China’s balloon was not a solitary balloon but belongs to a large family. They have been produced in great numbers for years. Michael Radunski reveals which engineers are behind the program and which companies are involved. Reconnaissance over enemy territory had already been going on for years – and even the suspicious neighbors Japan and Taiwan didn’t realize for a long time what was floating over them.
Germany was once a proud pioneer in solar energy. Then China ousted German suppliers with irresistibly cheap panels, leaving not only dependence on finished products but also on Chinese technology. Nico Beckert spoke with business and supply chain experts about ways out of the situation. And they agree: The way out of the trap would be bumpy and expensive – but possible.
The white-paper protests were mostly fueled by a young student movement and lasted loudly for days. Now the authorities are facing the fury of another age group – perhaps one with more social pressure – pensioners. In the city of Wuhan, senior citizens are currently taking to the streets, as Fabian Kretschmer reports. They are protesting against cuts in the social and health care system. This is because the latter has been pushed to its financial limits due to zero-Covid. The displeasure of the elderly could become a threat to the leadership in Beijing.
We wish you an exciting read!
The breakthrough was achieved in 2019 – many years before US forces pulled a suspected Chinese spy balloon out of the sky off South Carolina and the world public witnessed just how extensive China’s technical capabilities are.
Four years ago in August, Professor Wu Zhe revealed his success to the Chinese newspaper Nanfang Daily: With the “cloud chaser” (追云 zhuiyun), an unmanned airship had circled the earth for the first time at altitudes of 20 to 60 kilometers – including over North America. The dean of the research institute at Beihang University in Dongguan had a clear vision: To send steerable balloons into so-called near space to provide early warning of natural disasters, monitor environmental pollution, or even conduct aerial surveillance.
Wu Zhe is one of the leading scientists in Chinese aerospace research. He works at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Beihang, 北京航空航天大学). For nearly two decades, he has worked in airship development – a program that has astonished the world’s public over the past few weeks.
“China’s balloon program is estimated to possess over 200 high-altitude balloons and is directed by the People’s Liberation Army Strategic Combat Support Force,” says Carl Schuster of Hawaii Pacific University in an interview with China.Table. Established in December 2015, the PLASSF is one of five branches of the People’s Liberation Army. Its mission: To improve the army’s capabilities in “information warfare” (信息化战争, xìnxīhuà zhànzhēng), including using balloons. Schuster used to be part of the military and now researches international relations.
A year earlier, President Xi Jinping decreed the radical modernization of the Chinese Air Force. He ordered to r “speed up airspace integration and sharpen their offensive and defensive capabilities.” In response, China’s military experts pinpointed “near space” as a crucial link.
A long 2018 article published in the military newspaper “解放军报” says: 临近空间也已经成为现代战争的一个新战场，是国家安全体系的一个重要环节. “Near space has become a new battlefield in modern warfare.” It says it is a matter of dominating space at an altitude of 20 to 100 kilometers. The author states: Apart from occasional rocket fly-throughs, this transitional zone between air and space is empty space and so far unexplored by humans.
A look at the number of Chinese companies that are said to be associated with China’s balloon program shows just how extensive the program is. It is a comprehensive civil-military complex. The US Department of Commerce alone blacklisted six companies and one research institute in response to the balloon incident:
And here, the matter comes full circle to Professor Wu Zhe, the leading Chinese scientist. Beijing Nanjiang Aerospace Technology belongs to the Deluxe Family real estate group. It, in turn, is a close partner of Professor Wu’s Beihang University. Dongguan Lingkong is also said to have invested in Beihang University in a roundabout way. And the company Eagles Men, also mentioned above, was co-founded by Wu Zhe.
The importance of China’s balloon program is shown in an article for 环球 magazine in March 2022. It says: “Whoever gains an advantage in near space vehicles will be able to win the greater initiative in future wars.” 谁能在临近空间飞行器方面取得优势，谁也就能在未来战争中掌握更大的主动权.
Since then, a comprehensive program has been developed. “It appears to be a substantial effort, with at least six companies and one research institute involved,” says Timothy Heath of the US think tank Rand Foundation. He says, “the program was large enough to generate enough surveillance balloons to support intelligence collection missions in dozens of countries for several years.”
US Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder revealed this week that Chinese balloons have been spotted over Latin America, South America, Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Europe in recent years. “This is what we assess as part of a larger Chinese surveillance balloon program,” the US Defense Department spokesman said.
In recent years, dozens of Chinese military balloons have reportedly been spotted over Taiwan alone. This was reported by the British newspaper Financial Times on Monday. “They come very frequently, the last one just a few weeks ago,” a senior Taiwanese official told the Financial Times. Such attacks, he said, occur on average once a month. And similar reports are now coming from Japan as well.
The wide dispersion of balloon sightings has to do with the program’s basic idea of keeping an eye on strategic rivals from high atmospheric layers. “The balloon program is estimated to possess over 200 high altitude balloons with a global mission,” says Carl Schuster. “Although the priority appears to be directed at areas and regions where strategic targets or near-space transit routes to those targets, respectively.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also expressed concern. “We see that China has invested heavily in new capabilities, including different types of surveillance and intelligence platforms.”
When asked if Chinese balloons have also been detected over Europe, he says, “We’re also seeing increased Chinese intelligence activities in Europe. Again, different platforms. They use satellites, they use cyber, and as we’ve seen over the United States, also balloons.”
Researchers at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) in the US state of Vermont have located at least two Chinese military bases on satellite images from which the Chinese balloons apparently take off: First, the Dorbod Banner facility near the border with Mongolia. Built in mid-2016, it has a launch pad of 350 to 400 meters, explains Sam Lair in Rolling Stone magazine.
And second, a facility on the southern Chinese island of Hainan. “The entire facility is surrounded by a perimeter security fence and also includes three large radomes,” Lair explained. Satellite images from mid-January also showed a 140-meter-long launch pad complete with launch equipment. According to US authorities, the recently launched balloon is believed to have taken off from Hainan in mid-January.
Europe can become less dependent on China for the production of solar products in the medium term. However, such a turnaround would need a lot of political will, billions of euros in start-up financing and several years’ time, experts and business representatives agree. Chinese plans to restrict exports of solar production equipment in the future could be a warning shot at the right time.
The world market leader plans to restrict exports of production equipment for the solar industry. In doing so, the People’s Republic hits the West at a weak point. Many Western plant manufacturers have given up due to cheap Chinese competition and the decline of the domestic solar industry.
Whether China’s planned export restrictions achieve their goal now depends on Europe’s political response. “China’s export restrictions on solar production equipment could severely torpedo the expansion of the solar industry in Europe,” Andreas Bett, director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Fraunhofer ISE), tells Table.Media. The establishment of industrial production along the entire value chain will be made more difficult, he adds.
Because rebuilding a European supply chain would be entirely possible. The know-how for the individual steps of the solar supply chain “is basically still available in Europe – also in the area of mechanical engineering,” according to Bett. However, the knowledge would have to be reactivated and updated in order to be able to produce the required quantities of individual solar components and preliminary products.
According to Bett, it could take plant manufacturers “a good two to three years before they are able to provide substantial capacities. The longer politicians wait to provide support, the more difficult it will be to ramp up European production again.
The current Chinese approach is seen as a response to Western and Indian plans to rebuild or initially develop their own solar industry. If China implements the plans, Western buyers who want to expand their production and use Chinese equipment will have to undergo complicated approval procedures. In the end, the Chinese state will decide whether the technology can be exported.
Gunter Erfurt, CEO of Swiss solar cell and module producer Meyer Burger, is also convinced: Europe still has the necessary technologies in all parts of the complex supply chain. The rebuilding of the European solar industry will be “a major feat”, according to Erfurt.
With “the right strategic industrial policy, however, this would be possible despite a Chinese export ban on solar production equipment,” Erfurt tells Table.Media. However, this will not be easy. After all, outside China, only Germany still has the necessary technologies in some areas. Nevertheless, Erfurt is optimistic. He says it is entirely possible that “European plant manufacturers could ramp up their capacities quickly enough to make the expansion of European solar cell production possible.”
Currently, China dominates all steps of the supply chain. Through high government subsidies and copying of Western technologies, manufacturers in the People’s Republic have achieved market shares of 75 to 97 percent. Erfurt complains that China has also leveraged market forces to achieve this. “Chinese solar manufacturers and plant engineers are not making profits,” Erfurt says. That is virtually state-imposed, he says, in order to remain the world market leader. The state also subsidizes production plants, he adds. The West’s solar dependence on China is now greater than its dependence on Russian gas and oil before the Ukraine war, Erfurt says.
To overcome its dependence on China, Europe must establish “technological sovereignty in the solar sector”, emphasizes Bett from Fraunhofer ISE. A market share of 30 to 50 percent should be produced in Europe for this purpose. That would be 50 to 60 gigawatts of production capacity. By comparison, solar manufacturer Meyer Burger plans to achieve an annual production capacity of three gigawatts by 2024.
Erfurt demands that politicians declare the photovoltaic sector “a strategic industrial sector”. In the first half of 2023, the political course must be set for this so that the development of the European solar industry can move forward.
To accomplish the “tour de force” of building a European solar industry and prevail against subsidized Chinese competition, Fraunhofer CEO Bett suggests, among other things, government guarantees for private investors to ensure sales of their products. Guaranteed electricity prices and start-up financing, along with other support for the industry, can also provide crucial help, both analyst Bett and company CEO Erfurt emphasize.
The German government and the EU Commission are so far holding back on official classifications of China’s planned export restrictions. A spokesman for the Ministry for Economic Affairs stated that they could not “comment on possible intentions of the Chinese government”. A spokeswoman for the Commission said it was aware of the possible export restrictions and was currently analyzing them.
When Andreas Schmid was growing up near Stuttgart, Chinese was sometimes spoken at the dinner table. His grandparents, who had worked as missionaries and teachers for blind children in Hong Kong and Guangdong for almost 30 years, used Chinese to exchange ideas in secret. “That naturally made me curious,” Schmid says. So did the fact that his grandfather brought back many stories from that time.
His interest in China combined with his interest in the fine arts. “As a teenager, I often took the train to Stuttgart alone to visit the State Gallery.” Music also played a big role in his family life. Schmid eventually studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart and later traveled to Beijing to learn Chinese – a prerequisite for ultimately being accepted at the Zhejiang Academy of Art in Hangzhou in 1984.
“I came to the PRC at a very important time in the history of the development of contemporary art,” Schmid says, looking back. “I was impressed at the time by the courage of my fellow artists, their attitude in the face of repression, the perseverance and the very unique quality of the experimenting artists, who often dared to risk a lot.” Many more stays in China followed, which significantly influenced Schmid’s work but awakened the desire to exhibit Chinese art in Germany.
“I wanted to show art that was completely unknown in our country and often in all of Europe, and that was not discussed at all, but that was of high quality.” As co-curator of the 1993 China Avant-Garde exhibition at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Schmid was one of the first to exhibit post-89 art from China in Germany. He cares deeply about maintaining a vibrant exchange between the People’s Republic and Germany, even today. Last year he worked as a fellow together with the documenta Institute on cultural exchange between the two countries. In 2019, he curated an exhibition on China’s ancient Silk Road in Potsdam, and since 2005 he has taught Chinese calligraphy and contemporary art at the art academy in Dresden.
In his own art, Schmid often works with the line inside and with the space itself. On the one hand, he addresses the constitution of the spaces; on the other hand, he creates new spatial relationships through minimal linear interventions, which are always perceived differently by viewers as they change positions. “Every time, I’m curious to see how my work processes turn out in the end,” Schmid says. This year he is exhibiting at Rocket Station Island Hombroich, KV-Neuhausen, ZAK-Spandau, and the Center for International Light Art Unna. Svenja Napp
Was this picture taken from a balloon? There is snow on the Great Wall at the Jiankou section, and the mountains are also lightly powdered. Best conditions for a winter hike – at the up and down of the wall one warms up fast.
China’s balloon was not a solitary balloon but belongs to a large family. They have been produced in great numbers for years. Michael Radunski reveals which engineers are behind the program and which companies are involved. Reconnaissance over enemy territory had already been going on for years – and even the suspicious neighbors Japan and Taiwan didn’t realize for a long time what was floating over them.
Germany was once a proud pioneer in solar energy. Then China ousted German suppliers with irresistibly cheap panels, leaving not only dependence on finished products but also on Chinese technology. Nico Beckert spoke with business and supply chain experts about ways out of the situation. And they agree: The way out of the trap would be bumpy and expensive – but possible.
The white-paper protests were mostly fueled by a young student movement and lasted loudly for days. Now the authorities are facing the fury of another age group – perhaps one with more social pressure – pensioners. In the city of Wuhan, senior citizens are currently taking to the streets, as Fabian Kretschmer reports. They are protesting against cuts in the social and health care system. This is because the latter has been pushed to its financial limits due to zero-Covid. The displeasure of the elderly could become a threat to the leadership in Beijing.
We wish you an exciting read!
The breakthrough was achieved in 2019 – many years before US forces pulled a suspected Chinese spy balloon out of the sky off South Carolina and the world public witnessed just how extensive China’s technical capabilities are.
Four years ago in August, Professor Wu Zhe revealed his success to the Chinese newspaper Nanfang Daily: With the “cloud chaser” (追云 zhuiyun), an unmanned airship had circled the earth for the first time at altitudes of 20 to 60 kilometers – including over North America. The dean of the research institute at Beihang University in Dongguan had a clear vision: To send steerable balloons into so-called near space to provide early warning of natural disasters, monitor environmental pollution, or even conduct aerial surveillance.
Wu Zhe is one of the leading scientists in Chinese aerospace research. He works at the Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (Beihang, 北京航空航天大学). For nearly two decades, he has worked in airship development – a program that has astonished the world’s public over the past few weeks.
“China’s balloon program is estimated to possess over 200 high-altitude balloons and is directed by the People’s Liberation Army Strategic Combat Support Force,” says Carl Schuster of Hawaii Pacific University in an interview with China.Table. Established in December 2015, the PLASSF is one of five branches of the People’s Liberation Army. Its mission: To improve the army’s capabilities in “information warfare” (信息化战争, xìnxīhuà zhànzhēng), including using balloons. Schuster used to be part of the military and now researches international relations.
A year earlier, President Xi Jinping decreed the radical modernization of the Chinese Air Force. He ordered to r “speed up airspace integration and sharpen their offensive and defensive capabilities.” In response, China’s military experts pinpointed “near space” as a crucial link.
A long 2018 article published in the military newspaper “解放军报” says: 临近空间也已经成为现代战争的一个新战场，是国家安全体系的一个重要环节. “Near space has become a new battlefield in modern warfare.” It says it is a matter of dominating space at an altitude of 20 to 100 kilometers. The author states: Apart from occasional rocket fly-throughs, this transitional zone between air and space is empty space and so far unexplored by humans.
A look at the number of Chinese companies that are said to be associated with China’s balloon program shows just how extensive the program is. It is a comprehensive civil-military complex. The US Department of Commerce alone blacklisted six companies and one research institute in response to the balloon incident:
And here, the matter comes full circle to Professor Wu Zhe, the leading Chinese scientist. Beijing Nanjiang Aerospace Technology belongs to the Deluxe Family real estate group. It, in turn, is a close partner of Professor Wu’s Beihang University. Dongguan Lingkong is also said to have invested in Beihang University in a roundabout way. And the company Eagles Men, also mentioned above, was co-founded by Wu Zhe.
The importance of China’s balloon program is shown in an article for 环球 magazine in March 2022. It says: “Whoever gains an advantage in near space vehicles will be able to win the greater initiative in future wars.” 谁能在临近空间飞行器方面取得优势，谁也就能在未来战争中掌握更大的主动权.
Since then, a comprehensive program has been developed. “It appears to be a substantial effort, with at least six companies and one research institute involved,” says Timothy Heath of the US think tank Rand Foundation. He says, “the program was large enough to generate enough surveillance balloons to support intelligence collection missions in dozens of countries for several years.”
US Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder revealed this week that Chinese balloons have been spotted over Latin America, South America, Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Europe in recent years. “This is what we assess as part of a larger Chinese surveillance balloon program,” the US Defense Department spokesman said.
In recent years, dozens of Chinese military balloons have reportedly been spotted over Taiwan alone. This was reported by the British newspaper Financial Times on Monday. “They come very frequently, the last one just a few weeks ago,” a senior Taiwanese official told the Financial Times. Such attacks, he said, occur on average once a month. And similar reports are now coming from Japan as well.
The wide dispersion of balloon sightings has to do with the program’s basic idea of keeping an eye on strategic rivals from high atmospheric layers. “The balloon program is estimated to possess over 200 high altitude balloons with a global mission,” says Carl Schuster. “Although the priority appears to be directed at areas and regions where strategic targets or near-space transit routes to those targets, respectively.”
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also expressed concern. “We see that China has invested heavily in new capabilities, including different types of surveillance and intelligence platforms.”
When asked if Chinese balloons have also been detected over Europe, he says, “We’re also seeing increased Chinese intelligence activities in Europe. Again, different platforms. They use satellites, they use cyber, and as we’ve seen over the United States, also balloons.”
Researchers at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) in the US state of Vermont have located at least two Chinese military bases on satellite images from which the Chinese balloons apparently take off: First, the Dorbod Banner facility near the border with Mongolia. Built in mid-2016, it has a launch pad of 350 to 400 meters, explains Sam Lair in Rolling Stone magazine.
And second, a facility on the southern Chinese island of Hainan. “The entire facility is surrounded by a perimeter security fence and also includes three large radomes,” Lair explained. Satellite images from mid-January also showed a 140-meter-long launch pad complete with launch equipment. According to US authorities, the recently launched balloon is believed to have taken off from Hainan in mid-January.
Europe can become less dependent on China for the production of solar products in the medium term. However, such a turnaround would need a lot of political will, billions of euros in start-up financing and several years’ time, experts and business representatives agree. Chinese plans to restrict exports of solar production equipment in the future could be a warning shot at the right time.
The world market leader plans to restrict exports of production equipment for the solar industry. In doing so, the People’s Republic hits the West at a weak point. Many Western plant manufacturers have given up due to cheap Chinese competition and the decline of the domestic solar industry.
Whether China’s planned export restrictions achieve their goal now depends on Europe’s political response. “China’s export restrictions on solar production equipment could severely torpedo the expansion of the solar industry in Europe,” Andreas Bett, director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Fraunhofer ISE), tells Table.Media. The establishment of industrial production along the entire value chain will be made more difficult, he adds.
Because rebuilding a European supply chain would be entirely possible. The know-how for the individual steps of the solar supply chain “is basically still available in Europe – also in the area of mechanical engineering,” according to Bett. However, the knowledge would have to be reactivated and updated in order to be able to produce the required quantities of individual solar components and preliminary products.
According to Bett, it could take plant manufacturers “a good two to three years before they are able to provide substantial capacities. The longer politicians wait to provide support, the more difficult it will be to ramp up European production again.
The current Chinese approach is seen as a response to Western and Indian plans to rebuild or initially develop their own solar industry. If China implements the plans, Western buyers who want to expand their production and use Chinese equipment will have to undergo complicated approval procedures. In the end, the Chinese state will decide whether the technology can be exported.
Gunter Erfurt, CEO of Swiss solar cell and module producer Meyer Burger, is also convinced: Europe still has the necessary technologies in all parts of the complex supply chain. The rebuilding of the European solar industry will be “a major feat”, according to Erfurt.
With “the right strategic industrial policy, however, this would be possible despite a Chinese export ban on solar production equipment,” Erfurt tells Table.Media. However, this will not be easy. After all, outside China, only Germany still has the necessary technologies in some areas. Nevertheless, Erfurt is optimistic. He says it is entirely possible that “European plant manufacturers could ramp up their capacities quickly enough to make the expansion of European solar cell production possible.”
Currently, China dominates all steps of the supply chain. Through high government subsidies and copying of Western technologies, manufacturers in the People’s Republic have achieved market shares of 75 to 97 percent. Erfurt complains that China has also leveraged market forces to achieve this. “Chinese solar manufacturers and plant engineers are not making profits,” Erfurt says. That is virtually state-imposed, he says, in order to remain the world market leader. The state also subsidizes production plants, he adds. The West’s solar dependence on China is now greater than its dependence on Russian gas and oil before the Ukraine war, Erfurt says.
To overcome its dependence on China, Europe must establish “technological sovereignty in the solar sector”, emphasizes Bett from Fraunhofer ISE. A market share of 30 to 50 percent should be produced in Europe for this purpose. That would be 50 to 60 gigawatts of production capacity. By comparison, solar manufacturer Meyer Burger plans to achieve an annual production capacity of three gigawatts by 2024.
Erfurt demands that politicians declare the photovoltaic sector “a strategic industrial sector”. In the first half of 2023, the political course must be set for this so that the development of the European solar industry can move forward.
To accomplish the “tour de force” of building a European solar industry and prevail against subsidized Chinese competition, Fraunhofer CEO Bett suggests, among other things, government guarantees for private investors to ensure sales of their products. Guaranteed electricity prices and start-up financing, along with other support for the industry, can also provide crucial help, both analyst Bett and company CEO Erfurt emphasize.
The German government and the EU Commission are so far holding back on official classifications of China’s planned export restrictions. A spokesman for the Ministry for Economic Affairs stated that they could not “comment on possible intentions of the Chinese government”. A spokeswoman for the Commission said it was aware of the possible export restrictions and was currently analyzing them.
When Andreas Schmid was growing up near Stuttgart, Chinese was sometimes spoken at the dinner table. His grandparents, who had worked as missionaries and teachers for blind children in Hong Kong and Guangdong for almost 30 years, used Chinese to exchange ideas in secret. “That naturally made me curious,” Schmid says. So did the fact that his grandfather brought back many stories from that time.
His interest in China combined with his interest in the fine arts. “As a teenager, I often took the train to Stuttgart alone to visit the State Gallery.” Music also played a big role in his family life. Schmid eventually studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart and later traveled to Beijing to learn Chinese – a prerequisite for ultimately being accepted at the Zhejiang Academy of Art in Hangzhou in 1984.
“I came to the PRC at a very important time in the history of the development of contemporary art,” Schmid says, looking back. “I was impressed at the time by the courage of my fellow artists, their attitude in the face of repression, the perseverance and the very unique quality of the experimenting artists, who often dared to risk a lot.” Many more stays in China followed, which significantly influenced Schmid’s work but awakened the desire to exhibit Chinese art in Germany.
“I wanted to show art that was completely unknown in our country and often in all of Europe, and that was not discussed at all, but that was of high quality.” As co-curator of the 1993 China Avant-Garde exhibition at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Schmid was one of the first to exhibit post-89 art from China in Germany. He cares deeply about maintaining a vibrant exchange between the People’s Republic and Germany, even today. Last year he worked as a fellow together with the documenta Institute on cultural exchange between the two countries. In 2019, he curated an exhibition on China’s ancient Silk Road in Potsdam, and since 2005 he has taught Chinese calligraphy and contemporary art at the art academy in Dresden.
In his own art, Schmid often works with the line inside and with the space itself. On the one hand, he addresses the constitution of the spaces; on the other hand, he creates new spatial relationships through minimal linear interventions, which are always perceived differently by viewers as they change positions. “Every time, I’m curious to see how my work processes turn out in the end,” Schmid says. This year he is exhibiting at Rocket Station Island Hombroich, KV-Neuhausen, ZAK-Spandau, and the Center for International Light Art Unna. Svenja Napp
Was this picture taken from a balloon? There is snow on the Great Wall at the Jiankou section, and the mountains are also lightly powdered. Best conditions for a winter hike – at the up and down of the wall one warms up fast.
