- Report: revitalization for transatlantic policy
- How Liuzhou became the electric car capital
- EU guidelines against forced labour
- China’s hunger for foreign soil
- Liquidity of China’s real estate dries up
- Huawei appeals against Swedish ruling
- Covax receives Chinese vaccines
- Opinion: China slaughters its golden goose
- Executive Moves: Suning chief steps down
For EU institutions, China often remains the notorious elephant in the room. Everyone knows what it’s about, everyone knows who it is, but no one talks about it. Official communication only speaks of it as “other important economies”. Earlier this week, even the declaration of the EU foreign ministers on “globally networked Europe” was keeping quiet about the obvious. Not a single word about the People’s Republic – and that of all things in an Initiative, with which Brussels wants to directly challenge China’s New Silk Road.
But an alternative to the BRI is not only of importance for the EU. In a joint report by the Munich Security Conference, Berlin-based research institute Merics and the US think tank Aspen Strategy Group, it is considered as one of the core tasks for a fresh start of transatlantic policy on China. Marcel Grzanna analyses the key points of the 67-page paper. And one thing is clear in advance: there is a lot of work to be done to make up for the shortcomings of the recent past.
In today’s issue, our author Christiane Kühl takes you on a relaxing trip to China’s capital of electric cars. Liuzhou is teeming with small, colorful electric cars. The city, with a population of around four million people, including its suburbs, is one of the largest local markets for electric cars in the world. Only Oslo has more electric cars per capita. How did Liuzhou manage this?
We hope you enjoy today’s issue of China.Table!
Amelie Richter
Feature
‘Mind the Gap’ – How the West can keep up with China
The report is 67 pages long and full of appeals, admonitions, and proposals. In their joint publication ‘Mind the Gap: Priorities for Transatlantic China Policy‘, the Munich Security Conference (MSC), the Berlin-based research institute Merics, and the US think tank Aspen Strategy Group urge Western partners to adopt a rapid and concerted policy in response to the challenges posed by Chinese ambitions in the 21st century. 67 pages, which also convey the impression that for a long time both North America and Europe lived in a fantasy, that the People’s Republic of China not only somehow magically integrates into the international community but above all without harming Western interests.
For a long time, the ‘Chinese Century’ propagated by Beijing itself seemed a long way off for many of the world’s governments. A century is long, and China’s technological, economic, and military backlog was so vast in the past 15 or 20 years that Western leaders preferred to sit back in self-righteous comfort instead of preparing for the rise of an authoritarian government with little interest in playing a supporting role on the world stage. As the paper points out, the drowsiness of democratic states is painfully reflected in various statistics and figures,
Germans see China in a leading role
One question asks which country the population of G7 countries as well as China and India expect to be the technological leader in the 2070s. The results of the surveys make two things clear. First, that confidence in their own abilities and strengths has suffered greatly in many Western countries. Take Germany, for example, 52 percent now believe that China will have taken the global leadership in 50 years at the latest. Only 16 percent are convinced that the European Union will take the top spot. Only in Japan, the USA and India a slight majority still believes in the superiority of the US.
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