Overview

In this episode of New Books Network, the host interviews Ho-fung Hung, author of The China Question: Eight Centuries of Fantasy and Fear (Cambridge UP, 2026). Hung discusses his ambitious historical and conceptual analysis of how Western perceptions of China oscillate between naive idealization and contemptuous fear—two sides of what he calls the same reductionist coin. Drawing on intellectual history, political economy, and his own transnational experience, Hung unpacks why simplistic images of China persist, how both Western and Chinese actors participate in creating and sustaining them, and what a true “deorientalization” of knowledge might look like today.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Double Face of Orientalism: Idealization vs. Contempt

[01:30–06:39]

• Hung argues that both Sinophobia (contempt) and naive romanticization (idealization) of China are deeply problematic and ultimately share the same roots:

  "Both saying stupid good thing and stupid bad thing about China... the problem is not whether you are saying good thing or bad thing, but the stupidity or the simplicity that matters."
  — Ho-fung Hung [05:45]

• He references scholarly debates on Orientalism (Edward Said, Jürgen Osterhammel), highlighting that mere praise doesn't correct the harms of negative stereotypes—both are forms of reductionist, monolithic thinking.

2. Case Study: Perceptions of Chinese Lending

[06:39–13:49]

• Hung unpacks the contradictory images of China’s role as a lender to the developing world:

  • One narrative portrays China as an altruistic force, a better alternative to Western lenders.
  • The opposite posits China as predatory, ensnaring countries in “debt traps.”

• He insists reality is more complex: Chinese lending practices are self-interested but not uniquely so, and neither narrative aligns well with empirical data.

  "It is not particularly bad or particularly good. It is just like everybody else in the developed and developing world."
  — Ho-fung Hung [09:44]

• Historical racist tropes (e.g., "Fu Manchu") continue to shape contemporary interpretations, regardless of available evidence.

3. The Persistence of Stereotypes Despite Data

[13:49–17:59]

• There is no longer an information deficit about China; neuroses and stereotypes persist for other reasons:

  "It is this kind of a structure of vested interest. And at the same time, this very stubborn stereotype... It is very easy to spread."
  — Ho-fung Hung [14:49]

• Comparison with India: Democratic openness fosters debate and diverse views; China’s authoritarianism and information controls hinder nuance and foster self-censorship by scholars and journalists.

4. The Book’s Intellectual Journey and the Dynamics of Perception

[17:59–25:15]

• Hung reflects on how Western images of China undergo “sudden, radical shifts” (from negative to positive or vice versa) due less to actual change in China and more to Western domestic political dynamics.

  "...this radical shift in perception is a reflection of the radical shift in the dynamics within the West itself."
  — Ho-fung Hung [18:44]

• Example: Recent transition from anxiety about “Chinese economic crisis” to a new fascination with China’s technological dynamism in US and European commentary—driven largely by changes in Western political landscapes.

5. Orientalism, Power, and Co-Production of Knowledge

[25:15–41:53]

• Changes in China do affect international perceptions, but Hung stresses that Western internal agendas and geopolitics play a key role.

• He introduces the concept of “co-production” of Orientalist knowledge:

  • Chinese scholars and state actors (KMT, CCP) have actively shaped and sometimes exploited Western Orientalist images, e.g., through the promotion of Confucian collectivism to legitimize authoritarian governance.

  "This kind of self-Orientalization or self-Orientalism tendency... consciously promote or select or promote certain Orientalist knowledge from the West to legitimize its rule..."
  — Ho-fung Hung [32:09]

• The dominance of Western knowledge production systems means even Chinese intellectuals sometimes internalize simplistic Western views.

6. Internalization and Limits to Deorientalization

[41:53–46:46]

• Hung discusses why even Chinese or Chinese diaspora intellectuals sometimes adopt these Orientalized images—often due to the global prestige and penetration of Western frameworks.

  • Example: Lu Xun and the “total Westernization” agenda as a reaction to negative stereotypes.

• He notes positive exceptions where more nuanced, pluralistic traditions have arisen—both in Chinese and comparative contexts (drawing on Habermas’s idea of the public sphere and Amartya Sen’s on argumentative traditions).

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Deorientalized Knowledge: What Is It and How Do We Get There?

Defining Deorientalized Knowledge

[46:46–59:04]

• Hung contrasts Max Weber’s nuanced treatment of Western religious diversity with his reductionist view of Asian religions, citing it as a prime example of Orientalized knowledge:

  "This violence of oversimplification and reducing a very compact system to very, very simple whole."
  — Ho-fung Hung [49:19]

• Deorientalization means embracing the full complexity, internal diversity, and historical dynamism of any society or culture, refusing easy dichotomies or simplistic narratives:

  "...openness and radical preparedness for dialogue and debate. That is the deorientalization of the knowledge. There's no such thing as deorientalized knowledge, period. So it is a process that's never ending..."
  — Ho-fung Hung [52:13]

The Importance of Multiple Vantage Points

[53:05–59:04]

• The best understanding of China (or any society) emerges from the interplay of perspectives originating within and outside it—different agendas, proximities, and disciplinary angles must be juxtaposed.

  "More of these different aspects and perspectives and angle is better."
  — Ho-fung Hung [55:36]

• He notes the “missionary bias” that colors Western Sinology: first Christian evangelism, now free-market evangelism. Both seek out select elements in China that echo Western values.

• Other Asian approaches (e.g., Japanese, Indian, Ottoman perspectives) present crucial correctives.

Personal History and Institutional Context

[59:04–64:33]

• Hung’s Hong Kong background (during the transition from British to Chinese rule) is less about “ethnic vantage” than about historical juncture and institutional context—exposure to both Western and Chinese academic tendencies, and to debates over Orientalist knowledge.

  "It is this particular role Hong Kong played... that even when I was in Hong Kong I was... aware of this."
  — Ho-fung Hung [61:19]

• New Confucianism and other "third traditions" also helped to deorientalize Chinese knowledge, critiquing both Western and local reductionisms.

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The Usefulness of Deorientalized Knowledge

[64:33–70:37]

• Deorientalist knowledge may not be “useful” in the instrumental sense, but Orientalist knowledge is actively dangerous and misleading.

  • Example: Narratives about China’s “collectivist obedience” and COVID policy were both inaccurate and damaging, propagating myths that served both the Chinese state's propaganda and Western anxiety:

    "This orientalized knowledge is very useless and even dangerous."
    — Ho-fung Hung [67:40]

• True deorientalization is continuous work—an “unending process”—grounded in openness, complexity, and resistance to the siren song of simplistic explanations.

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• "It is the stupidity or the simplicity that matters." (Hung, [05:45])
• "Both the debt trap theory and then China as a good lender... are wrong if you really look at the data and look at the reality." (Hung, [12:44])
• "… this change in sudden change in view of China from very negative to positive that happened right in front of our eyes… is driven by what happened in the West." (Hung, [22:45])
• "This kind of self Orientalization or self Orientalism tendency of the Chinese Afro authoritarian regime... to legitimize... and to sell its benign image to their Western allies..." (Hung, [32:09])
• "This violence of oversimplification and reducing a very compact system to very, very simple whole." (Hung, [49:19])
• "Openness and radical preparedness for dialogue and debate. That is the deorientalization of the knowledge." (Hung, [52:13])
• "This orientalized knowledge is very useless and even dangerous." (Hung, [67:40])

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [01:30] Opening and framing the book’s theme
• [02:13] Critique of idealization and contempt as reductionist
• [06:53] Case study: China’s lending to the global South
• [13:49] Why stereotypes persist despite abundant data
• [17:59] The book’s intellectual arc and perception shifts in the West
• [25:15] How changes in China affect (or don’t) Western images
• [29:05] The co-production of Orientalist knowledge and self-Orientalization
• [41:53] Internalization and tradition critique in modern China
• [46:46] What is deorientalized knowledge?
• [53:05] The need for multiple perspectives, distance and agenda
• [59:04] The impact of Hung’s Hong Kong experience on his scholarship
• [64:33] The (non-)utility of deorientalized vs. Orientalist knowledge
• [70:37] Conclusion: Deorientalization as an endless open process

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Conclusion

Ho-fung Hung provides both a sweeping historical account and a present-day diagnosis of the “China Question,” centering on the dangers and persistence of reductive views. His call: resist the temptation of simplification, open intellectual space for plural perspectives, and approach the study of China (and the world) as a never-ending, deeply dialogic process. This deorientalized approach, Hung suggests, is not only intellectually honest but urgently necessary in a world rife with self-serving myths.

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Transcript

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[Interviewer]

Welcome to the New Books Network. The contempt and naive idealization of China are two sides of the same coin. The latter cannot be an antidote to the former. That's a claim that Ho Fenghong makes in his book the China Eight Centuries of Fantasy and Fear. I'm with the author today and it's a delight to be here with you.

[Ho Fenghong]

Ho Feng hi. My pleasure.

[Interviewer]

So it's really important to this book's argument that Sinophobia is not the only problem. Romantic idealization is equally problematic. What's the danger of idealization?

[Ho Fenghong]

Yes, previous works about Western conception of the yeast, which is pioneered of course by Edward Said, Orientalism about Western conception of the Middle east or the Arab world of the Islamic world, focus on the Western contempt of the east or Oriental civilization. And previous works about Western conception of China also critique mostly the Western contempt and negative views on China. One thing I want to do in my book is that yes, to show that, yes, it is bad that Western authors and Western academic over the 200 centuries, 200 years, two centuries of imperial Domination say a lot of bad things about China and the yeast in general. But it's not the only bad thing actually that the west portrayed China and Eastern culture. And many of the authors who critique Orientalism or critique Western conception or lack of conception of China tend to develop this idea that actually the remedy to this negative view is to say good things about China, good thing about the East. For example, there's German historian Jurgen Osthamel that I cite in my book, who wrote a very important book called Unfabeling the Yeast. And then he argued that the biggest problem of western conception of the yeast is that it demythicize the yeast. While in the 18th century the Western scholars have more respect of the yeast and then establishing the yeast as a kind of a fable of the myth. And then in the 19th century when imperialism emerged, then they unfable the yeast to demystify the yeast. And then he think that it is bad. And then at the very end he actually advocate to refable the yeast as a remedy to this kind of racist view. But what I find out is that actually that many live idealization of the yeast by Western scholars are very much the two sides of the same coin of the negative racist view of China or the east in general. And one view can shift to another view very easily because both yields are based on a very very. In academic jargon, it's called a reductionist. But in a more plain language I would say that it is very, very simplified monotonic view of the yeast. And even the description itself is very much the same. Only the difference is that some people think that based on this description the yeast is Greek. And then some other think that based on this description the yeast is that is bad. But the fundamental problem is that this description is pain you want. And then Eastern civilization or China civilization is much more complicated than this simplistic characterization. So the same stupid good thing about China is definitely not the remedy to people who keep saying stupid bad thing about China, both saying stupid good thing and stupid bad thing about China, that because the problem is not whether you are saying good thing or bad thing, but it is the stupidity or the simplicity that matters. If we say good thing about China or bad thing about China, if both views are based on very good empirical research and very nuanced viewed on China, that is good, because then we can have a debate. But if some people say good thing about China, bad thing about China, but both based on very simplistic stereotype, then there can be low debate, there can be low discussion. So it is the core problem of Western view of China is the simplification

[Interviewer]

we're speaking right now in 2026. Could you give a example that's happening in front of our eyes right now that illustrates your thesis about these two sides of Orientalist knowledge?

[Ho Fenghong]

Yeah. For example, that in recent years, in recent 10 years, there has been some talk about China's lending to the developing world. While some people think that it is great, this landing, very altruistic, much better than Western traditional lending to developing world. China lending help developing world, much better than traditional Western lending through the World bank and private Western banks and things like that. So it is one side of the view try to romanticize this Chinese lending to the developing countries in the Bell and Wu country in Africa and Southeast Asia and such as such. And opposite, polar opposite view is that China's this lending is predatory and it's malicious landing because they are lending money to these developing countries and deliberately trick them into unsustainable debt so that when they cannot repay the debt that China can take control of their strategic facilities and ports and airport and things like that. So it is kind of what people now call the debt trap. So both fields around in my view. Because actually besides looking at China's Western view on China, Western representation of China, I also look at political economy of China's development and China connection with the global economy, particularly the global south or the developing world. And I find that these both views, which is both quite dominant in the public discourse about China, in the policy circle, in think tank circle, in academic circle, they are both very simplistic. The positive view is wrong because they always have this kind of a polar dichotomy to contrast China with traditional Western neo imperialistic lending or economic relation with the West. They just assume that China is part of the developing world, part of the global South. So it doesn't have the malicious imperialistic intent when they lend money to the developing world and this assumption lead them to paying a very rosy pay picture of China's lending to the developing world as a kind of a very pro development altruistic effort. But it is clearly not true that when you look carefully in the data, in examples and a lot of contextual understanding of why China land and China is a lot different, too much different from other capitalist wealthy country, that it has a problem of producing the too much stuff that its internal economy cannot consume all so that lead to sell to the developing other countries, developing countries. And then when these developing countries cannot afford buying those things and trying to just lend money to these countries to help them buy Chinese products, hire Chinese company to do construction of infrastructures, and so on and so forth. So it is not exciting, altruistic, it is very self interest motivated and it is not particularly bad or particularly good. And it is just like everybody else in the develop and developing world to lend money to others to buy their own stuff. At the same time China there's low evidence that China deliberately lend money to countries that cannot make them get into big indebtedness and cannot repay. And then with the intention of taking over their strategic asset when they cannot repay the debt. And in reality the China external lending is very much like the China internal lending that many Chinese banks just keep lending to make sure that the book show that they have interest income, they are profitable without very careful plan, planning or judgment about whether the debtor can repay the debt. So it is just like the real estate sector in China. The Chinese bank keep lending to the real estate developer assuming that they can one day repay and then they can pocket the profit and the interest without the careful planning about whether or looking into whether this creditor, this debtor can really repay on time. And in the end you see that the China real estate sector go bust and then many banks are in trouble because of this long performing loan. So this Chinese lending to other developing countries is the same dynamic. So it is just the China loan performing loan problem inside out. So it reflected the chaotic situation of the Chinese political economy or unplanned uncoordinated nature rather than there's a very malicious, deep long term bad intention to lure people to borrow China money and then go bankrupt. So this kind of assumption about this malicious, very well pended bad intention is also wrong and based on very bad stereotype that somebody actually already wrote about it. And I cite in my book that is this kind of image of Manchu, Manchu Fu, that is all the turn of century lawful talking about a kind of a very cunning, very evil Chinaman trying to take control of the whole world. So this stereotype never goes away. So it fit into this debt trap theory. So both the depth trap theory and then China is a good lender want to try to help the developing world. Both positive and negative are wrong if you really look at the data and look at the reality.

[Interviewer]

Thanks for that example. It seems to me in terms of misperceptions of China as a lender, there might be at least two readings of what's the issue. One is that there's insufficient information on what is going on. People don't have access to the right information. There might be a deeper issue, which I think is what you gesture in the book, that it's not just about information, that there are stubborn images or assumptions that make our perceptions biased regardless of new information. When you're analyzing something like perceptions of Chinese lending, how do you know what level the misperception is operating on?

[Ho Fenghong]

In contemporary times, there's no excuse that there's low sufficient information because we have a lot of openly accessible data. And if you dig deeper, you can also get access to more difficult to get a data. But it is still available. And language is not the only barrier. Definitely that there's a lot of English language sources and a lot of scholars also know Chinese language and then they can read Chinese source Chinese data. So the example of China landing to the different world is one good example because the data is so abundant. So it is just our kind of tendency to fall back on this stereotype or centuries or stereotype that make us look harder than if we have spend some effort to look harder. And actually we can easily debunk this kind of a very dichotomous view. And of course that also because of this kind of a political effect of these different views, either portraying China as a kind of a good Cemeterian helping developing well, or portraying China as a very evil Fu Manchu or Manchu Fu trying to take control of the world. They serve certain political interests. So it is also another temptation that people fall back on this stereotype. So it is one issue. So it is this kind of. I wouldn't say it is habit, but actually it is this kind of a structure of vested interest. And at the same time this very stubborn stereotypes that installed in many people mind and people hats. And so it is very easy to to spread. So it is one reason. The other reason is of course that if you compare China with India, it is very interesting that because India, despite all these problems still democratic countries and within India and then in the outside world, people debate about different aspects of the Indian society, politics and economy. They're always very, very different diverse views, positive, negative in between. And people can openly debate. But China is an authoritarian system. It also controlled its information. For example, if you look at the internal political economy of China, you see a lot of propaganda glorifying its green technology, its new advancement in AI and self indigenous developed airplane that turn out relying on a lot of foreign components. So there's a lot of propaganda from the authoritarian government in China. And China definitely has censorship of different views on its politics, economy, society and all aspects of life. And many commentators, scholars, journalists, need to consciously or unconsciously exercise some kind of self censorship to get along with the Chinese authority and to get access to China. So this is at another layer of difficulty to develop more complicated and nuanced view on China. About my previous example of China lending to the developing world is one good example that because information is relatively more abundant, but when you get to a lot of aspects of Chinese society, for example Chinese civil society, whether it exists, the Chinese political economy, domestic political economy and unemployment problem and all these kind of issues, that we face a more challenging situation because the government has control of the information and don't want people to discuss certain views. So it is in this area that if we want to develop a more complicated, nuanced field about China without falling back on easy, simple stereotypes, and we really need to look harder.

[Interviewer]

Thank you. I want to take a moment to not just continue exploring the claims in the book, but to understand the place of the book in your life. Because you say in the preface that this book has been culminating for three decades, it's one of your oldest projects. If this had been something you published 30 years ago, how different would that book have been?

[Ho Fenghong]

I would say that it is a more fortunate time that I publish it now rather than like 30 years ago. Because I keep reminding people that actually that one very important argument of the book is that the Western view, Western is a very general category definitely. If we look at us for example view of China or Europe view on China, British view on China in the 19th century, it underwents radical shift from very negative to very positive or all of a sudden from very positive view to very negative view. Both very simplistic, without anything actually changing radically in China. Usually this radical shift in perception is a reflection of the radical shift in the dynamics within the west itself. So right now that the book is coming out in 2020 and we are actually witnessing this kind of radical shift in front of our eyes that actually this what is happening right now verified this important argument of the book that I can imagine. I would have spent more effort to explain this argument if I had published this book 30 years ago. But now I find it more easy to explain this argument because for example, in just in the last 12 months, many Western commentators, scholars and journalists suddenly talk about the miracle of China model. Again talking about China's advantage and competitiveness and strength in all these high tech, green tech AI and China is winning in every single category. Visa vis the West. So it is certainly of course again that if we take deeper, we know all this contradiction of these sectors and for example, even BYD who is creating a lot of admiration as smell as panic in Western market about this cheap China competitive EV electric vehicle is not profitable and it has a lot of problem. And the whole sector is oversaturated with car that they cannot sell. And then so a lot of company go bust and things like that. So despite this reality of complication, we all see this kind of a sudden place of this Chinese green technology EV sector and things like that. And it only happened in the last 12 months. And then if you look back a little bit earlier, like two years ago, everybody talking about and cognizant of of this Chinese economic crisis, Chinese economic slowdown, long performing loan, the real estate sector is really struggling, still struggling. And youth unemployment. So much so that like Chinese government has now stopped publishing youth unemployment figure for quite a while after they revamped the data to show a better picture. So two years ago, everybody is talking about or aware that China's economy is in deep crisis. The Xi Jinping is strangling innovation, strangling private enterprise. But 12 years later, and in the last 12 years, the 12 months we all talking about this advantage of Chinese economy and the greatness of the Chinese model. And even some books important book in the US is talking about publishing he's published recently. Then one of the example is the book Abundance. And basically the undertones of the book is that if US want to succeed, we just need to copy the China model, the build, build, build to get rid of some environmental regulation and so on and so forth and zoning regulation. So the conversation suddenly shift and it doesn't reflect any sudden shift in the dynamics of the Chinese development. And it's still Xi Jinping and it's still the same model as in over the last 10 years. What changed is that the US suddenly have a new government and Trump administration that many people are unhappy about. So it all of a sudden that there's incentive to portray the perfect China or Greek China to contrast this very unlikable for many people with their own point of view US Administration to contrast it with their failing US policies. So it is actually reflection is a reflection of the change in the US and the west in general. Because many European countries are very unhappy with the US Trade war tariff. So suddenly there's an incentive to portray the more perfect China to contrast it with a very more dark which is not this kind of factor is not there like before Trump came back in the second administration. So we see that this change in sudden change in view of China from very negative to positive that happened way in front of our eyes in 2025. 2026 is driven by what happened in the west, just like in other examples in my book. For example, in the 19th century, these European romanticists suddenly think that China is very Greek and hold the secret to human sp. When they suddenly become unhappy with modernity and industrialism and materialism in the west, it doesn't reflect what is going on in China. In China in the 19th century it was falling apart after the Opium War, but yet many Western scholars and writers romanticize China as a land of spirituality that the west should learn from.

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[Interviewer]

Can I just make sure I understand how far you want to go with this argument that these images of China are really determined by internal dynamics in the West. Because I mean, you would also agree that a lot of course has been changing in China in recent years, whether it's Xi Jinping's how power has been centralized shift in diplomacy, the politics of Chinese borderlands, Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, et cetera. So of course a lot has been changing. Are you saying that these internal shifts have nothing to do with external perceptions?

[Ho Fenghong]

Of course it is not. You know that the change in the China direction definitely has an impact on Western conception. For example, the transition from Hu Jintao to Xi Jinping and the change in policy or the more so called status turns of Chinese political economy definitely help precipitate Western view on China. But what I'm trying to say is that one important factor is that this kind of change in view on China cannot happen without changing the internal agenda dynamics and politics within the west. So it's two way to interact. And just like in the 18th and 19th century and in the 18th century enlightenment philosopher shift from positive to negative view on China. There are two factors. One is that the relative power of Europe vis a vis China change with industrialization and rise of capitalist economy and rise of imperialism. But at the same time there's also have something to do with the balance of power between the monarchs and the newly emerging capitalist caste. That while the monarchs, like the French monarchs or the passion monarchs, they all look to China as a kind of the idealized image of a perfect absolutist ruler that they want to emulate. But when the Leysen bourgeoisie or the capitalist class middle class in Europe emerge and try to challenge this Amsterdam monarch rule, that this more negative view of China as Oriental despot and everything is dead and nothing changed and very corrupt prevailed. So it is both the development in China and then China, actual relations with these European countries and internal politics shifting internal politics of Europe or the west in general, both combine to precipitate this change.

[Interviewer]

I just want. Okay, so there's actually quite a commonsensical view here that our perception of faraway places is going to be filtered through whatever is going on at home. I think that seems to be true of most people in societies I can think of. There is a stronger kind of claim more in line with what Edward Sahib is saying in Orientalism about the power inequality in the construction of an image of the Orient by the Occident. What I want to understand is which layer you would attribute contemporary images to. I mean, is it as China becomes more materially powerful, is it still fair to say that it's Orientalist in that more unequal vein? Or is it just a more kind of commonplace version of how we always need to understand the other through the

[Ho Fenghong]

prism ourselves in one sense ever said talk about this kind of writers or commemorators and Occident in constructing the order and his examples talk about the Latin early 20th century and continuing in the late mid or late 20th century. And in the case of China, it's very different from the case of the Middle east, because that is another layer that I want to introduce in the book is that this Western conception of the Orion, or so called Orion is also conditioned by the actual geopolitical relation and distance and histories between different individual Asian societies or Middle Eastern society with the West. And China is special in this case compared to what Msie did not talk about. This Western conception of the Middle east and India South Asia is that China has been in Direct military conflict with Western countries and societies until very late in the 19th century. While in the Middle east that they have direct contact and military interaction with Europe for centuries if not millennium. And also China has a very complicated relation that it never formal formerly totally dominated and colonized by the West. And so this kind of a co production of Orientalist knowledge is more prominent. We can also see that in South Asia and in Middle East. But in terms of China that this co production process is more prominent from early on in the 19th century and early 20th century. Even though the relative balance of power between the Chinese scholars involved in this process and Western scholarship shift over time. And I talk about the case of Wang Tao, who is very active in kind of a Confucianist reformers in 19th century China, active in Hong Kong. And he cooperated with the first sinologies or the first university sinologists in the 19th century England. That is James Lech, who is the first chair of China Studies in Oxford. He collaborated with Wang Tao to translate and interpret Confucianist Asian text and Chinese tradition. So it is a co production that Wang Tao definitely has this agenda of promoting a positive image of Confucianism. So he helped and encouraged James Lack to create his interpretation about this Confucianist ancient belief in a monotheistic God. That is reviving a Jesuit's thinking about it. But when James Eck want to turn to Taoism, Wang Tao broke with him because he think that Taoism is a kind of a low culture in China. If Western people pay too much attention, they might have more lack of view of China. So there's a Chinese agency here and more so in the late 20th century today because China is very powerful. As I said in the world stage. The Chinese Communist Party authoritarian regime is near peer power of the US Much stronger than mainly European power. And it happened to be an authoritarian regime. So another important thing that I point out in the book that actually it's missing in previous discussion about Western conception of China or the whole discussion of Orientalism that ever said didn't see in much of his writing is this kind of self Orientalization or self Orientalism tendency of the Chinese Afro 10 regime. Not only the CCP, actually even the Kuomintang, the Nationalist government, the KMT regime before 1949 in China they were less powerful than the CCP today. But they also helped promote a kind of Orientalist image that fit or help justify its authoritarian rule and to sell its benign image to their Western allies or Western admirer. So this kind of authoritarian government or the scholars who affiliated with them to consciously promote or select or promote certain group of Orientalist knowledge from the west to legitimize its rule and to legitimize or to enhance its relation with Western power and Western government. It's very powerful that we don't see the discussion of which in many of previous Orientalism work. For example, and you know that the Chinese government is now promoting a lot of Confucianism and having Confucius Institutes and during COVID and after, there's increasing works from Chinese propaganda publications, newspaper and scholarly work, even saying that actually by nature that Chinese people in this Confucianist culture is very much prone to collectivism and communalism and submissiveness to the leader they trust, the leader they listen to leaders say. So it is the Chinese dream. This collectivism is why China's economy has been so successful controlling Covid, so successful in contrast to the Western decadent individualism that lead to the Western decline. So it is also the kind of self Orientalism adopted by many authoritarian regime beside the CCP in Asia. For example, the KMT regime before Taiwan democratized and the South Korean dictatorship. They all use this kind of Confucianism, communism, submissiveness to leader to justify their rule and say that if you democratize then there will be an economic disaster. Our economic strength lies in this collectivism. But when you see Taiwan and South Korea democratized and liberal democracy thrive and it didn't hurt the economy. But then, now that the CCP is playing this game and adopting and emphasizing and magnifying this Orientalist view and to justify this rule and then to help its rule, and then it threatened to reorientize many Western view of China. And also I point out that actually and actually adversary point out in one afterward of his Orientalism book and saying that actually Sinology or China Studies even as early as 1970s and 1980s is the field of study of the years that has de Orientalized most profoundly. And I agree with his argument that the academic Sinology, academic China Studies has successfully got rid of a lot of this stereotype. But now that we have this kind of self Orientalism coming out from the authoritarian region of China and the old habits in the public media and public discourse about China that is threatened to undo the achievement the Orientalizing achievement in academic China Studies.

[Interviewer]

I've got a simple question about self Orientalization. The reason that you give for why Orientalist images of China are persuasive in the west or one of the reasons is distance. People don't have much Access. So it's relatively easy to believe in such images. People in China don't have that issue. They live in society that is being described. And yet I know, and perhaps you also know quite a few people who believe at least partially in the self orientalized image of China. How is that possible? I mean, why would people who don't suffer from any geographical distance find it credible to believe in these self orientalized images?

[Ho Fenghong]

Yeah, that is a very interesting and also complicated and troubling problem. Because on the one hand, academic China Studies has de orientalized, but in Western. I've been in the Western world, but many commentators, political discourse and public discourse in the that mass media and still haven't the orientalized and still haven't gotten rid of the old stereotypes. But this kind of public discourse about China in the west is dominant globally. It has something to do with the global imbalance of power in a global knowledge system. So people within China definitely have much more direct and complicated, complex and full access to what is happening in China. But at the same time because of this power relation of this Western media and Western political discourse. So people can easily bite into this simple stereotype about China out of convenience and out of the convenience of submitting themselves to the powerful yet very simplistic and wrong Western portrait of China. So you can even see this reason that in the early 20th century there's a group of very distinguished writer, including left wing writer and critic, critical writer like Lu Xun, that when they talk about Chinese culture and Chinese tradition, that they very much influenced by this Western racist view of China. And then everything about Chinese tradition are very bad. And then this Oriental despotism, irrationality and all that. And some of the critique is well grounded. But at the same time they also very much rely on this very simplistic view on Chinese traditional culture. And so they developed this agenda of total Westernization as a way out of China. So it is the origins of the idea of Cultural Revolution later adopted by Mao and CCP to totally get rid of Chinese traditional culture. So this is kind of a tragedy that people in China, intellectuals in China should know better, but at the same time because of this dominant Western knowledge in the global knowledge production system. So it become a kind of very convenient way for Chinese intellectuals to evade or avoid the more hard work of looking into Chinese history and culture and society and politics deeper, but fall back on this Western stereotype. So it is a temptation and of course that Luzun is not the only one that. And ironically he became more famous because he was later enshrined by the ccp, by the Chinese Communist Party as a kind of model intellectuals. But if you look into his age, he is only one of the many, many voices. There are many intellectuals like the little Confucianists. And some are liberal, more liberal, some are more conservative, some are more radical. They have very, very diverse and different views about China, past and present and Chinese society, the nature of the Chinese traditional system, the good and the bad. And the debate back then is very much more diverse and complicated. And there are different views debating. But Luzun definitely represents one strong voice that fall back on this Western simplistic lacklustre stereotype of China. And you can still see it in many Chinese dissidents today to stimulate a bad dark China and seeing total Westernization as a way out for China. And it is one of the voids that actually that it reinforced with each other with this authoritarian government's self Orientalism that glorified a very simplistic Chinese traditional culture as communalism and collectivism. Again, it is two sides of the same coin and it has something to do with the dominance of Western power in the global knowledge production system.

[Interviewer]

So earlier you had talked about the co production between China and the west in Orientalism and something to be said about Chinese agency in that at the same time, depending on how you look at it, there's something specifically successful or disastrous about the critique of tradition in modern China compared to I think other parts of, for example, South Asia or the Middle East. There's something, you know, this complete Westernization of thoroughgoing revolutionary upheaval of the past. I'm not sure how those things fit together in comparative perspective. Why was there this such a deep internalization of the Orientalist image in China, given that it was actually relatively incompletely dominated in political terms?

[Ho Fenghong]

Yeah, and there's different moments of simplification and developing a more diverse and complex views on China. And I do point out some positive examples of where this more complicated view following for example in academic Sinology and China studies, even in the early 20th century, it already started at the fringe of the mainstream China study. That is a more complex view on China and more debates and more diverse views and also in contemporary China studies as well, and also in China that I didn't spend a lot of time to talk about in the book. But I do that actually that when I get to this new Confucianism in the early 20th century people, there's a group of scholars trying to have a more nuanced view on tradition and look at trying to Find a kind of a connection point between Western social thoughts and China social thought and look at the variation of Confucianism, rather than seeing Confucianism as a stagnant monotonic whole. So there's these moments of firing of diverse views. And it is not critiquing the Chinese traditional culture is not a problem itself. And admiring and praising Chinese traditional culture is not a problem itself. The problem is that we need to have now that after the passing of Jurgen Habermas and people, we discover his view about the public sphere and. And this communicative rationality. So the question is whether we have a space to let these different views that emphasize different aspects and different periods of Chinese society, Chinese politics, Chinese culture, tradition, modernity, whatever, to debate and engage in one another. So this big problem of Orientalism, negative or positive in China in the form of self Orientalization or in the. It's always this issue of closing up of this space for different fields and diversification. And then so it tend to lure or tempt many scholars and readers into one or two of the very simplistic polarized view. So then again that when you compare with South Asia India, it is interesting in the sense that like Amartya Sen wrote this book, argumentative Indian that is kind of talk about this kind of India has this long tradition of intellectual debate and engagement. Then to be fair, China is also very argumentative in terms of this debate between different Confucianist traditions and tendencies over the centuries. But it is the contemporary politics that matters that endeared despite its problem, still a democracy. And it have a stiffer society and vibrant intellectual discourse. So it's relatively more difficult to create a very monotonic steel type of India that become dominant and make many people fall into it. Because instantly you can find different interpretation and different argument counterpoints among Indian scholars or Western scholars who are connected to different Indian scholarly tradition while in China. And the close up of the intellectual space under the authoritarian rule is really one of the main problems that hindering the further de orientization of our knowledge of China in the late 20th and early 21st century compared to, for example, India.

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[Interviewer]

So this book in its final parts is gesturing towards what you call deorientalized knowledge. I don't know exactly what that looks like and how to Spot it when I see it. Is it possible to give a definition of deorientalized knowledge?

[Ho Fenghong]

That is a. For example, the good example of Orientalism or Orientalized knowledge is that you can contrast Weber, Max Weber discussion or knowledge of Western or Occidental religion vis a vis his discussion of Oriental religions, Confucianism, Hinduism. He has a big book on Confucianism and Taoism. It has another big book on Hinduism and Buddhism. And also he has a big book on Protestantism. Protestantism. And then you contrast his view on Europe and Oriental religion. You can see what is Orientalism, what is Orientalized knowledge. Because when he compare European religion with Eastern religion, when he talk about European religion, he talk about Calvinism, how it is selectively affined to capitalism or capitalist spiritual. And then you know that Calvinism is a kind of particular Protestant sect prevailed in 16th, 17th century the Netherlands, part of England and part of the German speaking world. So he's not talking about Christianity in a very general and monotonic way. So he recognized that the huge umbrella of Christianity include and contain many different currents, many different sects, Catholicism, Protestantism. And even within Protestantism we have got Lutheranism, we have got different kind of sects. And then Calvinism is the only particular sect that he think is affine and help the development of capitalism. So he has a fair nuanced view. People disagree with him. Within European social history, economic history, people debate how much the world religion actually paid. But actually it's okay that people can debate. But the bottom line is that he has this awareness about this time space variations of this religious tradition in Europe. But when he got to China, he just talked about Taoism and Confucianism. And he even said that Taoism and Confucianism inherently one doctrine actually is the same. So he actually derived the whole thing from another Sinology very prominent at his time. De Groot, who is a Dutch Sinologist who used to teach in Germany. So it is very reductionist, simplistic view on the Eastern or totalizing view on Eastern religion. Chinese religion is that he used example from the ancient Confucianist text and current practice of the emperor and some local religious practice. So they like cherry pick examples from thousand years ago to contemporary China of his time, to different regions of China, as if they are all fragments of the same unified monotonic, the whole of what he called the Chinese religion. So this is this kind of a very static and monotonic view of a vast civilization in contrast to its very nuanced and very detailed view on the space Time variation of the Western tradition. So it shows what is orientalized knowledge, that is this violence of oversimplification and reduce a very compact system to very, very simple whole. So what is the orientalization is basically, that is to put it simply, is to hit at the reality at its full complexity. And then there's low limitation about how complex and how variegated it can go. And then to keep an open mind to the people viewing the things from a very different perspective, have a very different interpretation and not to choose a kind of either or perspective on picking which one is true. And it is very possible that all is true depending on the direction that you look at. And so this openness and also preparedness to complex and very variegated views on the same Chinese civilization, we can speak of Chinese civilization as some one entity is the ultimate guarantee of de orientalization. Of course, the deorientalization process is never ending. Once you open it, you can, just like Western scholars studying Western development, capitalism. There's never ending why capitalism emerged in Europe in the 18th, 19th century. The debate goes on and on from the Latin all the way to the 20th century that there's some reasons that might be wrong, that might be corrected, might be correct. So it's not the pursuit of ultimate answer, but openness and then radical preparedness for dialogue and debate. That is the deorientalization of the knowledge. There's no such thing as deorientalized knowledge, period. So it is a process that's level N and it purport to open up a space for the endless debate. Just like again, the example of the debate about the origin of capitalism in Europe is never ending. So it's never simplistic and occidentalist. But then it never has a standard answer attain that close of further discussion. It is an endless process. So we should replicate that when we get studying China and Eastern societies. And one I think which is we can call it the deorientalization of knowledge about China or the East.

[Interviewer]

One point you make about that de Orientalizing process is that knowledge can look different from different places. For example, you point out specific features of Japanese Sinology or China studies in Australia that might be a bit closer to the nuanced reality because these countries sit within a broader Asian region compared to more distant places like Europe or the U.S. i guess one question I have is, is the implication that the right place to study China in a complex way isn't the Europe or the US who are just too far away?

[Ho Fenghong]

It is not one perfect place to study China. Or any culture or civilization. That I'm glad that you bring up the book's discussion about Japanese Sinologies or even like beside that, there's many other examples. For example, there's at some point an Ottoman scholars and Indian scholars are very interested in Japan and China. And then they also have a lot of scholars studying these Far east so called societies in the 19th and early 20th century. So they have their agenda, they have their perspective. So we cannot say which one is better position or aspect of studying China. That what I can say is that we need to open up to all this and pay more attention to this study of China from different societies and civilization with different agenda so that we can juxtapose this different reconstruction of the knowledge of about China from different perspective. So that just like when you observe lateral objects, you can observe it from far away, from close up, from different lighting during sunset, during middle of the day and things like that. And then you get all this data of observing the same objects in different contexts and different direction and different distance. And then you combine all these kind of observations together and then you have a very, very complicated and complex and

[Interviewer]

full

[Ho Fenghong]

understanding of the objects rather than being too close up or too far away. And what I appreciate is that now in Asia studies that we have this kind of a project of inter Asian studies, not only Western studying the Asia or Asian home societies, scholars studying their own societies. So there's a fair possibility that is other Asian societies studying other Asian societies. So it add on kind of one aspect that we have been missing and then we can add on so more of these different aspects and perspectives and angle is better. One reason why the Western study of China is problematic is that it has been often, if not always clouded by this missionary compact in early on. Many early Sinologists have missionary backgrounds. They all want to find the commonality between the Chinese culture and the Christian culture so that to justify their missionary work and then to persuade a supporter back home that actually this conversion activities, this missionary work is worthwhile and China is easy to be converted to be Christians. And later on in the 20th century it is the same that in the age of global free market and global free trade and global neoliberalism as you may, people try to find this kind of root of free market thinking and free market economy in China to persuade people back home in the west that actually China can become a very successful free market economy or even more successful than Western society in practicing free market. So what used to be talk about Christianity and then the Chinese culture, proximity, ancient proximity to Christianity is replaced in more recent years with this talk about China is very market oriented. It is actually doing free market economy better than the West. So it is this, we frag this kind of missionary complex that the Western believe in certain things from Christianity to free market capitalism. And then they try to find the parts of the culture in China that is most affined with this kind of Western belief and core value. And this kind of what I will say I didn't use this term in the book, but I would say it now that it's like kind of a missionary bias in Western understanding of China. It's nothing absolutely wrong about this. It is one perspective and what they describe about China, proximity of Chinese culture to some Christian values or free market, it is not absolutely wrong per se. But if you only have this perspective and you approach China from this angle and direction and it is very one sided and then you lead other direction from other Asian societies studying China. It's not only distance. Sometimes if you are observing China from two coast distance, for example Japan, it might not be as good as somebody from a totally alien culture, totally different culture to observe China. Then you can have a fresh perspective. But then having a two fresher perspective as a problem that because of distance, then the best way to do it is that you have both. You can juxtapose this different perspective and angle and have a fuller understanding of China.

[Interviewer]

So as you mentioned, you have been based in American academia for many years and that's how this project came into your mind. But another ingredient in your thinking is that before entering American academia, you grew up and studied in Hong Kong. Can you give us an indication of whether growing up in Hong Kong gave you a specific vantage point on Orientalist knowledge that might be different from an American scholar or a mainland Chinese scholar?

[Ho Fenghong]

For example, I don't think that my background in Hong Kong or experience of higher education in Hong Kong, I finished my undergrad degree in Hong Kong, has any particular core contribution or influence on my view on these subjects. But definitely that the very specific conjuncture of Hong Kong universities in the 1990s, where Hong Kong is transitioning from British rule to Chinese rule, that at that time there's intellectual kind of vibrancy and interest that coincide with the interest in Western academia is this post colonialism and Orientalism discourse adversaries of Autumn studies that got me into this issues of Western knowledge about yeast to begin with. So it is the time and space of life united Hong Kong. At the same time, when I dig deeper and as I discuss in the book I'm more sensitive to the thing that happened, for example during Cold War China Studies and how the University Survey center that later hosted in the Chinese University of Hong Kong, that is my alma material and now that under the National Security Law that they radically transform and even close down many functions of that center. But I'm particularly sensitive to the particular role that these institutions played in helping create the orientalized understanding of China. When Cold War segmentation between China and the rest of the world created difficulty of Western goal to understand China. But then this research center at the time in the the 60s, 70s, 80s, create a venue for direct exchange between Chinese scholars and Chinese migrants recently coming from China with Western scholar and keep this kind of China studies continuously orientalized despite the Cold War limitation. So it is this particular role that Hong Kong played that even when I was in Hong Kong I was a lot very much aware of this. The other thing is of course the real Confucianism that also very much connected the Chinese University of Hong Kong and back in the old days when I was back in Hong Kong, that I adopt many views of the students and radical scholars who see this new conservatism as a kind of a very conservative and negative effort to rescue a dying culture. So many left leaning and radical scholars and students at the time in Hong Kong all very much inspired by this Mao conception of Cultural Revolution and Wu Xun's view of total Westernization and getting rid of Chinese tradition. So we are actually very much into this new Confucianism thing. But after I got into the US and I have a fresh look into these issues and I find that this new Confucianism from Chen Mu and not Chen Mu actually Chen Mu is the most conservative one. But actually this more about Mo Zhongshan and Tang Junyi and all this. And even Du Weming and all these scholars who try to have a new look and Confucianism and how to connect Confucianism Western social thoughts. And it has accurate played a role in de Orientalizing Chinese knowledge, Western knowledge of China and Confucianism and all that. Because their view on Confucianism is in no way stagnant and monotonic and orientalist. And they critique Sinology. They critique both the KMT and the CCP very simplistic portrayal, negative or positive of conversionism. And they try to recover conversion in its full capacity and try to study Confucianism lot from a colonial Western missionary view upon and also a lot from a kind of authoritarian government point of view. So it is all this kind of thing that actually I didn't realize how important they are in helping de orientalize Western or even global understanding of China at the time when I was in Hong Kong. But after I started this project and started looking at this look back on these issues, and thanks to my Hong Kong background, I'm more sensitive to this group of works. But then after I'm in the US And I have a fresh perspective and look back on this and I find that it is very important that I would find that Hong Kong historically did play a very important role that is overlooked in this Western deorientalization of Western knowledge about China.

[Interviewer]

I thought we might wrap up with a final question on the conditions under which de Orientalist knowledge might thrive. One of the claims in the book is that knowledge survives and grows when it is useful to some group of people. It's quite easy to see why Orientalist images of China are useful today both to both in the west and to the Chinese leadership. It's less clear to me to whom deorientalist knowledge is useful too. So can you say a bit more about how to make deorientalized knowledge useful so that it can continue to develop?

[Ho Fenghong]

Yeah. That is not that deorientalized knowledge is particularly useful, but that disorientalist knowledge is most of the time not only useless but dangerous. So the Orientalized knowledge has the task to do for the good of everybody. Is that to prevent this danger of Orientalist knowledge? One example is during COVID that I have it discussed in the book. That is during COVID in the early stage of the COVID crisis. The Western government, of course, is coping very busily with the disease and people unhappy with what the government is doing. The government is not decisive. And so there's a lot of spreading of the virus, death and chaos and debate about how much individuals freedom need to be sacrificed for the control of the virus. While in China the government is very monotonically portraying kind of a triumphant propaganda saying that, look, China Covid control is so successful that China's zero COVID policy that the party states dictate that the whole area, even the whole neighborhood and even the whole city need to be locked down. And people are not resisting a lot of question and just obey. So it is so successful, it stopped the spread of the virus. And then I quote a number of global times and Chinese official discourse, even right after the COVID pandemic. And some scholars in the west also talk about this kind of Chinese triumphalism, about how this Confucianist communalist obedient culture make everybody sacrifice and listen to their leader and then help contain the virus so successfully. While in the decaying and declining west people are selfish, they are individualistic, they don't listen to the authorities and they just care about themselves. And then the virus spread and it's very chaotic way. So this kind of a very dichotomous Western versus Eastern collectivist versus individualist view is very much reinforced. And many Western scholars and commentators and journalists buy into this Chinese propaganda and saying that the west should learn from China in this kind of afrotrain way to control the virus. And it is very dangerous. At the time we didn't know that. Not only dangerous but also very useless in explaining what is going on in China. Because we know that later on that the China's zero COVID policy was not as successful as the Chinese propaganda claim. And the Chinese people were not as obedient as the Chinese government claim or as it appeared. Because when you know that later on in the zero COVID policy people are tired of this kind of a lockdown. People are protesting, people are resisting on social media first. And then there's the White Paper movement, A four movement suddenly pop up everywhere in China that even became so big that the CCP worried that it might threaten its rule and so it banned to the popular view and then cancel the civil COVID policy. And then in the end the rest is history and China exit the COVID lighting a very chaotic collapse of the COVID zero COVID policy and then with a lot of costs and a lot of death. And it turned out that the China proposed to controlling the pandemic is not as successful as it claimed. And then people are puzzled why this A4 and white paper protest suddenly pop up that we don't anticipate it if it is so China is so confucianly so collectivist as the Chinese government claim. So this kind of example is. This example is a very good example showing this orientalized knowledge is very useless and even dangerous. And in creating this myth about the strength of Chinese collectivism and Chinese dictatorships and and total control. While in the end that people are actually within China protesting and we just didn't know in advance. And then when it pop up, we need to understand it from a totally fresh light. And so it is one example. So this the orientalized knowledge and of course after the White Paper movement and then there's very excellent scholars and write about why it happened, what is its origins and so on and so forth and then utilize a lot of the Orientalized knowledge about Chinese civil society, how the Chinese authoritarian world, the system work, didn't work so well to understand how it happens. So this the originalized knowledge is very important in this sense to prevent us from the habit or the tendency to fall back on this simplistic view that is always promoted by the there's some in China and also some lazy journalism, I would say, and political charge positively or negatively the public commentary in the West.

[Interviewer]

As you said, deorientalist knowledge is an unending process, and I think that's a good place to wrap up. Thank you for plowing the field of deorientalist knowledge, and thank you for being with us today.

[Ho Fenghong]

Thank you very much. I enjoy a conversation a lot.