Frankfurt - A smouldering argument about free speech peppered opening speeches Tuesday at the Frankfurt Book Fair, with Chancellor Angela Merkel castigating communist dictatorships. Representing China, which is this year's guest of honour at the annual book publishing fair, Vice President Xi Jinping rebuffed criticism by German commentators of Beijing's censorship of books and the internet and he demanded respect for China's own ways.
"Various ideologies must not hamper mutual development," he said, as Chinese in the audience clapped, while the German guests in a theatre at the Frankfurt fairgrounds listened impassively.
"We are open to accepting elements from outside, but on our own cultural foundations," Xi said.
A few moments later, Merkel won applause from the German side of the room with a plea for competition of ideas. Describing her own childhood under the now vanished East German communist dictatorship, she said people had yearned for books smuggled in from the West.
"Books emphasize all those differences that are so threatening to dictatorships," she said.
But Merkel, who had met with Xi for 90 minutes the previous day at her Berlin office, kept the disagreement gentle, saying she welcomed China as a guest and Germans were immensely curious about China and its economic achievements.
The five-day fair opens for business on Wednesday.
Human rights groups have accused the fair organizers of pandering to China at a pre-fair symposium on Chinese literature in Frankfurt last month. Beijing demanded two dissidents not be invited to the pre-fair event.
When the two Chinese writers showed up anyway, Beijing officials briefly walked out.
On Tuesday, the chief organizer, Juergen Boos, toughened his stance towards China, saying, "We strongly condemn the human rights breaches and the restrictions on freedom of opinion and the press in the People's Republic of China."
Guest-of-honour status allows China to win special attention from the German arts media and to stage a cultural exhibition at the fairgrounds. That show emphasizes the long history of calligraphy and printing in China, with replicas of its early books.
Boos insisted China had been an excellent choice as this year's focus nation, saying, "You can marvel at China, fear it or criticize it, but you can't ignore it." He said dialogue with China was likely to bring change, but a book fair was "not the United Nations."
"The subject here is literature. We can describe conflicts, but we can't solve them here," he said.
