Last year, Beijing was supposed to host a summit between China and 17 Eastern and Central European countries, but the meeting was canceled due to the pandemic. Now, just before the Chinese New Year, a virtual summit is set to get off the ground next week. China.Table takes a look at the list of participants, the possible agenda and what can be expected politically from the meeting.
Drones that deliver packages or help with the harvest – the whirring flying objects are already part of working life in China. The number of hours flown by Chinese drones increased by more than 30 percent last year, reports Frank Sieren. However, the high level of interest has a bitter aftertaste: Demand for combat drones is also increasing.
You can find out why China has stuck with Giga Institute for Asian Studies Deputy Director Margot Schueller and how she assesses the impact of the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) in today’s Heads section.
Marcel Grzanna spoke with former Danish Culture Minister Uffe Elbaek, who has been targeted by authorities for helping Hong Kong activist Ted Hui escape.
After a Covid-related hiatus of almost two years, 17 Central and Eastern European nations and China (the so-called 17+1 format) will meet next week for an online summit. European nations are going into the meeting with different moods. Some are so unenthusiastic that they have left their participation uncertain. According to media reports, Chinese observers expect the talks to focus on cooperation on the Covid-19 pandemic, economic recovery after the Covid crisis and climate change.
Ivana Karásková, the founder of the China Observers in Central and Eastern Europe (CHOICE) network, does not rule out the possibility that the meeting will be more about propaganda – especially mutual praise for the successful fight against the Covid pandemic, Karásková tells China.Table. The Prague-based analyst doubts that substantial political results will be achieved: “I don’t expect anything great,” says Karásková. An official agenda for the meeting has not yet been published.
At the same time, Beijing should try to polish its image in Eastern and Central Europe – because the spirit of optimism surrounding the start of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) eight years ago has since waned. “When China came to the region in 2012, there were many expectations. But almost none of them materialized except for a few projects in the Western Balkans.” Many countries are now also increasingly concerned about China’s influence in the country, Karásková explains – there is disillusionment: “What we see is an end to naivety in the countries.” Beijing needs to step up its game again. “The ball is on the Chinese side. But we don’t know what they will put on the table.”
Together with experts from Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia and Romania, Karásková already argued in a publication last spring that the 17+1 nations need to take the helm in their relationship with China to“promote their interests vis-à-vis Beijing rather than passively accept Beijing’s agenda“.
Meetings between China and the 17 Central and Eastern European countries, including 12 EU and five non-EU states, are usually scheduled annually – the last summit was held in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in 2019. Beijing was supposed to host it in April 2020, but the meeting was canceled due to the spread of the Covid virus. That the summit is now taking place in the first half of February seemed almost like a rush job to some observers – squeezed in before the Chinese New Year, during which the People’s Republic usually comes to a virtual standstill for two weeks.
Justyna Szczudlik, China analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM) in Warsaw, is not surprised by the timing. After the political agreement between Brussels and Beijing on the investment agreement (CAI) and the inauguration of the Biden administration in the US, the 17+1 summit is also a good opportunity for China to underline its “agenda-setting power,” she tells China.Table. Beijing can use it to confirm that China has political friends, Szczudlik said. She does not expect a “substantial outcome” from the meeting. The China expert also observes a certain fatigue in the region regarding cooperation with the People’s Republic: “Promises such as better economic relations in terms of reducing the trade deficit, high-level and high-quality Chinese investment and high-level political dialogue have not materialized.”
China is not expecting a homogeneous collection of European states at the virtual conference table – because Beijing advocates and critics are sitting there. Estonia, for example, expressed skepticism in the weeks leading up to the meeting: He would prefer Estonia to communicate with China through the European Union, outgoing Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu said, according to a media report. Estonia had received an invitation, but there were “several uncertainties” on the issue, he said. “
I have made it no secret that my preference would be to communicate with China not in the 17 + 1 format, but in the European Union format, and to demonstrate the unity of the West,” Reinsalu said.
The mood is quite different in Budapest, where the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine has been licensed since Friday. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán says he is waiting to be vaccinated with the Chinese vaccine – and is thus giving Beijing a big PR gift ahead of the summit as part of vaccination diplomacy. The Sinopharm vaccine is also already in use in Hungary’s neighboring country of Serbia. And the Czech Republic is also very likely to want to strike a positive tone with Beijing – because China’s diplomatic pressure on Prague has been increasing since a trip to Taiwan last year by the Chairman of the Czech Senate, Miloš Vystrčil. Czech President Miloš Zeman has already announced that he will take part in the video conference from Poland – because the Visegrád Four are meeting there on the same day for their own small summit.
There has not been an official announcement from the Chinese side on the summit agenda so far. China’s EU Ambassador Zhang Ming praised the cooperation with the 17+1 countries at an online panel last week: He said it achieved “early harvests and major results” since its inception. He dismissed that there was also a geopolitical agenda: “17+1 is open, transparent and inclusive.” Nor is there any word from Beijing about displeasure over unimplemented BRI projects. State news agency Xinhua last published a focus series in December on the New Silk Road titled “BRI projects in Europe – living reality instead of myth.”
For the former Danish Minister of Culture Uffe Elbaek, travel plans to China are out of the question for the time being. After the security bureau in Hong Kong recently threatened to investigate an arrest warrant against him, the politician fears prosecution in the city as well as in the entire People’s Republic. Elbaek was partly responsible for the flight of Hong Kong democracy activist Ted Hui to Europe. The Dane invented a climate conference in Copenhagen to present Hong Kong authorities with an invitation to the fake event, which allowed Hui to leave the city.
“At first, I thought it was a joke. But they were really serious. Apparently, we snubbed Beijing with this action,” says Elbaek in an interview with China.Table. More than that, the Danish Free Green politician and his fellow campaigners have come under suspicion of violating the new security law, which has given the authorities in Hong Kong far-reaching powers to severely punish unwelcome critics and activists since July 2020.
The law, which has been implemented in Beijing by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in response to the protest movement in Hong Kong, also targets foreign nationals in Article 38. According to the law, all individuals worldwide, regardless of their nationality, can be prosecuted if they violate the law in the opinion of the Hong Kong authorities. According to the security bureau, the aiding and abetting of the escape of Elbaek and his parliamentary colleague Katarina Ammitzboll, as well as two Danish young politicians, provided sufficient grounds to consider issuing arrest warrants. It is yet unclear whether there will be enough for a formal indictment.
The police will investigate and pursue their legal obligations under Hong Kong laws in their jurisdiction, the statement said. Hui was out of prison on bail only and had been required to deposit his passport with authorities, the security bureau says in response to a request. By inviting him to the fake event in Copenhagen, Hui convinced authorities to hand over his passport. The security bureau announces a “proper process of investigation and evidence gathering.” Any further action would be based on evidence and carried out in accordance with the law. Whether it was the Security Act or some other law, the agency left open.
The Danish Parliament publicly backed the politicians and strongly condemned the actions of the Hong Kong authorities. Meanwhile, Dutch MEP Bart Groothuis sent the European Commission a list of questions about the case. He informed Elbaek through his office that he was “seriously concerned” about the recent increase in bilateral extradition treaties with China and the impact on human rights defenders, journalists, and politicians.
“I am grateful for the broad solidarity. But actually, this is not about me, but about the question of how far we as democratic societies are willing to accept such interventions by the Chinese government,” says Elbaek, who worked as Culture Minister for the social democratic government between October 2011 and December 2012.
If Hong Kong’s law enforcement agencies were indeed investigating a violation of the National Security Law Elbaek and Ammitzboll would be the most prominent offenders to date outside the financial metropolis on the Pearl River Delta. And it would be an indication of the determination with which the People’s Republic intends to expand its sphere of political influence abroad with the help of the new legal framework. According to legal experts, the extraterritorial reach of the security law is unprecedented. It goes far beyond the competence of Chinese criminal law, which holds foreigners outside the People’s Republic accountable only if a crime is punishable by at least three years in prison in China and is actually punishable as a crime where it occurs. In other words, to date, there is no law against aiding and abetting flight from China that targets foreigners outside of China.
The four Danes are not the first foreigners without Chinese roots to be targeted by the authorities for allegedly violating the security law. Two weeks ago, US human rights lawyer John Clancey was temporarily detained along with 52 other activists in a raid in Hong Kong. Clancey had supported unofficial primaries for the city’s general election last year, which were organized by democratic forces.
“As long as foreigners who are alleged to have broken the law are not in Hong Kong or China, they probably have little to fear. But if they are in countries that cooperate closely with Beijing, it can become threatening,” says Don Clarke, an expert on Chinese law at George Washington University in the US capital, Washington. One example is Chinese-born publisher Gui Minhai, a Swedish citizen who was abducted from Thailand to China by Chinese security officials and eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison. He said some other Southeast Asian states, as well as countries in Central Asia, were also problematic. Denmark’s Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod has already categorically ruled out extraditing the parliamentarians to Hong Kong. Germany has suspended the extradition treaty with Hong Kong as a reaction to the security law.
“I am concerned by the lack of precision in the wording of the law. It is so vague that the authorities are free to decide whether someone has breached it or not. Experience shows us that they can apply laws at will,” says Clarke. The sticking point with Chinese laws is very often their scope for interpretation, which often allows the authorities to apply them arbitrarily. Among other things, the Security Law criminalizes the use of “unlawful means”. The definition of “unlawful means” is left to the Hong Kong authorities.
“The Security Law has added an abstract risk for all foreigners. It means a break and a tightening of the situation. The state reserves the right to make a politically motivated choice about who to hold accountable,” says Eva Pils, who taught law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong for seven years until 2014. The idea that people are breaking the law in Hong Kong if, as a non-Chinese, they campaign for the democratic rights of Hong Kong citizens in Berlin or Heidelberg is not only strange but also incompatible with the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), “whose validity in Hong Kong the People’s Republic had explicitly recognized in the international treaty with the United Kingdom on the return of Hong Kong to China,” says Pils.
There, in Article 19, the right to freedom of expression is restricted under certain conditions and in consideration of proportionality. But in principle, this restriction should not provide states with a justification for silencing supporters of democratic principles and human rights.
“I do think that Chinese nationals from other countries are more likely to be affected by the law than non-Chinese nationals. But the point is that a seed of fear has been planted, aimed at intimidating all those with contacts in Hong Kong,” Pils says.
For Margot Schueller, it all began with a film about the Chinese Cultural Revolution. At school, the geography teacher showed footage of singing peasants quoting the Mao book before working in the fields. Margot Schueller was immediately skeptical about the authenticity of the scenes and wanted to learn more about China. The country never let go of her. “When the policy of the four modernizations began in China in the early eighties, I chose agrarian reform as the topic for my final thesis in the economics course,” she reports.
Schueller is Senior Research Fellow at the GIGA Institute of Asian Studies in Hamburg and an acknowledged expert on China. A lot of time has passed between that film in geography class and today. Meanwhile, she has led numerous research projects and published analyses. “There are two topics that have interested me, especially in recent years. These are the internationalization of Chinese companies and the impact on European locations, and the country’s scientific and technological transformation,” says Margot Schueller. Between 2012 and 2020, she was a member of an expert group on the latter topic, initiated by the Federal Ministry of Research, which held regular dialogue events with the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology.
In addition, as part of a project commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Ph.D. of economics recently looked into the development of science, research, and innovation in the Asia-Pacific region and analyzed it in comparison with the USA and some European countries. She reports that a thick monitoring report will soon be presented. In her research, Margot Schueller is primarily concerned with policy analysis, trying to find out which government measures influence economic conditions in China.
Her research interests are currently in political high gear. Despite the constant reports about possible further regulations that Beijing wants to push for the Chinese market, Margot Schueller remains optimistic. The recently concluded Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), in particular, lets her hope that German companies will have even better and more secure access to the market than before. In the global context, however, she would like to see the Europeans put more emphasis on their independence. “The US is facing enormous competitive pressure,” she said. “If it comes to further Decoupling, Europe should go its own way,” she says, explaining the GIGA’s position.
Her first stay in China was several years ago. “I first went to China on a DAAD scholarship in September 1983, to Liaoning University in Shenyang in north-eastern China. I then went back to Germany in November 1985,” she recalls. It was by no means to be her last stay. Constantin Eckner
Last year, Beijing was supposed to host a summit between China and 17 Eastern and Central European countries, but the meeting was canceled due to the pandemic. Now, just before the Chinese New Year, a virtual summit is set to get off the ground next week. China.Table takes a look at the list of participants, the possible agenda and what can be expected politically from the meeting.
Drones that deliver packages or help with the harvest – the whirring flying objects are already part of working life in China. The number of hours flown by Chinese drones increased by more than 30 percent last year, reports Frank Sieren. However, the high level of interest has a bitter aftertaste: Demand for combat drones is also increasing.
You can find out why China has stuck with Giga Institute for Asian Studies Deputy Director Margot Schueller and how she assesses the impact of the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) in today’s Heads section.
Marcel Grzanna spoke with former Danish Culture Minister Uffe Elbaek, who has been targeted by authorities for helping Hong Kong activist Ted Hui escape.
After a Covid-related hiatus of almost two years, 17 Central and Eastern European nations and China (the so-called 17+1 format) will meet next week for an online summit. European nations are going into the meeting with different moods. Some are so unenthusiastic that they have left their participation uncertain. According to media reports, Chinese observers expect the talks to focus on cooperation on the Covid-19 pandemic, economic recovery after the Covid crisis and climate change.
Ivana Karásková, the founder of the China Observers in Central and Eastern Europe (CHOICE) network, does not rule out the possibility that the meeting will be more about propaganda – especially mutual praise for the successful fight against the Covid pandemic, Karásková tells China.Table. The Prague-based analyst doubts that substantial political results will be achieved: “I don’t expect anything great,” says Karásková. An official agenda for the meeting has not yet been published.
At the same time, Beijing should try to polish its image in Eastern and Central Europe – because the spirit of optimism surrounding the start of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) eight years ago has since waned. “When China came to the region in 2012, there were many expectations. But almost none of them materialized except for a few projects in the Western Balkans.” Many countries are now also increasingly concerned about China’s influence in the country, Karásková explains – there is disillusionment: “What we see is an end to naivety in the countries.” Beijing needs to step up its game again. “The ball is on the Chinese side. But we don’t know what they will put on the table.”
Together with experts from Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia and Romania, Karásková already argued in a publication last spring that the 17+1 nations need to take the helm in their relationship with China to“promote their interests vis-à-vis Beijing rather than passively accept Beijing’s agenda“.
Meetings between China and the 17 Central and Eastern European countries, including 12 EU and five non-EU states, are usually scheduled annually – the last summit was held in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in 2019. Beijing was supposed to host it in April 2020, but the meeting was canceled due to the spread of the Covid virus. That the summit is now taking place in the first half of February seemed almost like a rush job to some observers – squeezed in before the Chinese New Year, during which the People’s Republic usually comes to a virtual standstill for two weeks.
Justyna Szczudlik, China analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM) in Warsaw, is not surprised by the timing. After the political agreement between Brussels and Beijing on the investment agreement (CAI) and the inauguration of the Biden administration in the US, the 17+1 summit is also a good opportunity for China to underline its “agenda-setting power,” she tells China.Table. Beijing can use it to confirm that China has political friends, Szczudlik said. She does not expect a “substantial outcome” from the meeting. The China expert also observes a certain fatigue in the region regarding cooperation with the People’s Republic: “Promises such as better economic relations in terms of reducing the trade deficit, high-level and high-quality Chinese investment and high-level political dialogue have not materialized.”
China is not expecting a homogeneous collection of European states at the virtual conference table – because Beijing advocates and critics are sitting there. Estonia, for example, expressed skepticism in the weeks leading up to the meeting: He would prefer Estonia to communicate with China through the European Union, outgoing Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu said, according to a media report. Estonia had received an invitation, but there were “several uncertainties” on the issue, he said. “
I have made it no secret that my preference would be to communicate with China not in the 17 + 1 format, but in the European Union format, and to demonstrate the unity of the West,” Reinsalu said.
The mood is quite different in Budapest, where the Chinese Sinopharm vaccine has been licensed since Friday. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán says he is waiting to be vaccinated with the Chinese vaccine – and is thus giving Beijing a big PR gift ahead of the summit as part of vaccination diplomacy. The Sinopharm vaccine is also already in use in Hungary’s neighboring country of Serbia. And the Czech Republic is also very likely to want to strike a positive tone with Beijing – because China’s diplomatic pressure on Prague has been increasing since a trip to Taiwan last year by the Chairman of the Czech Senate, Miloš Vystrčil. Czech President Miloš Zeman has already announced that he will take part in the video conference from Poland – because the Visegrád Four are meeting there on the same day for their own small summit.
There has not been an official announcement from the Chinese side on the summit agenda so far. China’s EU Ambassador Zhang Ming praised the cooperation with the 17+1 countries at an online panel last week: He said it achieved “early harvests and major results” since its inception. He dismissed that there was also a geopolitical agenda: “17+1 is open, transparent and inclusive.” Nor is there any word from Beijing about displeasure over unimplemented BRI projects. State news agency Xinhua last published a focus series in December on the New Silk Road titled “BRI projects in Europe – living reality instead of myth.”
For the former Danish Minister of Culture Uffe Elbaek, travel plans to China are out of the question for the time being. After the security bureau in Hong Kong recently threatened to investigate an arrest warrant against him, the politician fears prosecution in the city as well as in the entire People’s Republic. Elbaek was partly responsible for the flight of Hong Kong democracy activist Ted Hui to Europe. The Dane invented a climate conference in Copenhagen to present Hong Kong authorities with an invitation to the fake event, which allowed Hui to leave the city.
“At first, I thought it was a joke. But they were really serious. Apparently, we snubbed Beijing with this action,” says Elbaek in an interview with China.Table. More than that, the Danish Free Green politician and his fellow campaigners have come under suspicion of violating the new security law, which has given the authorities in Hong Kong far-reaching powers to severely punish unwelcome critics and activists since July 2020.
The law, which has been implemented in Beijing by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in response to the protest movement in Hong Kong, also targets foreign nationals in Article 38. According to the law, all individuals worldwide, regardless of their nationality, can be prosecuted if they violate the law in the opinion of the Hong Kong authorities. According to the security bureau, the aiding and abetting of the escape of Elbaek and his parliamentary colleague Katarina Ammitzboll, as well as two Danish young politicians, provided sufficient grounds to consider issuing arrest warrants. It is yet unclear whether there will be enough for a formal indictment.
The police will investigate and pursue their legal obligations under Hong Kong laws in their jurisdiction, the statement said. Hui was out of prison on bail only and had been required to deposit his passport with authorities, the security bureau says in response to a request. By inviting him to the fake event in Copenhagen, Hui convinced authorities to hand over his passport. The security bureau announces a “proper process of investigation and evidence gathering.” Any further action would be based on evidence and carried out in accordance with the law. Whether it was the Security Act or some other law, the agency left open.
The Danish Parliament publicly backed the politicians and strongly condemned the actions of the Hong Kong authorities. Meanwhile, Dutch MEP Bart Groothuis sent the European Commission a list of questions about the case. He informed Elbaek through his office that he was “seriously concerned” about the recent increase in bilateral extradition treaties with China and the impact on human rights defenders, journalists, and politicians.
“I am grateful for the broad solidarity. But actually, this is not about me, but about the question of how far we as democratic societies are willing to accept such interventions by the Chinese government,” says Elbaek, who worked as Culture Minister for the social democratic government between October 2011 and December 2012.
If Hong Kong’s law enforcement agencies were indeed investigating a violation of the National Security Law Elbaek and Ammitzboll would be the most prominent offenders to date outside the financial metropolis on the Pearl River Delta. And it would be an indication of the determination with which the People’s Republic intends to expand its sphere of political influence abroad with the help of the new legal framework. According to legal experts, the extraterritorial reach of the security law is unprecedented. It goes far beyond the competence of Chinese criminal law, which holds foreigners outside the People’s Republic accountable only if a crime is punishable by at least three years in prison in China and is actually punishable as a crime where it occurs. In other words, to date, there is no law against aiding and abetting flight from China that targets foreigners outside of China.
The four Danes are not the first foreigners without Chinese roots to be targeted by the authorities for allegedly violating the security law. Two weeks ago, US human rights lawyer John Clancey was temporarily detained along with 52 other activists in a raid in Hong Kong. Clancey had supported unofficial primaries for the city’s general election last year, which were organized by democratic forces.
“As long as foreigners who are alleged to have broken the law are not in Hong Kong or China, they probably have little to fear. But if they are in countries that cooperate closely with Beijing, it can become threatening,” says Don Clarke, an expert on Chinese law at George Washington University in the US capital, Washington. One example is Chinese-born publisher Gui Minhai, a Swedish citizen who was abducted from Thailand to China by Chinese security officials and eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison. He said some other Southeast Asian states, as well as countries in Central Asia, were also problematic. Denmark’s Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod has already categorically ruled out extraditing the parliamentarians to Hong Kong. Germany has suspended the extradition treaty with Hong Kong as a reaction to the security law.
“I am concerned by the lack of precision in the wording of the law. It is so vague that the authorities are free to decide whether someone has breached it or not. Experience shows us that they can apply laws at will,” says Clarke. The sticking point with Chinese laws is very often their scope for interpretation, which often allows the authorities to apply them arbitrarily. Among other things, the Security Law criminalizes the use of “unlawful means”. The definition of “unlawful means” is left to the Hong Kong authorities.
“The Security Law has added an abstract risk for all foreigners. It means a break and a tightening of the situation. The state reserves the right to make a politically motivated choice about who to hold accountable,” says Eva Pils, who taught law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong for seven years until 2014. The idea that people are breaking the law in Hong Kong if, as a non-Chinese, they campaign for the democratic rights of Hong Kong citizens in Berlin or Heidelberg is not only strange but also incompatible with the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), “whose validity in Hong Kong the People’s Republic had explicitly recognized in the international treaty with the United Kingdom on the return of Hong Kong to China,” says Pils.
There, in Article 19, the right to freedom of expression is restricted under certain conditions and in consideration of proportionality. But in principle, this restriction should not provide states with a justification for silencing supporters of democratic principles and human rights.
“I do think that Chinese nationals from other countries are more likely to be affected by the law than non-Chinese nationals. But the point is that a seed of fear has been planted, aimed at intimidating all those with contacts in Hong Kong,” Pils says.
For Margot Schueller, it all began with a film about the Chinese Cultural Revolution. At school, the geography teacher showed footage of singing peasants quoting the Mao book before working in the fields. Margot Schueller was immediately skeptical about the authenticity of the scenes and wanted to learn more about China. The country never let go of her. “When the policy of the four modernizations began in China in the early eighties, I chose agrarian reform as the topic for my final thesis in the economics course,” she reports.
Schueller is Senior Research Fellow at the GIGA Institute of Asian Studies in Hamburg and an acknowledged expert on China. A lot of time has passed between that film in geography class and today. Meanwhile, she has led numerous research projects and published analyses. “There are two topics that have interested me, especially in recent years. These are the internationalization of Chinese companies and the impact on European locations, and the country’s scientific and technological transformation,” says Margot Schueller. Between 2012 and 2020, she was a member of an expert group on the latter topic, initiated by the Federal Ministry of Research, which held regular dialogue events with the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology.
In addition, as part of a project commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Ph.D. of economics recently looked into the development of science, research, and innovation in the Asia-Pacific region and analyzed it in comparison with the USA and some European countries. She reports that a thick monitoring report will soon be presented. In her research, Margot Schueller is primarily concerned with policy analysis, trying to find out which government measures influence economic conditions in China.
Her research interests are currently in political high gear. Despite the constant reports about possible further regulations that Beijing wants to push for the Chinese market, Margot Schueller remains optimistic. The recently concluded Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), in particular, lets her hope that German companies will have even better and more secure access to the market than before. In the global context, however, she would like to see the Europeans put more emphasis on their independence. “The US is facing enormous competitive pressure,” she said. “If it comes to further Decoupling, Europe should go its own way,” she says, explaining the GIGA’s position.
Her first stay in China was several years ago. “I first went to China on a DAAD scholarship in September 1983, to Liaoning University in Shenyang in north-eastern China. I then went back to Germany in November 1985,” she recalls. It was by no means to be her last stay. Constantin Eckner
