- The Silk Road also leads to the North Pole
- Hong Kong: Tiananmen commemoration suppressed
- E-car sales expected to reach 1.8 million
- WHO gives emergency approval to Sinovac
- Maker of baby products on the rise
- Xiaomi to become third-largest mobile phone vendor
- Full Truck Alliance plans initial public offering
- Food suppliers need licenses
- Imprisonment for ‘denigrating’ revolutionary hero
- Lukas Dubro, expert on science fiction
- VW personnel in Anhui
it’s a public slap in the face that China’s President Xi Jinping has handed out. Xi has called the country’s senior officials to order. He said Beijing needs to “get a grip on the tone” in its communications with the world and should be “open and confident, but also modest and humble.” That Xi made this announcement via the Xinhua news agency is evidence of exasperation with the behavior and statements of his diplomats, who are increasingly engaged in ugly exchanges with foreign representatives. Xi wants to create a “trustworthy, lovable and respectable” image for China. This move does not come by chance, as the People’s Republic is facing difficult dates. On the one hand the 32nd anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre on June 4, but also the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party on July 1.
So the timing of the arrest of human rights activist Wang Aizhong was no coincidence. Marcel Grzanna spoke with people who, whether they are 65 or 24, keep the memory of the victims of June 4, 1989 alive, even though the date is increasingly threatening to disappear from the history books there. Beijing’s National Security Law means it’s only a matter of time.
“As a result of global warming, Arctic shipping routes are expected to become important transport routes for international trade,” says the “White Paper on the Arctic” from Beijing’s perspective. Michael Radunski reveals which economic interests have led the People’s Republic to see itself as an “almost-Arctic state” and what role the dream of the “Polar Silk Road” plays.
Ning Wang
Feature
Competition for the Arctic – China’s Ice-Cold Plans
For a brief moment, Sergei Lavrov drops the diplomatic mask. “Everyone has been perfectly clear for a long time that this is our territory,” Russia’s foreign minister said last week, referring to the Arctic. “This is our land.” So when Russia took over the chairmanship of the Arctic Council a few days later, it should have been clear not only to the eight council members (Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Canada, Russia and the United States): Moscow lays claim to the entire 1.2 million square kilometers of that icy region.
And so Norway’s Foreign Minister Ine Marie Eriksen Søreide expressed deep concern as early as December: “We are observing a self-confident Russia in the region.” But new players are also suddenly pushing their way into the “strategically most important region,” she said. By this, Søreide means China in particular.
Raw Materials and short Sea Routes
In January 2018, Beijing published its own Arctic strategy for the first time. A white paper states the goal is to “understand, protect, develop and participate in the governance of the region so as to safeguard the common interests of all states and the international community.” But behind the diplomatic platitudes lie Beijing’s own interests: Exploiting resources and raw materials, using short sea routes and, above all, having a say in the region’s future. “China has been involved in the Arctic for a long time, but it is only with this white paper that Beijing has clearly set out how comprehensive China’s interest really is,” says Marc Lanteigne of the Arctic University in Tromsø, Norway, in an interview with China Table.
Continue reading now
Get 30 days of free access to the Decision Brief to read these and more quality news every day.
Are you already a guest at the China.Table? Log in now