The scenarios in the event of Donald Trump’s re-election as US president may not appeal to everyone. But they do exude a certain grotesque fascination, considering how radically the world could change – assuming Trump really fulfills all his promises. Today, Michael Radunski has summarized the degree to which the People’s Republic of China would benefit from this.
Trump’s election would undoubtedly bring numerous advantages for Beijing. Probably not without a price, because Trump has already announced that he would significantly raise US trade barriers to ward off Chinese products. But radical change creates a vacuum. And no other power in the world is as well prepared to plug any gaps that arise as the People’s Republic. The Chinese have been working towards such opportunities for decades.
Even Japan will have to consider whether close cooperation with the USA will continue under and after Trump. Tokyo is still relying more and more on US aid to counter Chinese posturing in the Indo-Pacific with a good dose of deterrence. The two countries plan to announce closer military cooperation in April.
That’s why Felix Lill looked at Japan’s China strategy for us from up close – namely from Tokyo. Surprisingly, unlike Germany, Japan has a China strategy. At least not one that sets out guidelines in the form of a white paper. Instead, Japan’s strategic behavior has been determined by security intuition for many years. This may have been different in the past, but at some point, the country stopped relying solely on the power of economic integration. Donald Trump probably sees it the same way, at least.
It is a scenario that politics and business must consider: Donald Trump could be elected President of the United States in November. Most European capitals fear a possible Trump victory. Several experts are convinced that Trump would pose a greater threat to China than Biden.
This seems plausible: Trump instigated the trade war with China. As president, he repeatedly launched targeted attacks against Beijing. For example, he consistently referred to the Sars-CoV-2 as the “China virus.”
Trump recently made it clear that he intends to pursue this aggressive course after his potential re-election. As president, he would introduce tariffs of 60 percent on Chinese goods, and he threatened to withdraw China’s fundamental status of “Permanent normal trade relations.” In particular, the return of Robert Lighthizer as Trump’s adamant trade representative actually suggests this. According to an Oxford Economics analysis, such a move could reduce China’s share of America’s imports from 20 percent to around three percent.
It would be a hard blow to China, which is already struggling with many problems – a burst property bubble, weak economic growth and a demographic crisis. Accordingly, Chinese delegates and experts have expressed concern in confidential talks. The unanimous conclusion: Trump would be a disaster for China. That’s true – but it’s only half the truth.
After all, President Joe Biden is also pursuing a hard line against China. China’s cadres were surprised to realize that Biden largely continued the tariffs from the Trump era after his election. In fact, Biden even went further: The strict export controls in the high-tech sector have caused considerable damage to China’s semiconductor ecosystem and its development.
Be it Democrats or Republicans – there is now a bipartisan consensus in the US to be tough on China. It can be assumed that both Biden and Trump will continue to maintain a tough stance against the People’s Republic.
This changes the considerations in Zhongnanhai. Beijing cannot expect a president who does little harm to China. So China must hope for an election winner who jeopardizes Western stability the most. And this is precisely where Trump could turn out to be the lesser evil for Beijing, because:
Trump has a large ego, which draws him to the autocratic rulers of this world – Russia’s Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and China’s Xi Jinping.
The way Xi and Trump appeared together during his presidency is unforgettable. The friendly steak dinner at Trump’s estate in Mar-a-Lago was followed by what was already dubbed a “state visit plus” in Beijing: The highlight was Xi Jinping giving Trump and the First Lady a personal tour of the imperial treasures in the Forbidden City. Afterward, Trump exuberantly praised his host: He called Xi a “very special man” and said they had truly “great chemistry.” Xi understands Trump’s ego.
Trump’s thirst for recognition should not be underestimated – and leads directly to the next point: Trump wants to strike deals. He seems more interested in making big headlines than the substance of the agreements or even the possible consequences for third parties. His meeting with North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un and his proclamation that he could end the war in Ukraine in just one day demonstrated this. Neither with Kim nor with Putin would Trump consider the consequences for South Korea or Ukraine.
When it comes to China, Trump’s focus is almost exclusively on domestic policy. He wants to reduce the US trade deficit with China and offer something to his constituency of US farmers. A major deal could address both of these issues if Xi were to promise that China would import more agricultural products from the USA. Trump was already pursuing this goal with the so-called phase one trade deal: “They’re buying anywhere from 40 billion to 50 billion US dollars worth of our agricultural product, that would have a huge impact on our farmers,” Trump explained at the time.
Alliances and allies, on the other hand, hardly play a role in his deals. And this is the fundamental difference to Joe Biden, who attaches great importance to alliances in the competition with China – with Europe, with security agreements such as AUKUS or Quad, with Japan, South Korea or even the Philippines.
Trump, on the other hand, is convinced that alliances constrain America’s power and options. He has criticized US aid for Ukraine and is open to anything regarding Taiwan. When asked whether he would defend Taiwan against an attack from China, Trump told Fox News: “Taiwan did take all of our chip business.” Trump’s answer is strikingly reminiscent of his call for Russia to do whatever it wants with “delinquent” NATO members.
It was an open secret during Trump’s presidency that he did not care about Taiwan, Evan Medeiros told Nikkei Asia. “There were some rumors that, in fact, he even said that during meetings with Chinese officials,” reported the former Director of the National Security Council for Asia under President Barack Obama.
China points out that the United States is not a reliable partner for Taiwan – and is already rejoicing. “The US will always pursue America first, and Taiwan can change from a chess piece to a discarded chess piece at any time,” said Chen Binhua, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing.
Despite all the uncertainty regarding what concrete measures Trump would actually take as president and all the expected harshness against China, Trump’s dislike of alliances opens up enormous opportunities for China.
Because one thing is clear: the US would become more isolationist under Trump. He would relinquish America’s leading role in important international organizations and tackling global problems such as the climate crisis. This offers China the unexpected opportunity to strengthen its own global economic and geopolitical influence.
Japan is casting a suspicious eye across the East China Sea towards the People’s Republic of China. The government in Tokyo perceives Beijing as an increasingly aggressive neighbor threatening its security. Nevertheless, Japan has not yet formulated a comprehensive China strategy. Instead, the country has been closely following the stance of its main security partner, the United States, for many years.
The Americans and Japanese now plan to intensify their cooperation in order to be better armed against possible Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific. When US President Joe Biden travels to Tokyo in April, both countries will announce the reorganization of the US military command in Japan. This is reported by US media. The plan is to station more high-ranking US military personnel in Japan in order to strengthen joint operational planning.
“It sends a strong strategic signal to China and North Korea and it’s meaningful from the point of view of deterrence to say that the US will strengthen the command structure in Japan,” Ryoichi Oriki, head of the Japanese defense forces, told the Financial Times. The plan is to attach a joint task force to the American Pacific Fleet.
The growing mistrust of the Japanese toward China contrasts with the level of economic integration. China is Japan’s largest trading partner. For decades, the Japanese government has specifically encouraged investment in China, not least to drive economic development there and thus influence political developments. At the same time, Tokyo has consistently strived to create sufficient deterrence through the presence of the US on its own soil.
This principle of “liberal deterrence” – a mix of entanglement and antagonism – characterized exchanges between the two countries from the start of diplomatic relations in 1972. Japan’s “hope was to induce better behavior from China,” wrote Chikako Kawakatsu Ueki, Professor of International Politics at Waseda University in Tokyo, in a 2020 paper. “Japan has also sought to integrate China into international institutions such as the World Trade Organization. The logic was to bind China with international rules and norms.” With limited success.
In 2010, Japan changed course and asserted its claim over the Senkaku Islands. Beijing, which calls the uninhabited group of islands in the East China Sea Diaoyu, saw its territorial rights violated and lowered its export quotas for rare earths in retaliation, leading to price hikes in Japan. The conflict over the islands remains unresolved and continues to strain relations between the two countries.
After China overtook Japan as the second-largest economy in late 2010, Japan’s growth increasingly became dependent on China, while China’s dependence on trade with Japan decreased. One of the consequences was that China allowed itself to be shaped less and less by foreign investment and development cooperation.
As a result, the liberal element of “liberal deterrence” lost much of its weight, while the deterrence aspect became more important. In 2013, then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe founded the National Security Council, headed by the Prime Minister himself, including the Chief Cabinet Secretary and the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense. This body, which has met every two weeks since then to discuss strategic security issues, has fundamentally revamped Japan’s China strategy but has never summarized it in a document.
However, the agreed strengthening of the US military command once again reveals Japan’s stance on security issues. Concerns about Chinese aggression were last raised at the end of 2022 in the National Security Strategy adopted by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and the Security Council. It describes China as the “greatest strategic challenge” whose behavior is a “serious concern.” Because Tokyo’s Security Council institutionally simplifies and accelerates exchanges with Washington, observers assume that the United States played a crucial role in drafting the security strategy.
Like Germany, Japan is also trying to reduce its economic dependence on China. Increased cooperation with economies that share Japan’s liberal values is intended to further promote de-risking. Tokyo’s relations with Beijing have even contributed to Japan and South Korea increasingly overlooking historical differences and seeking a joint approach to China.
At the initiative of the US, which maintains large military bases in both countries, Japan has also conducted more military exercises with South Korea in recent years. In parallel, the defense budget has doubled over the years and intensified security policy cooperation with value partners in Europe has begun.
Japan signed a security pact with the EU in February. Its goal: maritime security through data exchange and deeper hybrid warfare cooperation. The opening of a permanent NATO office in Tokyo probably only failed because of a veto by French President Emmanuel Macron, who feared that China could see this as a direct provocation. The security pact with the EU is an alternative because many EU states are also NATO members. Military exercises between Japan and some EU states are seen as an option for the future. Felix Lill
London and Washington have accused China of cyberattacks on the UK’s democratic institutions and imposed sanctions in response. In an address to the House of Commons on Monday, British Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said that “Chinese state-affiliated actors” had been behind two separate “malicious” attacks on both the British electoral watchdog and British MPs themselves. Sanctions have been imposed against two individuals and one company as a result. According to the US Department of the Treasury, Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science and Technology Company is a front company of the Ministry of State Security serving as a cover for cyber operations. The sanctioned Chinese citizens in question are Zhao Guangzong and Ni Gaobin, who allegedly carried out the cyberattacks.
The UK Cyber Security Centre said in a statement that a part of its GCHQ intelligence agency “assessed that the UK Electoral Commission systems were highly likely compromised by a Chinese state-affiliated entity between 2021 and 2022.” The entity in question is believed to be the Advanced Persistent Threat Group 31 (APT31), which also carried out activities against British MPs during a separate campaign in 2021. However, the agency announced that no parliamentary accounts had been successfully compromised. The sanctioned individuals Ni and Zhao are believed to be part of this Chinese hacker group. These sanctions are the UK’s first sanctions against China in three years. At that time, London, like the EU, had imposed sanctions due to human rights violations. ari
A book about a German dog who moves to China and is surprised by the enormous hustle and bustle during the Chinese New Year is the beginning of a series of children’s books by Rabea Glotz. It all began a few years ago when Glotz and her husband decided to move to China. “To prepare our four daughters for their new home, I looked for children’s books about China, preferably in three languages, as they would grow up speaking English, German and Chinese.” She quickly realized that such books hardly existed – and decided to write one herself.
This is how Basti, the expat dog, was born. He meets the zodiac pig at Chinese New Year and learns all sorts of things about the customs and traditions of his new home. Her friends persuaded Glotz to publish the story that she had actually only written for her daughters. She soon had ideas for more books, in which Basti meets the ghost of the poet Qu Yuan or a maneki-neko. “I wanted my books for children to build a bridge between China and Germany,” she says.
The joy of writing and language has accompanied Rabea Glotz since her school days. Back then, she wrote poetry and later enrolled at the Munich Institute of Language and Interpretation to become a translator. “But with an indirect route via a commercial apprenticeship,” she explains. “My parents wanted me to learn something down-to-earth.” This dissuaded Glotz from studying philosophy and theology right after graduating from high school, but ultimately, she followed her own path anyway.
Back in 2012, her husband moved to Shenyang, an important hub for the German automotive industry in the north-east of the country, for work. They lived there for two years before returning to Germany. “At the time, I was happy to be back in my home country. I missed my family very much.” But it wasn’t long before she felt the wanderlust again. Her husband suggested they try China again – and Glotz agreed. When they moved for the first time, their first daughter was just eight weeks old. The second time, in 2019, they already brought four children with them.
And what is it like today, five years later? “I’ve really settled in China this time,” says Glotz. Her Chinese is good, she has a large network of Chinese contacts and friends, is active in animal rights, and her children are happy. Two rescued dogs have become part of the family, as has a foster cat that has decided to stay. A few weeks ago, this colorful bunch moved from Shenyang to Beijing. “It’s quite an upheaval, but we’re looking forward to the vibrant capital.”
As soon as all the moving boxes are unpacked and the family has settled in, Glotz will make time to write again. “The next Basti” and a few other projects she is not yet allowed to reveal are waiting. Together with her Chinese publisher, she published her first novel at the international book fair in Beijing last year and plans to write more books that mediate between Germany and China. Svenja Napp
After the premiere of the Netflix adaptation of the Chinese science fiction bestseller “The Three Suns” by Liu Cixin, there were bound to be heated online discussions. The fact that Netflix is unavailable in China did not stop people from comparing the series with a Chinese version released by tech giant Tencent in 2023 (film poster on the right): Whose version is closer to the book? Who has the better special effects? And: Does the Netflix version cast a positive light on the Chinese? The opening scene, which shows a public tribunal during the Cultural Revolution, caused particular debate. Numerous online patriots criticized it as being exaggerated to portray China negatively.
The scenarios in the event of Donald Trump’s re-election as US president may not appeal to everyone. But they do exude a certain grotesque fascination, considering how radically the world could change – assuming Trump really fulfills all his promises. Today, Michael Radunski has summarized the degree to which the People’s Republic of China would benefit from this.
Trump’s election would undoubtedly bring numerous advantages for Beijing. Probably not without a price, because Trump has already announced that he would significantly raise US trade barriers to ward off Chinese products. But radical change creates a vacuum. And no other power in the world is as well prepared to plug any gaps that arise as the People’s Republic. The Chinese have been working towards such opportunities for decades.
Even Japan will have to consider whether close cooperation with the USA will continue under and after Trump. Tokyo is still relying more and more on US aid to counter Chinese posturing in the Indo-Pacific with a good dose of deterrence. The two countries plan to announce closer military cooperation in April.
That’s why Felix Lill looked at Japan’s China strategy for us from up close – namely from Tokyo. Surprisingly, unlike Germany, Japan has a China strategy. At least not one that sets out guidelines in the form of a white paper. Instead, Japan’s strategic behavior has been determined by security intuition for many years. This may have been different in the past, but at some point, the country stopped relying solely on the power of economic integration. Donald Trump probably sees it the same way, at least.
It is a scenario that politics and business must consider: Donald Trump could be elected President of the United States in November. Most European capitals fear a possible Trump victory. Several experts are convinced that Trump would pose a greater threat to China than Biden.
This seems plausible: Trump instigated the trade war with China. As president, he repeatedly launched targeted attacks against Beijing. For example, he consistently referred to the Sars-CoV-2 as the “China virus.”
Trump recently made it clear that he intends to pursue this aggressive course after his potential re-election. As president, he would introduce tariffs of 60 percent on Chinese goods, and he threatened to withdraw China’s fundamental status of “Permanent normal trade relations.” In particular, the return of Robert Lighthizer as Trump’s adamant trade representative actually suggests this. According to an Oxford Economics analysis, such a move could reduce China’s share of America’s imports from 20 percent to around three percent.
It would be a hard blow to China, which is already struggling with many problems – a burst property bubble, weak economic growth and a demographic crisis. Accordingly, Chinese delegates and experts have expressed concern in confidential talks. The unanimous conclusion: Trump would be a disaster for China. That’s true – but it’s only half the truth.
After all, President Joe Biden is also pursuing a hard line against China. China’s cadres were surprised to realize that Biden largely continued the tariffs from the Trump era after his election. In fact, Biden even went further: The strict export controls in the high-tech sector have caused considerable damage to China’s semiconductor ecosystem and its development.
Be it Democrats or Republicans – there is now a bipartisan consensus in the US to be tough on China. It can be assumed that both Biden and Trump will continue to maintain a tough stance against the People’s Republic.
This changes the considerations in Zhongnanhai. Beijing cannot expect a president who does little harm to China. So China must hope for an election winner who jeopardizes Western stability the most. And this is precisely where Trump could turn out to be the lesser evil for Beijing, because:
Trump has a large ego, which draws him to the autocratic rulers of this world – Russia’s Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and China’s Xi Jinping.
The way Xi and Trump appeared together during his presidency is unforgettable. The friendly steak dinner at Trump’s estate in Mar-a-Lago was followed by what was already dubbed a “state visit plus” in Beijing: The highlight was Xi Jinping giving Trump and the First Lady a personal tour of the imperial treasures in the Forbidden City. Afterward, Trump exuberantly praised his host: He called Xi a “very special man” and said they had truly “great chemistry.” Xi understands Trump’s ego.
Trump’s thirst for recognition should not be underestimated – and leads directly to the next point: Trump wants to strike deals. He seems more interested in making big headlines than the substance of the agreements or even the possible consequences for third parties. His meeting with North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un and his proclamation that he could end the war in Ukraine in just one day demonstrated this. Neither with Kim nor with Putin would Trump consider the consequences for South Korea or Ukraine.
When it comes to China, Trump’s focus is almost exclusively on domestic policy. He wants to reduce the US trade deficit with China and offer something to his constituency of US farmers. A major deal could address both of these issues if Xi were to promise that China would import more agricultural products from the USA. Trump was already pursuing this goal with the so-called phase one trade deal: “They’re buying anywhere from 40 billion to 50 billion US dollars worth of our agricultural product, that would have a huge impact on our farmers,” Trump explained at the time.
Alliances and allies, on the other hand, hardly play a role in his deals. And this is the fundamental difference to Joe Biden, who attaches great importance to alliances in the competition with China – with Europe, with security agreements such as AUKUS or Quad, with Japan, South Korea or even the Philippines.
Trump, on the other hand, is convinced that alliances constrain America’s power and options. He has criticized US aid for Ukraine and is open to anything regarding Taiwan. When asked whether he would defend Taiwan against an attack from China, Trump told Fox News: “Taiwan did take all of our chip business.” Trump’s answer is strikingly reminiscent of his call for Russia to do whatever it wants with “delinquent” NATO members.
It was an open secret during Trump’s presidency that he did not care about Taiwan, Evan Medeiros told Nikkei Asia. “There were some rumors that, in fact, he even said that during meetings with Chinese officials,” reported the former Director of the National Security Council for Asia under President Barack Obama.
China points out that the United States is not a reliable partner for Taiwan – and is already rejoicing. “The US will always pursue America first, and Taiwan can change from a chess piece to a discarded chess piece at any time,” said Chen Binhua, spokesman for the Taiwan Affairs Office in Beijing.
Despite all the uncertainty regarding what concrete measures Trump would actually take as president and all the expected harshness against China, Trump’s dislike of alliances opens up enormous opportunities for China.
Because one thing is clear: the US would become more isolationist under Trump. He would relinquish America’s leading role in important international organizations and tackling global problems such as the climate crisis. This offers China the unexpected opportunity to strengthen its own global economic and geopolitical influence.
Japan is casting a suspicious eye across the East China Sea towards the People’s Republic of China. The government in Tokyo perceives Beijing as an increasingly aggressive neighbor threatening its security. Nevertheless, Japan has not yet formulated a comprehensive China strategy. Instead, the country has been closely following the stance of its main security partner, the United States, for many years.
The Americans and Japanese now plan to intensify their cooperation in order to be better armed against possible Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific. When US President Joe Biden travels to Tokyo in April, both countries will announce the reorganization of the US military command in Japan. This is reported by US media. The plan is to station more high-ranking US military personnel in Japan in order to strengthen joint operational planning.
“It sends a strong strategic signal to China and North Korea and it’s meaningful from the point of view of deterrence to say that the US will strengthen the command structure in Japan,” Ryoichi Oriki, head of the Japanese defense forces, told the Financial Times. The plan is to attach a joint task force to the American Pacific Fleet.
The growing mistrust of the Japanese toward China contrasts with the level of economic integration. China is Japan’s largest trading partner. For decades, the Japanese government has specifically encouraged investment in China, not least to drive economic development there and thus influence political developments. At the same time, Tokyo has consistently strived to create sufficient deterrence through the presence of the US on its own soil.
This principle of “liberal deterrence” – a mix of entanglement and antagonism – characterized exchanges between the two countries from the start of diplomatic relations in 1972. Japan’s “hope was to induce better behavior from China,” wrote Chikako Kawakatsu Ueki, Professor of International Politics at Waseda University in Tokyo, in a 2020 paper. “Japan has also sought to integrate China into international institutions such as the World Trade Organization. The logic was to bind China with international rules and norms.” With limited success.
In 2010, Japan changed course and asserted its claim over the Senkaku Islands. Beijing, which calls the uninhabited group of islands in the East China Sea Diaoyu, saw its territorial rights violated and lowered its export quotas for rare earths in retaliation, leading to price hikes in Japan. The conflict over the islands remains unresolved and continues to strain relations between the two countries.
After China overtook Japan as the second-largest economy in late 2010, Japan’s growth increasingly became dependent on China, while China’s dependence on trade with Japan decreased. One of the consequences was that China allowed itself to be shaped less and less by foreign investment and development cooperation.
As a result, the liberal element of “liberal deterrence” lost much of its weight, while the deterrence aspect became more important. In 2013, then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe founded the National Security Council, headed by the Prime Minister himself, including the Chief Cabinet Secretary and the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense. This body, which has met every two weeks since then to discuss strategic security issues, has fundamentally revamped Japan’s China strategy but has never summarized it in a document.
However, the agreed strengthening of the US military command once again reveals Japan’s stance on security issues. Concerns about Chinese aggression were last raised at the end of 2022 in the National Security Strategy adopted by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and the Security Council. It describes China as the “greatest strategic challenge” whose behavior is a “serious concern.” Because Tokyo’s Security Council institutionally simplifies and accelerates exchanges with Washington, observers assume that the United States played a crucial role in drafting the security strategy.
Like Germany, Japan is also trying to reduce its economic dependence on China. Increased cooperation with economies that share Japan’s liberal values is intended to further promote de-risking. Tokyo’s relations with Beijing have even contributed to Japan and South Korea increasingly overlooking historical differences and seeking a joint approach to China.
At the initiative of the US, which maintains large military bases in both countries, Japan has also conducted more military exercises with South Korea in recent years. In parallel, the defense budget has doubled over the years and intensified security policy cooperation with value partners in Europe has begun.
Japan signed a security pact with the EU in February. Its goal: maritime security through data exchange and deeper hybrid warfare cooperation. The opening of a permanent NATO office in Tokyo probably only failed because of a veto by French President Emmanuel Macron, who feared that China could see this as a direct provocation. The security pact with the EU is an alternative because many EU states are also NATO members. Military exercises between Japan and some EU states are seen as an option for the future. Felix Lill
London and Washington have accused China of cyberattacks on the UK’s democratic institutions and imposed sanctions in response. In an address to the House of Commons on Monday, British Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said that “Chinese state-affiliated actors” had been behind two separate “malicious” attacks on both the British electoral watchdog and British MPs themselves. Sanctions have been imposed against two individuals and one company as a result. According to the US Department of the Treasury, Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science and Technology Company is a front company of the Ministry of State Security serving as a cover for cyber operations. The sanctioned Chinese citizens in question are Zhao Guangzong and Ni Gaobin, who allegedly carried out the cyberattacks.
The UK Cyber Security Centre said in a statement that a part of its GCHQ intelligence agency “assessed that the UK Electoral Commission systems were highly likely compromised by a Chinese state-affiliated entity between 2021 and 2022.” The entity in question is believed to be the Advanced Persistent Threat Group 31 (APT31), which also carried out activities against British MPs during a separate campaign in 2021. However, the agency announced that no parliamentary accounts had been successfully compromised. The sanctioned individuals Ni and Zhao are believed to be part of this Chinese hacker group. These sanctions are the UK’s first sanctions against China in three years. At that time, London, like the EU, had imposed sanctions due to human rights violations. ari
A book about a German dog who moves to China and is surprised by the enormous hustle and bustle during the Chinese New Year is the beginning of a series of children’s books by Rabea Glotz. It all began a few years ago when Glotz and her husband decided to move to China. “To prepare our four daughters for their new home, I looked for children’s books about China, preferably in three languages, as they would grow up speaking English, German and Chinese.” She quickly realized that such books hardly existed – and decided to write one herself.
This is how Basti, the expat dog, was born. He meets the zodiac pig at Chinese New Year and learns all sorts of things about the customs and traditions of his new home. Her friends persuaded Glotz to publish the story that she had actually only written for her daughters. She soon had ideas for more books, in which Basti meets the ghost of the poet Qu Yuan or a maneki-neko. “I wanted my books for children to build a bridge between China and Germany,” she says.
The joy of writing and language has accompanied Rabea Glotz since her school days. Back then, she wrote poetry and later enrolled at the Munich Institute of Language and Interpretation to become a translator. “But with an indirect route via a commercial apprenticeship,” she explains. “My parents wanted me to learn something down-to-earth.” This dissuaded Glotz from studying philosophy and theology right after graduating from high school, but ultimately, she followed her own path anyway.
Back in 2012, her husband moved to Shenyang, an important hub for the German automotive industry in the north-east of the country, for work. They lived there for two years before returning to Germany. “At the time, I was happy to be back in my home country. I missed my family very much.” But it wasn’t long before she felt the wanderlust again. Her husband suggested they try China again – and Glotz agreed. When they moved for the first time, their first daughter was just eight weeks old. The second time, in 2019, they already brought four children with them.
And what is it like today, five years later? “I’ve really settled in China this time,” says Glotz. Her Chinese is good, she has a large network of Chinese contacts and friends, is active in animal rights, and her children are happy. Two rescued dogs have become part of the family, as has a foster cat that has decided to stay. A few weeks ago, this colorful bunch moved from Shenyang to Beijing. “It’s quite an upheaval, but we’re looking forward to the vibrant capital.”
As soon as all the moving boxes are unpacked and the family has settled in, Glotz will make time to write again. “The next Basti” and a few other projects she is not yet allowed to reveal are waiting. Together with her Chinese publisher, she published her first novel at the international book fair in Beijing last year and plans to write more books that mediate between Germany and China. Svenja Napp
After the premiere of the Netflix adaptation of the Chinese science fiction bestseller “The Three Suns” by Liu Cixin, there were bound to be heated online discussions. The fact that Netflix is unavailable in China did not stop people from comparing the series with a Chinese version released by tech giant Tencent in 2023 (film poster on the right): Whose version is closer to the book? Who has the better special effects? And: Does the Netflix version cast a positive light on the Chinese? The opening scene, which shows a public tribunal during the Cultural Revolution, caused particular debate. Numerous online patriots criticized it as being exaggerated to portray China negatively.
