- Ai Weiwei: politics triggers ‘panic and death’
- Leading China researchers make 2023 predictions
- Qin Gang replaces Wang Yi as Foreign Minister
- Many countries test Chinese travelers
- Media: peak of Covid wave passed
- Xi’s speech contains economic spoilers
- Heads: Elena Meyer-Clement
The China.Table editorial team wishes you a fantastic new year. Be it business, scientific, civic or private, may your projects go according to plan.
The year 2022 has been turbulent and has constantly brought us, as journalists, and you, as China professionals, unexpected surprises. 2023 begins again dramatically with a pandemic wave that has a significant impact in and outside China.
We asked the critical artist Ai Weiwei for his opinion on this. He sees no leadership plan behind the hasty opening but suspects pure chaos. Will the obvious mistakes decisively weaken the regime? No, says Ai Weiwei. The party holds the reins too firmly for that.
Ai Weiwei also believes that the perception of China in Western media is almost always wrong. To shed some light for you, we asked leading China researchers for their expert opinion on the trends of the new year. The topics are the economy, technology, trade, supply chains, Taiwan, human rights and the stability of the Communist Party. This way, you can start the new year well-informed.
Have a good start to the year, the month and the week!
Finn Mayer-Kuckuk
Interview
‘The regime is still very confident’
It was a turbulent year for China: We’ve seen strict lockdowns, one of the most important party gatherings in 30 years, an uproar on the streets and an unexpected end of zero-Covid. What surprised you the most this year in China and would you consider 2022 a milestone/a game changer in recent Chinese history, domestically and globally?
What happens today in China speaks for itself. Despite seeming clarity, both onlookers and active participants, both inside and outside China, are somehow confused. Confusion results from the country’s unreasonable decision-making and -implementing that is disconnected from common sense and science. No one knows why the dynamic zero-Covid policy had to be implemented; these measures very brutally obliterated basic attributes of human existence and left people unsupported by families, communities, friends, and medical systems. In absolute terms, people were governed like animals, which surprised us all.
Traditionally, humanity has been abundantly reflected upon in Chinese culture, both by regimes and by commoners. What China experienced in the past three years during the pandemic is unprecedented.
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