As China’s claim to significantly shape the course of global affairs grows, so does international attention to the country’s attitudes and positions. In Israel, for instance, Beijing’s demands for a two-state solution to the Palestinian question have been met with much resentment. The proposal is certainly legitimate from a Chinese perspective. But it followed immediately after a hail of bombs on Israeli territory.
Without any empathy, a sense of the tragedy of the moment, and the ability to set aside its own interests for the moment, Beijing will have a hard time being perceived as a responsible global power someday. You really can’t trumpet your foreign policy to the world much clumsier than this. Michael Radunski listened in Israel to what the statement means for Sino-Israeli relations.
While Frank Sieren looks at hydrogen trains in our second analysis, the debate about a possible hijacking of German sinology by the Chinese state goes into the next round. While Germany’s sinology association reminds China researchers of their responsibility, the World Uyghur Congress, in today’s opinion, makes it clear that their ethnic group in Xinjiang lives in constant fear. Something some sinologists seem to have completely overlooked lately.
The Israeli response is unmistakable. “When people are being murdered, slaughtered in the streets, this is not the time to call for a two-state solution,” Yuval Waks, a senior official at the Israeli Embassy in Beijing, wrote on the short messaging service X, adding that Israel expected stronger condemnation of Hamas from China – the country has even called Israel a friend, after all.
Israel has been at war since the Hamas attack on Saturday. But Waks’ clear words are something of a surprise. As “deputy chief of mission,” Waks is the main man behind the Israeli ambassador in Beijing. His job is to cultivate relations between Israel and the People’s Republic. And that has been highly successful of late.
While China is primarily interested in Israel’s high-tech and weapons, Benjamin Netanyahu used the Asian partner to diversify his foreign policy. This way, fundamental political differences were glossed over – until the Hamas attack on Israel and, above all, China’s subsequent response.
After all, it turned out to be anything but unambiguous. On the contrary, on Sunday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry called on the parties concerned to remain calm and immediately cease hostilities. “The fundamental way out of the conflict lies in implementing the two-state solution and establishing an independent State of Palestine,” the foreign office spokesman said.
Not only the deputy chief of mission of the Israeli embassy has been furious ever since. Chuck Schumer, Democratic majority leader of the US Senate, also expressed his disappointment in Beijing on Monday. “I urge you and the Chinese people to stand with the Israeli people and condemn the cowardly and vicious attacks,” Schumer told party and state leader Xi Jinping. “I say this with respect, but I was disappointed by the foreign minister’s statement that showed no sympathy or support for the Israeli people during these troubled times,” Schumer added.
“This reaction is a blow to China-Israel relations,” Galia Lavi from the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv tells Table.Media. “Some people in Israel suggested that China would replace the USA as the power to regulate the Middle East,” explains the scientist. “But the image of China as a responsible power is gone.”
The start was more than bumpy. Although Israel was the first country in the Middle East to recognize the People’s Republic as China’s legitimate representative, Beijing, in turn, supported Arab governments and national liberation movements, as in Palestine. It was not until 1979 that a cautious rapprochement emerged – thanks in part to the transfer of Israeli defense technology to Beijing.
However, since the official establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992, economic ties between China and Israel have expanded considerably: The trade volume of 50 million US dollars in 1992 has turned into over 22 billion US dollars. China became Israel’s third-largest trading partner after the EU and the USA.
Benjamin Netanyahu, in particular, sought a new balance between the old partner, the USA, and the new China. When Israel’s prime minister traveled to Beijing in 2017, the two countries announced a comprehensive innovative partnership based on technological cooperation. Moreover, Israel joined the Belt and Road Initiative, the prestige project of Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The partnership again increased China’s investment. Perhaps the best-known project is the port of Haifa. Shanghai International Port Group operates a container terminal in Israel’s largest and most important port.
Galia Lavi mentions two further aspects: Israel is a high-tech country. China has great interest in the latest technology, said the scientist. Israel also serves as a bridge to the West. “China wants to show in Israel how well it can work together with developed democracies.” The argumentative calculation behind it: If it works in Israel, it will also work in Germany or France. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s about ports, trams or digital infrastructure.
But this is also where the problems are: Many Israeli startups are active in defense and cybersecurity. They cooperate closely with the Israeli Ministry of Defense – which, in turn, cooperates with the United States. For years, American security authorities have therefore warned that China could obtain sensitive US information through its investments in Israel.
In addition, China maintains close contact with Israel’s arch-enemy Iran. It recognized the Palestinian territories as a state early on and regularly votes to condemn Israel at the United Nations, for example, because of its settlement policy.
“Israel did not approve infrastructure management tenders to China since 2020, but recently, Netanyahu, in particular, has been looking for a new balance between China and the USA,” explains Lavi. However, this trend will now have to be reconsidered. “China wants to be seen as a responsible global power, but this weak response to blatantly terrorist actions shows the opposite.”
And indeed, China’s reaction is highly reminiscent of Beijing’s statements regarding the Ukraine war. Although the aggressors in both cases can be clearly identified, China shies away from a clear stance. Calling solely for an immediate end to hostilities does not come across as responsible but rather as self-serving and beholden only to its own interests.
At the beginning of this year, the world’s fastest hydrogen regional train, as claimed by the manufacturer, was presented in China. It travels at 160 kilometers per hour and covers 600 kilometers on one filling. The train shares much of its technology with the tried and tested Fuxing family of high-speed trains, a workhorse of Chinese long-distance transport.
The hydrogen train was developed in a joint venture between Changchun Railway Company (CRRC) and Chengdu Rail Transit. The big advantage of a hydrogen train is that it can also use routes that have not yet been converted to eco-friendly electricity without the need for major modifications to the line. This makes it a suitable alternative to diesel engines. In July, the first train was exported overseas. In the future, it will run in Malaysia, where it will be tested in the city of Kuching.
The French company Alstom developed the first hydrogen train ever to be operated in day-to-day use. But China is now overtaking the competition. Since June, the Ningdong, the world’s most powerful hydrogen train, has been in regular operation in the People’s Republic. With a power output of 800 kilowatts, it has the most powerful fuel cell ever installed in a train. The power output thus exceeds that of most diesel locomotives.
The Ningdong is manufactured by the state-owned China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC). The train can operate for 190 hours on 270 kilograms of hydrogen. China plans to replace 90 percent of its 7,800 diesel engines with hydrogen trains.
Hydrogen is currently the best choice to replace diesel locomotives. Although there are trains that run purely on batteries, they can only travel between 50 and 100 kilometers, depending on the size and number of passengers. And unlike battery trains, inclines are no problem. The fuel cell can better absorb power spikes.
China is well positioned for a transition to a hydrogen economy. With 200 dollars per kilowatt of power, the country currently produces the most and cheapest electrolyzers in the world. It is thus 80 percent more affordable than the Europeans with the Norwegian NEL, Germany’s Linde AG and Thyssen-Krupp Uhde or the French Air Liquide, all leaders in innovative green hydrogen technologies. Government subsidies are the only way for the Europeans to get out of this defensive position and offer a cost-benefit ratio that matches that of the Chinese.
The focus on green hydrogen and the lack of coordination in Brussels are leaving Europe further and further behind in general hydrogen research. Especially Germany. And the Chinese are not waiting around. They rapidly expand hydrogen production: In Inner Mongolia, of all places, China’s second-largest coal mining region, one of the world’s two largest plants for green hydrogen is being built. It will start operations this year and is expected to replace 680 million liters of gasoline annually.
The next largest plant in the world is under construction in the Muslim-majority region of Xinjiang in China’s west. In July, a test plant was opened there that produces hydrogen from solar energy for the first time ever. This plant alone, with an initial capacity of 10,000, later 20,000 tonnes of hydrogen annually, is expected to cut China’s carbon emissions by 500,000 tons annually.
Hydrogen will be produced in Xinjiang with the help of solar and wind energy. The solar plant will be as large as 900 football fields. The hydrogen produced here will be transported as liquefied gas via pipelines to other parts of the country. The costs are remarkably low: around 2.70 dollars per kilo.
However, China is not solely relying on green hydrogen from renewable sources, but first wants to build up as much know-how as possible in the hydrogen economy in the shortest possible time. So, initially, gray hydrogen will also be used. It is produced with the help of coal-fired electricity or is split off from natural gas.
The important thing is first to let applications like trains emerge while hydrogen production becomes cheaper and more efficient. That is why it is being rolled out on a large scale, even if it is initially and, at first glance, paradoxically often still coal-based. Only a tiny portion of China’s hydrogen is green so far. The idea is that once the technology is more mature and cheaper, the energy source can easily be changed from coal to solar, water or wind in a second step.
With this, China pursues a different strategy than Germany, which only wants to focus on the expansion of green hydrogen. This slows progress, as it takes longer to develop large-scale production capacities for green hydrogen. These different strategies were one of the challenges of the declarations of intent on the green transition at the Sino-German government consultations in Berlin last June.
China’s goal: If the country is to reach net zero by 2060, it must produce between 100 and 130 million tons of hydrogen a year. The Electric Power Planning Design General Institute estimates that hydrogen from hydropower will account for the majority of hydrogen production. Overall, hydrogen is expected to reach a share of 20 percent of China’s electricity supply.
A two-meter-tall statue symbolizing the mass protests in Hong Kong has found a new home in the German city of Frankfurt. The Statue of Liberty had been exhibited at several locations in Hong Kong in 2020 as a sign of solidarity with the protesters, but was quickly banned by the local authorities.
A few days ago, the statue was presented to the public in Frankfurt during a formal ceremony at the event location Massif Central. Its relocation from Hong Kong to Germany is intended to commemorate the city’s struggle for freedom and human rights.
The Statue of Liberty was the idea of two German students at the time and was crowdfunded by donors from 27 countries. Initially, it was placed on the campus of the Hong Kong University of Technology before being displayed in shopping malls and restaurants under pro-democracy management. It was hidden in a warehouse until its secret export to Germany. grz
It has been almost a month since the publication of the downplaying travelogue by the two German sinologists Thomas Heberer and Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer about the Uyghur region in the “Neue Zuercher Zeitung.” It was followed last week by another article that the CCP could not have written better, this time in the Berliner Zeitung.
The background was a propaganda tour for journalists through the Uyghur region organized by the Chinese government, where Germany was represented only by the Berliner Zeitung. This meticulously orchestrated tour by the state included marveling at factories, the land port in Urumqi, and visiting a Uyghur farming family.
The article praises the Chinese “economic offensive” in the Uyghur region of East Turkistan. It ignores the fact that the government continues to force thousands of Uyghurs and members of other Turkic peoples to work in factories and fields.
A glance at the official figures released by the Chinese government is all it takes: According to Chinese authorities, 14.33 million people were placed under “surplus labor” programs, a Chinese euphemism for forced labor, between 2016 and 2021. Last year alone, it was 3.03 million.
The genocide against the Uyghurs continues unabated, only the CCP’s strategy is changing. For instance, surveillance of the region is increasingly shifting to the digital space, making road checkpoints less and less relevant. Some internment camps may have been dissolved, but long prison sentences against Uyghurs are increasing massively.
It only became known recently that Rahile Dawut, a professor researching Uyghur traditions, was sentenced to life in prison. The 2022 Report of the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights speaks of potential crimes against humanity in this context. Many parliaments, such as the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, go further and classify the Chinese government’s grave crimes as genocide.
But the Berliner Zeitung is not concerned with facts and balanced reporting, but with the unfiltered dissemination of Chinese propaganda. What is particularly shocking about the report is the visit to a Uyghur farmer’s family who, surrounded by representatives of the Chinese state and international journalists, had to play the happy farmer’s life with fresh fruit.
The cynicism of this charade can hardly be topped. After seven years of most brutal “re-education,” this family knows that one wrong word, one wrong move, means the worst for them. Oppressive fear rules the lives of the Uyghurs. At any hour, the Chinese authorities could take them or their relatives to the brutal torture chambers of prisons or internment camps.
Other media who participated in the tour, such as ABC NEWS Australia, reported critically about the constant surveillance during the trip. They also said speaking freely with Uyghurs or visiting the detention camps was impossible. The Chinese government continues to block any investigative research in the region.
There are currently more than fifteen requests from UN experts to conduct an independent investigation in East Turkistan. Some have been made several times over 20 years without ever receiving permission from the Chinese side. Instead of exposing the methods of the Chinese disinformation campaign, the Berliner Zeitung allows itself to be freely exploited as the CCP’s propaganda mouthpiece.
A bird’s eye view of 15 massive grain silos in Huai’an in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu: The silos each have a diameter of around 30 meters and are part of a massive storage logistics system. In total, China has storage capacities of 700 million tons of grain.
As China’s claim to significantly shape the course of global affairs grows, so does international attention to the country’s attitudes and positions. In Israel, for instance, Beijing’s demands for a two-state solution to the Palestinian question have been met with much resentment. The proposal is certainly legitimate from a Chinese perspective. But it followed immediately after a hail of bombs on Israeli territory.
Without any empathy, a sense of the tragedy of the moment, and the ability to set aside its own interests for the moment, Beijing will have a hard time being perceived as a responsible global power someday. You really can’t trumpet your foreign policy to the world much clumsier than this. Michael Radunski listened in Israel to what the statement means for Sino-Israeli relations.
While Frank Sieren looks at hydrogen trains in our second analysis, the debate about a possible hijacking of German sinology by the Chinese state goes into the next round. While Germany’s sinology association reminds China researchers of their responsibility, the World Uyghur Congress, in today’s opinion, makes it clear that their ethnic group in Xinjiang lives in constant fear. Something some sinologists seem to have completely overlooked lately.
The Israeli response is unmistakable. “When people are being murdered, slaughtered in the streets, this is not the time to call for a two-state solution,” Yuval Waks, a senior official at the Israeli Embassy in Beijing, wrote on the short messaging service X, adding that Israel expected stronger condemnation of Hamas from China – the country has even called Israel a friend, after all.
Israel has been at war since the Hamas attack on Saturday. But Waks’ clear words are something of a surprise. As “deputy chief of mission,” Waks is the main man behind the Israeli ambassador in Beijing. His job is to cultivate relations between Israel and the People’s Republic. And that has been highly successful of late.
While China is primarily interested in Israel’s high-tech and weapons, Benjamin Netanyahu used the Asian partner to diversify his foreign policy. This way, fundamental political differences were glossed over – until the Hamas attack on Israel and, above all, China’s subsequent response.
After all, it turned out to be anything but unambiguous. On the contrary, on Sunday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry called on the parties concerned to remain calm and immediately cease hostilities. “The fundamental way out of the conflict lies in implementing the two-state solution and establishing an independent State of Palestine,” the foreign office spokesman said.
Not only the deputy chief of mission of the Israeli embassy has been furious ever since. Chuck Schumer, Democratic majority leader of the US Senate, also expressed his disappointment in Beijing on Monday. “I urge you and the Chinese people to stand with the Israeli people and condemn the cowardly and vicious attacks,” Schumer told party and state leader Xi Jinping. “I say this with respect, but I was disappointed by the foreign minister’s statement that showed no sympathy or support for the Israeli people during these troubled times,” Schumer added.
“This reaction is a blow to China-Israel relations,” Galia Lavi from the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv tells Table.Media. “Some people in Israel suggested that China would replace the USA as the power to regulate the Middle East,” explains the scientist. “But the image of China as a responsible power is gone.”
The start was more than bumpy. Although Israel was the first country in the Middle East to recognize the People’s Republic as China’s legitimate representative, Beijing, in turn, supported Arab governments and national liberation movements, as in Palestine. It was not until 1979 that a cautious rapprochement emerged – thanks in part to the transfer of Israeli defense technology to Beijing.
However, since the official establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992, economic ties between China and Israel have expanded considerably: The trade volume of 50 million US dollars in 1992 has turned into over 22 billion US dollars. China became Israel’s third-largest trading partner after the EU and the USA.
Benjamin Netanyahu, in particular, sought a new balance between the old partner, the USA, and the new China. When Israel’s prime minister traveled to Beijing in 2017, the two countries announced a comprehensive innovative partnership based on technological cooperation. Moreover, Israel joined the Belt and Road Initiative, the prestige project of Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The partnership again increased China’s investment. Perhaps the best-known project is the port of Haifa. Shanghai International Port Group operates a container terminal in Israel’s largest and most important port.
Galia Lavi mentions two further aspects: Israel is a high-tech country. China has great interest in the latest technology, said the scientist. Israel also serves as a bridge to the West. “China wants to show in Israel how well it can work together with developed democracies.” The argumentative calculation behind it: If it works in Israel, it will also work in Germany or France. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s about ports, trams or digital infrastructure.
But this is also where the problems are: Many Israeli startups are active in defense and cybersecurity. They cooperate closely with the Israeli Ministry of Defense – which, in turn, cooperates with the United States. For years, American security authorities have therefore warned that China could obtain sensitive US information through its investments in Israel.
In addition, China maintains close contact with Israel’s arch-enemy Iran. It recognized the Palestinian territories as a state early on and regularly votes to condemn Israel at the United Nations, for example, because of its settlement policy.
“Israel did not approve infrastructure management tenders to China since 2020, but recently, Netanyahu, in particular, has been looking for a new balance between China and the USA,” explains Lavi. However, this trend will now have to be reconsidered. “China wants to be seen as a responsible global power, but this weak response to blatantly terrorist actions shows the opposite.”
And indeed, China’s reaction is highly reminiscent of Beijing’s statements regarding the Ukraine war. Although the aggressors in both cases can be clearly identified, China shies away from a clear stance. Calling solely for an immediate end to hostilities does not come across as responsible but rather as self-serving and beholden only to its own interests.
At the beginning of this year, the world’s fastest hydrogen regional train, as claimed by the manufacturer, was presented in China. It travels at 160 kilometers per hour and covers 600 kilometers on one filling. The train shares much of its technology with the tried and tested Fuxing family of high-speed trains, a workhorse of Chinese long-distance transport.
The hydrogen train was developed in a joint venture between Changchun Railway Company (CRRC) and Chengdu Rail Transit. The big advantage of a hydrogen train is that it can also use routes that have not yet been converted to eco-friendly electricity without the need for major modifications to the line. This makes it a suitable alternative to diesel engines. In July, the first train was exported overseas. In the future, it will run in Malaysia, where it will be tested in the city of Kuching.
The French company Alstom developed the first hydrogen train ever to be operated in day-to-day use. But China is now overtaking the competition. Since June, the Ningdong, the world’s most powerful hydrogen train, has been in regular operation in the People’s Republic. With a power output of 800 kilowatts, it has the most powerful fuel cell ever installed in a train. The power output thus exceeds that of most diesel locomotives.
The Ningdong is manufactured by the state-owned China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC). The train can operate for 190 hours on 270 kilograms of hydrogen. China plans to replace 90 percent of its 7,800 diesel engines with hydrogen trains.
Hydrogen is currently the best choice to replace diesel locomotives. Although there are trains that run purely on batteries, they can only travel between 50 and 100 kilometers, depending on the size and number of passengers. And unlike battery trains, inclines are no problem. The fuel cell can better absorb power spikes.
China is well positioned for a transition to a hydrogen economy. With 200 dollars per kilowatt of power, the country currently produces the most and cheapest electrolyzers in the world. It is thus 80 percent more affordable than the Europeans with the Norwegian NEL, Germany’s Linde AG and Thyssen-Krupp Uhde or the French Air Liquide, all leaders in innovative green hydrogen technologies. Government subsidies are the only way for the Europeans to get out of this defensive position and offer a cost-benefit ratio that matches that of the Chinese.
The focus on green hydrogen and the lack of coordination in Brussels are leaving Europe further and further behind in general hydrogen research. Especially Germany. And the Chinese are not waiting around. They rapidly expand hydrogen production: In Inner Mongolia, of all places, China’s second-largest coal mining region, one of the world’s two largest plants for green hydrogen is being built. It will start operations this year and is expected to replace 680 million liters of gasoline annually.
The next largest plant in the world is under construction in the Muslim-majority region of Xinjiang in China’s west. In July, a test plant was opened there that produces hydrogen from solar energy for the first time ever. This plant alone, with an initial capacity of 10,000, later 20,000 tonnes of hydrogen annually, is expected to cut China’s carbon emissions by 500,000 tons annually.
Hydrogen will be produced in Xinjiang with the help of solar and wind energy. The solar plant will be as large as 900 football fields. The hydrogen produced here will be transported as liquefied gas via pipelines to other parts of the country. The costs are remarkably low: around 2.70 dollars per kilo.
However, China is not solely relying on green hydrogen from renewable sources, but first wants to build up as much know-how as possible in the hydrogen economy in the shortest possible time. So, initially, gray hydrogen will also be used. It is produced with the help of coal-fired electricity or is split off from natural gas.
The important thing is first to let applications like trains emerge while hydrogen production becomes cheaper and more efficient. That is why it is being rolled out on a large scale, even if it is initially and, at first glance, paradoxically often still coal-based. Only a tiny portion of China’s hydrogen is green so far. The idea is that once the technology is more mature and cheaper, the energy source can easily be changed from coal to solar, water or wind in a second step.
With this, China pursues a different strategy than Germany, which only wants to focus on the expansion of green hydrogen. This slows progress, as it takes longer to develop large-scale production capacities for green hydrogen. These different strategies were one of the challenges of the declarations of intent on the green transition at the Sino-German government consultations in Berlin last June.
China’s goal: If the country is to reach net zero by 2060, it must produce between 100 and 130 million tons of hydrogen a year. The Electric Power Planning Design General Institute estimates that hydrogen from hydropower will account for the majority of hydrogen production. Overall, hydrogen is expected to reach a share of 20 percent of China’s electricity supply.
A two-meter-tall statue symbolizing the mass protests in Hong Kong has found a new home in the German city of Frankfurt. The Statue of Liberty had been exhibited at several locations in Hong Kong in 2020 as a sign of solidarity with the protesters, but was quickly banned by the local authorities.
A few days ago, the statue was presented to the public in Frankfurt during a formal ceremony at the event location Massif Central. Its relocation from Hong Kong to Germany is intended to commemorate the city’s struggle for freedom and human rights.
The Statue of Liberty was the idea of two German students at the time and was crowdfunded by donors from 27 countries. Initially, it was placed on the campus of the Hong Kong University of Technology before being displayed in shopping malls and restaurants under pro-democracy management. It was hidden in a warehouse until its secret export to Germany. grz
It has been almost a month since the publication of the downplaying travelogue by the two German sinologists Thomas Heberer and Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer about the Uyghur region in the “Neue Zuercher Zeitung.” It was followed last week by another article that the CCP could not have written better, this time in the Berliner Zeitung.
The background was a propaganda tour for journalists through the Uyghur region organized by the Chinese government, where Germany was represented only by the Berliner Zeitung. This meticulously orchestrated tour by the state included marveling at factories, the land port in Urumqi, and visiting a Uyghur farming family.
The article praises the Chinese “economic offensive” in the Uyghur region of East Turkistan. It ignores the fact that the government continues to force thousands of Uyghurs and members of other Turkic peoples to work in factories and fields.
A glance at the official figures released by the Chinese government is all it takes: According to Chinese authorities, 14.33 million people were placed under “surplus labor” programs, a Chinese euphemism for forced labor, between 2016 and 2021. Last year alone, it was 3.03 million.
The genocide against the Uyghurs continues unabated, only the CCP’s strategy is changing. For instance, surveillance of the region is increasingly shifting to the digital space, making road checkpoints less and less relevant. Some internment camps may have been dissolved, but long prison sentences against Uyghurs are increasing massively.
It only became known recently that Rahile Dawut, a professor researching Uyghur traditions, was sentenced to life in prison. The 2022 Report of the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights speaks of potential crimes against humanity in this context. Many parliaments, such as the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, go further and classify the Chinese government’s grave crimes as genocide.
But the Berliner Zeitung is not concerned with facts and balanced reporting, but with the unfiltered dissemination of Chinese propaganda. What is particularly shocking about the report is the visit to a Uyghur farmer’s family who, surrounded by representatives of the Chinese state and international journalists, had to play the happy farmer’s life with fresh fruit.
The cynicism of this charade can hardly be topped. After seven years of most brutal “re-education,” this family knows that one wrong word, one wrong move, means the worst for them. Oppressive fear rules the lives of the Uyghurs. At any hour, the Chinese authorities could take them or their relatives to the brutal torture chambers of prisons or internment camps.
Other media who participated in the tour, such as ABC NEWS Australia, reported critically about the constant surveillance during the trip. They also said speaking freely with Uyghurs or visiting the detention camps was impossible. The Chinese government continues to block any investigative research in the region.
There are currently more than fifteen requests from UN experts to conduct an independent investigation in East Turkistan. Some have been made several times over 20 years without ever receiving permission from the Chinese side. Instead of exposing the methods of the Chinese disinformation campaign, the Berliner Zeitung allows itself to be freely exploited as the CCP’s propaganda mouthpiece.
A bird’s eye view of 15 massive grain silos in Huai’an in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu: The silos each have a diameter of around 30 meters and are part of a massive storage logistics system. In total, China has storage capacities of 700 million tons of grain.
