China is proud of its history and of the fact that the Chinese were the first to produce paper. Display cases at the world’s biggest book fair trace the development of Chinese characters and the invention of paper. They also showcase the printing press and the modern digital age with computers and mobile reading devices.

The Chinese artist Li Jiwei has created an artwork in which a huge piece of rice paper hovers over the heads of the fair visitors. Underneath is a small pond onto whose surface a drop of ink is projected. It is surrounded by blocks of wood with Chinese characters.

Li Jiwei says he wants to present Chinese traditions in a new form: “I hope that people do not only associate Chinese culture with red lanterns. There is also modern art in China.”

Western perception of China is skewed

Michael Kahn-Ackermann, the regional head of the Goethe Institute in China, is also hoping that the fair will shed a new light on the guest of honour.

“The Western perception of China is a bit skewed at the moment,” he said. “It does not correspond to Chinese realities and is very superficial. If there is a critical dialogue here I hope it will be critical of both sides, not only of one.”

450 events on China have been planned -- roughly half of them have been organised by the Chinese organisation committee. The others were organised by independent institutions and publishers.

Organising committee represents worst of China

Yang Lian is one of the 100 Chinese writers attending the fair. He has been living in exile in London for four years but he says that he is still very much a Chinese writer.

He says that the organising committee is showing the worst side of China to the world. “It does nothing but ideology -- its only responsibility is to keep the propaganda machine moving. It harks back to Mao’s version of communism and has no other way or direction. The people on the committee are not even like the local leaders who at least have a responsibility for people’s lives.”

Nonetheless, Yang Lian is optimistic that there will be more openness. China is changing by the minute, he says, and the authorities will have to accept this whether they want it or not: “They cannot keep control even though they want to.”

One of the things the authorities cannot seem to keep under their total control is the Internet.

Yet this where 20 percent of Chinese literature is published and where dissident voices get a platform.

Author: Petra Lambeck/Anne Thomas
Editor: Thomas Bärthlein