CAI text + Container + Shijiazhuang + Investment rules + Wind energy + Tencent + Buetikofer • China.Table

CAI – masterpiece of Chinese negotiation
Container shortage leads to empty container repositioning
Covid situation comes to a head
Beijing tightens investment rules
Record for wind energy
Tencent attacks Alibaba with mini shops
Reinhard Buetikofer: networking – more than an answer to the BRI

Dear reader,

It’s just a moment, a single sentence on this Thursday, but words can trigger a lot in diplomacy. “I believe that with joint efforts of both sides, the ‘better angels’ in China-US relations will be able to overcome evil forces,” says Beijing’s foreign office spokeswoman Hua Chunying, congratulating Joe Biden on taking office. May relations between America and China now get “back on the right track”.

Are these new tones even conciliatory? Hardly. The world powers won’t back down in the clash of interests. Biden has long since made it clear that he has no intention of reversing his predecessor’s China policy. And Beijing managed to inflame relations with threats of sanctions against Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just seconds after the new US president swore his hand on the Bible in front of the Capitol on Wednesday.

Ursula von der Leyen promised EU parliamentarians nothing less than “the highest level” of transparency at the beginning of her term in office – especially regarding trade issues. That is exactly what the EU-China investment agreement (CAI) is all about.

But von der Leyen’s Commission lacks nothing as much as – transparency. For three weeks, MEPs (and not only them) have been waiting for the agreement text. They would have liked to assess who pulled whom across the negotiating table and what China actually promised the Europeans. The paper will be published on Friday, as Amelie Richter and Marcel Grzanna write. But there will be little to evaluate. Because of all things, the detailed “annexes” that the experts are waiting for will probably be missing.

We know that China (like other Asian countries) doesn’t give the coronavirus a chance and locks down entire cities at the slightest sign. Frank Sieren travels to Beijing and Shijiazhuang to investigate the price those affected by this strategy have to pay – especially now, before the wave of travel for the New Year.

Your
Antje Sirleschtov

Feature

Masterpiece of Chinese negotiation

A good three weeks after the fast agreement on the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment with China (CAI), at least parts of the text will be published for the first time today. It is unclear whether the relevant annexes to the agreement will also be published. There is already criticism of the deal even before its publication. Experts see it as a masterpiece of Chinese negotiating skills.

The Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) bears the stamp of Chinese negotiation skills. Beijing is thus greatly satisfied. The official reading there is “balanced, high-quality, mutually beneficial and win-win,” which has been quoted by party officials and state media like a prayer mill for days. And in Europe? Many observers doubt a win-win. It is true that the improved conditions for market access for European companies in China are seen as positive in principle. But numerous shortcomings of the deal provoke bitter smiles and criticism in Europe.

In the course of today, the text of the agreement is to be presented to the public for the first time – or at least parts of it. Brussels observers expect that the EU Commission will not publish the relevant annexes for the time being. However, the so-called annexes contain crucial details about the agreements. The “legal scrubbing” of the entire text is currently in progress: During this formal legal examination of the paper, formulations can still be changed. Representatives of the European Parliament, in particular, are pressing for the annexes to be published and translated promptly.

EU Parliament: ‘hasty conclusion’

The first signs that the CAI will not have an easy time in the EU Parliament – which must approve the deal – were already apparent during the Parliament’s first week of sessions following the agreement in principle between Brussels and Beijing. In a cross-party resolution on China’s actions in Hong Kong, MEPs deplored a “hasty conclusion” in the deal and that it did not adequately reflect the problematic human rights situation in Hong Kong, Xinjiang province and Tibet. “The EU risks its credibility as a global human rights actor,” said the paragraph attached to the resolution later this week. EU Commissioner for Equality Helena Dalli announced during Thursday’s debate on Hong Kong in plenary that the issue would also be on the agenda of the EU foreign ministers meeting next Monday.

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