A kosher restaurant in Beijing and a Jewish studies conference in 1988 for Chinese scholars in Shanghai — these are two prospects that have come into view following a recent visit to the People’s Republic of China by leaders of the Asia-Pacific Jewish Association (APJA).
Senior Chinese scholars, however, guided by their Foreign Ministry, rejected the suggestion that a meeting of Asian Jewish colloquiums’ international steering committee be held in Beijing, with scholars from Israel and the West attending. They indicated that this would be too sensitive and premature.
Other agreements tentatively reached between the APJA delegation and leaders of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences include:
Sets of the Encyclopedia Judaica and other Jewish source material will be presented to six leading research and academic libraries in China.
Video and audio tapes on Jewish topics will be made available for wide distribution.
Chinese scholars will be invited to attend the Third Asian Jewish Colloquium in 1989, and to attend other international Jewish conferences, possibly in Israel. Jewish-studies scholars, possibly from Israel, will be invited to China.
More tourist visas will be granted to Israeli citizens — but still within limitations.
SENSITIVITY IN BEIJING
The president of the APJA, Australian tourism tycoon Isi Leibler, and vice president Sam Lipski say they found “no evidence… of any short-term prospect of a change in the status quo” between Israel and China. They say there is much sensitivity in Beijing “to the climate created by exaggerated speculation” in the Israeli media and by “over-eager Israeli politicians,” and that this is “counter-productive.”
They told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that they were especially anxious to acquaint informed American Jewish leadership and opinion of their efforts in China.
Leibler and Lipski had apparently hoped to be able to hold a session of their colloquium steering committee in Beijing, following the participation at the second colloquium in Hong Kong last March of Chinese scholar and establishment figure Prof. Sidney Shapiro (Sha Boli).
Shapiro lectured at the colloquium on the history of the Jews of Kaifeng, and he has retained a warm relationship with the APJA since then. He is to visit Australia in 1988.
But the APJA leaders were turned down. They are understood to believe that Arab diplomatic pressure on the Chinese Foreign Ministry, and the general waiting mood in Beijing in advance of the 13th Communist Party Congress in October, have led to extreme circumspection on the part of Chinese academics with whom they are in contact.
The most senior among these are Prof. Zhao Fusan, a vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and director of its Institute of World Religions, and Dr. Li Shenzhi, also an academy vice president and director of its Institute of American Studies. Zhao, who is a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Committee and considered a ranking cultural ideological figure, told the APJA that there are some 20 scholars throughout China involved in one way or another with Jewish studies.
Their greatest problem was a dearth of source material, he said. The academy had recently translated Martin Buber’s “I and Thou” and Abba Eban’s “My People” into Chinese.
Zhao agreed with the APJA that collections of basic Jewish resource works, especially in philosophy, poetry and archaeology, would be distributed to the Academy of Social Sciences’ own documentation center, to the Chinese National Library, to Beijing University, to Futan University in Shanghai, to the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, and to the Nanking Theological Seminary.
He conceded that the level of Jewish studies research was not high, but singled out for special mention Prof. Hsu Ding Xin, an Old Testament scholar at the Nanking Seminary and a pupil of the late Dr. J.F. Li, who graduated from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in the 1930’s.
BEGINNING OF A CULTURAL DIALOGUE
Zhao also welcomed the APJA’s readiness to help towards arranging a conference of Chinese scholars of Jewish studies, to be held in Shanghai next year. One or two outstanding Jewish studies scholars from the West would attend this conference, along with some of the Chinese academics active in the field.
While the participation obviously would not be large, Zhao felt the conference could be an important beginning of a cultural dialogue.
It was Zhao who, to the surprise of the two Jewish leaders, raised the idea of a kosher facility in Beijing. He said it could serve as a tangible presence of Jewish ethnic culture. Leibler and Lipski accordingly began discussing the project with the Sheraton Great Wall Hotel, which is a Western businessmen’s favorite hostelry in Beijing.
Regarding Israeli tourists, Leibler was told by an authoritative official that there was no problem for them to receive visas provided they consisted of no more than 30-40 percent of a tour group.
There has been a fall-off recently in the number of visas granted to Israelis seeking to tour China.
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