US President Joe Biden wants to remedy the diplomatic shortsight of his predecessor Donald Trump. He certainly has his work cut out for him, especially in Asia. Biden is currently visiting the region, which will continue to be of geopolitical importance in the struggle between China and the United States for global leadership.
Consequently, Biden has cleared his calendar: After three days in South Korea, the US president landed in Japan on Monday – both democratic allies of the United States. Finn Mayer-Kuckuk closely followed Biden’s appearance in Tokyo and found that the US president’s trip can be summed up in one sentence: The US is looking for partners against China. To reach this goal, Biden relies on a mix of military strength and economic incentives.
The newly re-elected French President also has his eye on China. It is Emmanuel Macron who has repeatedly championed a united European stance toward the People’s Republic.
The French parliament will be re-elected in June – and a particularly controversial candidate with close ties to China is running in Paris: Buon Tan. Amelie Richter has taken a closer look at the driven entrepreneur and shows that there is a good reason why he is widely regarded as an extension of the Chinese Communist Party. Tan has even been in contact with Xi Jinping. The problem for French politics: Tan is also a close confidant of Emmanuel Macron.
US President Joe Biden once again sharpened his tone on the Taiwan issue on Monday. While in Japan, he first promised general military aid to Taiwan in case of a Chinese invasion. When asked about a possible deployment of the US Army, Biden replied, “Yes, we have a commitment to do that“.
The US president had already made similar remarks last October (China.Table reported). At the time, the president’s reference to the “obligation” to protect Taiwan was also only made after a journalist asked him about it. Then, as now, a statement from his communications department came shortly afterward that the president’s statement was not to be understood as a change of course. The almost verbatim repetition of the process, however, suggests that the wording at the time was no accident.
Biden’s statement, however, gains its significance mainly against the overall picture of far-reaching new linguistic rules of US policy on the Taiwan issue. Only recently, the State Department changed the description of Taiwan on its website. The reference to “One China” was removed. A small but symbolic change.
Without fundamentally realigning his country’s policy, Biden nevertheless readjusts the position on Taiwan. This happens under the impression of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Vladimir Putin was not deterred by unclear commitments to Ukraine. The lesson learned from this is apparently that if the US truly cares about a free Taiwan, it will have to make its commitment clearer than it has been in the past.
Although a true, treaty-based security guarantee has yet to be issued, significant changes emerge at this point. Until now, the US strategy was to remain deliberately vague. Washington hoped this would have two advantages: China would remain in the dark about the United States’ resolve. And Taiwan was not to be encouraged to declare formal independence with supposed US backing. Putin’s big gamble in Ukraine now at least makes the strategy of deterrence through ambiguity seem questionable.
An autonomous but not officially declared independent Taiwan remains important to the United States. The island serves as a bridgehead, just off the Chinese coast. It completes an encirclement of China by more or less loyal US allies. These form a wide arc from South Korea through Japan and the Philippines to India. The acquisition of Taiwan would also be an act of Chinese strength and a breach of international norms. This would severely weaken the US position if such a step were to remain without consequence. At the same time, however, the US does not want to cross a red line that would force China’s hand.
Also on Monday, Biden – as announced (China.Table reported) – revealed details about a new Indo-Pacific economic cooperation. This also fits with the overall theme of his Asia trip: containing China. The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) is intended to set the framework for prosperous trade. India and Japan are in, China is not.
The founding member nations of the IPEF are:
The absence of China (after all, the aforementioned countries are widely grouped around the superpower) is glaringly obvious. The group is obviously meant as a counterweight. This was also Barack Obama’s original intention at the time, which the former US President pursued with the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). In the meantime, however, China has hijacked it for its own purposes.
The list of members of IPEF and RCEP reads very similarly, excluding China. This means that free trade in Asia is now a highly complex matter. After all, there is also the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and ASEAN.
But for the time being, the IPEF is not a far-reaching pact. There is no mention of tariff exemptions, which are the gold standard for market liberalization and economic integration. Instead, the agreement focuses on rules for Internet companies, the protection of supply chains, and the fight against climate change and corruption.
On Tuesday, Biden will meet with leaders of the Quad Group, which also opposes China. Members are India, Australia, Japan and the USA. Peace protesters in Tokyo accused their government of warmongering for its participation in Quad. Finn Mayer-Kuckuk
In the 13th arrondissement of Paris, China plays a major role: The district in the southeast of the French capital is home to the most famous “Chinatown” in the country. Here, supermarkets are joined by restaurants and decorative stores selling goods from the Far East. The roots of its owners lie in the People’s Republic, as well as in other Asian countries such as Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, i.e. the region that was once colonized by France under the term Indochina.
The 13th arrondissement is also home to Buon Tan – a man critics like to call “Beijing’s darling in France”. Tan holds posts on key parliamentary commissions related to China and the Communist Party. He takes pro-CCP positions – including on votes in the National Assembly – on issues such as Huawei and the oppression of the Uyghurs. Tan has also been a member of several organizations under the CP’s United Front. The United Front is almost as old as the Party itself and strives to advance Beijing’s interests in the world by influencing elites outside China.
President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling party, LREM (“La République en Marche,” since the election campaign renamed “Renaissance”), nonetheless counts on the 55-year-old in the upcoming parliamentary elections in June: Tan is running again in the 9th constituency of the French capital. With Macron’s blessing – because the French head of state personally waves the LREM candidates through. Socialist MEP Raphaël Glucksmann criticized Macron’s decision, saying, “Why doesn’t the appointment of an actor of the Chinese regime by the president’s party cause a media outcry or a political scandal? Is it normal for a representative of the French people to work directly for a foreign tyranny”? Glucksmann posted on Twitter.
Buon Tan is not only backed up by the Élysée. Video footage shows Buon Tan shaking hands with Xi Jinping at a United Front meeting in 2019. In 2013, he attended the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference as a “non-voting overseas delegate” – such invitations are extremely rare. Tan was also a member of the lobbying group China Overseas Exchange Association (COEA) during that time. COEA aims to establish “extensive contacts” with overseas Chinese to bring capital, technology and foreign labor to China, as well as to promote “cultural exchange and external propaganda,” the Czech think tank Sinopsis quoted from an official COEA memo in a paper on the French politician.
During this time, Tan also accompanied French politicians, from ministers to presidents, on trips to Asia as an advisor. At the reception of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in June 2015, then-French Prime Minister Manuel Valls went so far as to introduce Buon Tan as the “most influential Chinese in Paris,” according to the daily newspaper Libération.
Born in Cambodia to a family from Puning in the Chaoshan region of China, Buon Tan moved to France with his family in 1975 at the age of eight, fleeing the Khmer Rouge. His father made a fortune importing tea, which also earned Buon Tan the nickname “Tea Leaf Prince”. Tan’s father was a respected man in the 13th arrondissement. His son began his political career with the Socialists (PS), and in the 2017 presidential election the businessman campaigned for the victory of political newcomer Macron. The newspaper Libération, therefore, called him “Macron’s pilot fish in the Asian diaspora”. Buon Tan was elected to the National Assembly for the first time as an LREM deputy in the subsequent parliamentary elections.
There, he stood out particularly negatively this year in January: He was the only MEP to vote against a resolution that classified the Chinese government’s human rights violations against the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang as genocide (China.Table reported). “The text is ineffective, even counterproductive, it does not help the cause,” Tan told Le Monde newspaper.
The fact that Buon Tan is running again with LREM’s support is a completely wrong signal, says China observer Antoine Bondaz. He works for the French think tank Fondation pour la recherche stratégique (FRS) and focuses on Asia and the People’s Republic. After all that has become public about the 55-year-old, it would not be beneficial for the ruling party’s China policy if Tan were to rejoin the National Assembly and no one is bothered by his ties to Beijing, Bondaz says.
However, the foreign policy advisors in the presidential office have far more influence on Macron – and they are quite experienced in dealing with China, says Bondaz. On the diplomatic staff of the Élysée, Walid Fouque currently handles Asia and Oceania. Fouque worked at the French Embassy in Beijing from 2014 to 2017 and speaks Korean and Japanese as well as Mandarin.
He has been on Macron’s team of advisors since November 2020. Virtually nothing is known about his approach to the China dossier, and Fouque hardly ever appears in interviews. But his appointment as Asia advisor shows that the People’s Republic is being followed closely in the Élysée, says French historian and China observer Emmanuel Lincot. Fouque is an “expert on Chinese affairs,” Lincot said.
However, FRS researcher Bondaz explains that China expertise does not otherwise play a major role in the formation of the new cabinet and the advisory council. A lot is in motion right now between the presidential election and the parliamentary election. “We don’t know yet if the current advisors will stay,” Bondaz believes. French diplomacy in China could also be reshuffled after Macron’s cabinet was formed: Ambassador Laurent Bili has been at his post in Beijing since 2019.
A change in the near future is very likely, according to Bondaz. Bili’s appointment in China in 2019 was considered a surprise; he is a close confidant of Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and was previously ambassador to Brazil and Thailand. Bili is considered very diplomatic, and rarely expresses criticism. There was discord between him and headquarters in Paris over a dispute at what point the embassy in Beijing warned of the dangers of the Coronavirus.
France’s China policy will be set in motion at various levels in the coming months. Most recently, President Macron even sent out a tweet in Mandarin for the first time after a meeting with his counterpart Xi Jinping. Developments will be particularly exciting in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. Because Buon Tan’s re-election is by no means certain. He is up against the Green Party candidate Sandrine Rousseau. And this in a constituency where the left-wing Jean-Luc Mélenchon was favored over Macron in the first round of presidential elections. If Buon Tan loses, Beijing will also lose a clear supporter in the French parliament.
Hong Kong’s new Security Minister Chris Tang has defended the arrest of 90-year-old Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen in mid-May. Tang told the South China Morning Post newspaper that the cleric had been arrested for his actions, and thus the arrest was in accordance with the values of the Catholic Church. The argument was that the Vatican is a place of justice and peace, and not acting in accordance with the law would “breach the Vatican’s principle of justice“.
Cardinal Zen is charged with violating the Security Law by conspiring with foreign forces against the city’s national interests. The background to the accusation is Zen’s role as a trustee of the “612 Humanitarian Relief Fund,” which had raised money to finance legal assistance for arrested members of Hong Kong’s opposition protest movement (China.Table reported). The fund had raised more than $30 million, including foreign donations. Last fall, however, the fund dissolved for fear of prosecution.
But critics see the arrest as a blow to religious freedom in Hong Kong. They are convinced that as Beijing’s authoritarian influence over the special administrative region grows, control over independent religious communities will increase. Zen, a Bishop Emeritus and Cardinal, is also a strong critic of the Chinese Communist Party, which he had repeatedly accused of lying. Zen also criticized the Vatican for its deal with Beijing to let the Party appoint bishops in the People’s Republic. Security Chief Tang dismissed the criticism as a “smear campaign” against Hong Kong.
Cardinal Zen is currently free on bail. However, the investigation against him and four other trustees of the 612 Fund continues. Today, Tuesday, Zen and his associates have to appear before court. grz
Rana Mitter describes himself as just a guy who writes books about the 1940s. This is clearly British reserve. After all, the 52-year-old has been teaching about the history of modern China at Oxford University’s St. Cross College for more than twenty years now – even though Mitter received his doctorate from Cambridge University. He has since written several books and keeps coming back to the 1940s and China’s role after World War II. “The late 1940s is one of the least studied periods in Chinese history,” Mitter says.
1949 was the year in which the Communists finally took the helm in China. But Mitter is convinced that the foundation for China’s claim to great power had already been laid earlier: “Just like almost the entire rest of the Western world, which sees 1945 as its turning point, 1945 is also the moment for China when it begins to see itself as a model for other countries leaving colonialism behind.” To understand this shift in China’s self-perception, Mitter combs through the diaries of important Chinese leaders of that period for his new book. Mitter aims to create a holistic picture of how that revolutionary moment came to be in the first place.
Mitter’s first visit to China, however, came at a very different time. He encountered the country when China’s attempts at reform and opening up came to a sudden and temporary end with the Tiananmen Square massacre. Mitter followed the developments on the Mainland from democratic Taiwan and Hong Kong, which was still under British rule at the time.
The fact that he developed an interest in the country at all was by no means a given. Mitter grew up in Brighton in southern England, at a time when China was far from British focus. Connections to other Asian countries, such as India, were much closer due to colonial history. Mitter’s family also has roots in the Indian subcontinent. However, it is the unknown of China that fascinates Mitter. “I thought the prospect of an interesting and challenging language might open up new experiences,” Mitter explains.
Mitter has long been honored with various awards for his research. He has been awarded a Fellowship of the British Academy, and in the summer of 2019, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.
But even after almost 30 years, Mitter is not growing tired of China. “I think the modern history of China is one of the most interesting historical stories in the world,” he says. Especially because so much has happened there in such a short time. And also because there have been so many strong characters who have shaped the country over the past 100 years. “For us historians, it is important to point out precisely the unpleasant moments that don’t necessarily fit the narrative of the Communist Party.”
But Western politicians would also benefit from a better understanding of Chinese history, Mitter believes: “It would be a good idea for Western politicians to learn more about Chinese history as a whole, because it’s not unusual for Chinese to bring up a whole range of historical events.” After all, both the good moments – such as the Chinese alliance with the US and the British in World War II – and the bad moments, such as the Opium Wars – have not been forgotten by the Chinese either. The West would do well to show more interest in this part of its history, Mitter says. David Renke
These two bottlenose dolphins in the Yangtze River near Yichang belong to an endangered species. Photos of them are accordingly rare. They are not to be confused with the Yangtze River Dolphin, which has been considered extinct for about 15 years.
US President Joe Biden wants to remedy the diplomatic shortsight of his predecessor Donald Trump. He certainly has his work cut out for him, especially in Asia. Biden is currently visiting the region, which will continue to be of geopolitical importance in the struggle between China and the United States for global leadership.
Consequently, Biden has cleared his calendar: After three days in South Korea, the US president landed in Japan on Monday – both democratic allies of the United States. Finn Mayer-Kuckuk closely followed Biden’s appearance in Tokyo and found that the US president’s trip can be summed up in one sentence: The US is looking for partners against China. To reach this goal, Biden relies on a mix of military strength and economic incentives.
The newly re-elected French President also has his eye on China. It is Emmanuel Macron who has repeatedly championed a united European stance toward the People’s Republic.
The French parliament will be re-elected in June – and a particularly controversial candidate with close ties to China is running in Paris: Buon Tan. Amelie Richter has taken a closer look at the driven entrepreneur and shows that there is a good reason why he is widely regarded as an extension of the Chinese Communist Party. Tan has even been in contact with Xi Jinping. The problem for French politics: Tan is also a close confidant of Emmanuel Macron.
US President Joe Biden once again sharpened his tone on the Taiwan issue on Monday. While in Japan, he first promised general military aid to Taiwan in case of a Chinese invasion. When asked about a possible deployment of the US Army, Biden replied, “Yes, we have a commitment to do that“.
The US president had already made similar remarks last October (China.Table reported). At the time, the president’s reference to the “obligation” to protect Taiwan was also only made after a journalist asked him about it. Then, as now, a statement from his communications department came shortly afterward that the president’s statement was not to be understood as a change of course. The almost verbatim repetition of the process, however, suggests that the wording at the time was no accident.
Biden’s statement, however, gains its significance mainly against the overall picture of far-reaching new linguistic rules of US policy on the Taiwan issue. Only recently, the State Department changed the description of Taiwan on its website. The reference to “One China” was removed. A small but symbolic change.
Without fundamentally realigning his country’s policy, Biden nevertheless readjusts the position on Taiwan. This happens under the impression of the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Vladimir Putin was not deterred by unclear commitments to Ukraine. The lesson learned from this is apparently that if the US truly cares about a free Taiwan, it will have to make its commitment clearer than it has been in the past.
Although a true, treaty-based security guarantee has yet to be issued, significant changes emerge at this point. Until now, the US strategy was to remain deliberately vague. Washington hoped this would have two advantages: China would remain in the dark about the United States’ resolve. And Taiwan was not to be encouraged to declare formal independence with supposed US backing. Putin’s big gamble in Ukraine now at least makes the strategy of deterrence through ambiguity seem questionable.
An autonomous but not officially declared independent Taiwan remains important to the United States. The island serves as a bridgehead, just off the Chinese coast. It completes an encirclement of China by more or less loyal US allies. These form a wide arc from South Korea through Japan and the Philippines to India. The acquisition of Taiwan would also be an act of Chinese strength and a breach of international norms. This would severely weaken the US position if such a step were to remain without consequence. At the same time, however, the US does not want to cross a red line that would force China’s hand.
Also on Monday, Biden – as announced (China.Table reported) – revealed details about a new Indo-Pacific economic cooperation. This also fits with the overall theme of his Asia trip: containing China. The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) is intended to set the framework for prosperous trade. India and Japan are in, China is not.
The founding member nations of the IPEF are:
The absence of China (after all, the aforementioned countries are widely grouped around the superpower) is glaringly obvious. The group is obviously meant as a counterweight. This was also Barack Obama’s original intention at the time, which the former US President pursued with the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). In the meantime, however, China has hijacked it for its own purposes.
The list of members of IPEF and RCEP reads very similarly, excluding China. This means that free trade in Asia is now a highly complex matter. After all, there is also the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and ASEAN.
But for the time being, the IPEF is not a far-reaching pact. There is no mention of tariff exemptions, which are the gold standard for market liberalization and economic integration. Instead, the agreement focuses on rules for Internet companies, the protection of supply chains, and the fight against climate change and corruption.
On Tuesday, Biden will meet with leaders of the Quad Group, which also opposes China. Members are India, Australia, Japan and the USA. Peace protesters in Tokyo accused their government of warmongering for its participation in Quad. Finn Mayer-Kuckuk
In the 13th arrondissement of Paris, China plays a major role: The district in the southeast of the French capital is home to the most famous “Chinatown” in the country. Here, supermarkets are joined by restaurants and decorative stores selling goods from the Far East. The roots of its owners lie in the People’s Republic, as well as in other Asian countries such as Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, i.e. the region that was once colonized by France under the term Indochina.
The 13th arrondissement is also home to Buon Tan – a man critics like to call “Beijing’s darling in France”. Tan holds posts on key parliamentary commissions related to China and the Communist Party. He takes pro-CCP positions – including on votes in the National Assembly – on issues such as Huawei and the oppression of the Uyghurs. Tan has also been a member of several organizations under the CP’s United Front. The United Front is almost as old as the Party itself and strives to advance Beijing’s interests in the world by influencing elites outside China.
President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling party, LREM (“La République en Marche,” since the election campaign renamed “Renaissance”), nonetheless counts on the 55-year-old in the upcoming parliamentary elections in June: Tan is running again in the 9th constituency of the French capital. With Macron’s blessing – because the French head of state personally waves the LREM candidates through. Socialist MEP Raphaël Glucksmann criticized Macron’s decision, saying, “Why doesn’t the appointment of an actor of the Chinese regime by the president’s party cause a media outcry or a political scandal? Is it normal for a representative of the French people to work directly for a foreign tyranny”? Glucksmann posted on Twitter.
Buon Tan is not only backed up by the Élysée. Video footage shows Buon Tan shaking hands with Xi Jinping at a United Front meeting in 2019. In 2013, he attended the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference as a “non-voting overseas delegate” – such invitations are extremely rare. Tan was also a member of the lobbying group China Overseas Exchange Association (COEA) during that time. COEA aims to establish “extensive contacts” with overseas Chinese to bring capital, technology and foreign labor to China, as well as to promote “cultural exchange and external propaganda,” the Czech think tank Sinopsis quoted from an official COEA memo in a paper on the French politician.
During this time, Tan also accompanied French politicians, from ministers to presidents, on trips to Asia as an advisor. At the reception of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in June 2015, then-French Prime Minister Manuel Valls went so far as to introduce Buon Tan as the “most influential Chinese in Paris,” according to the daily newspaper Libération.
Born in Cambodia to a family from Puning in the Chaoshan region of China, Buon Tan moved to France with his family in 1975 at the age of eight, fleeing the Khmer Rouge. His father made a fortune importing tea, which also earned Buon Tan the nickname “Tea Leaf Prince”. Tan’s father was a respected man in the 13th arrondissement. His son began his political career with the Socialists (PS), and in the 2017 presidential election the businessman campaigned for the victory of political newcomer Macron. The newspaper Libération, therefore, called him “Macron’s pilot fish in the Asian diaspora”. Buon Tan was elected to the National Assembly for the first time as an LREM deputy in the subsequent parliamentary elections.
There, he stood out particularly negatively this year in January: He was the only MEP to vote against a resolution that classified the Chinese government’s human rights violations against the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang as genocide (China.Table reported). “The text is ineffective, even counterproductive, it does not help the cause,” Tan told Le Monde newspaper.
The fact that Buon Tan is running again with LREM’s support is a completely wrong signal, says China observer Antoine Bondaz. He works for the French think tank Fondation pour la recherche stratégique (FRS) and focuses on Asia and the People’s Republic. After all that has become public about the 55-year-old, it would not be beneficial for the ruling party’s China policy if Tan were to rejoin the National Assembly and no one is bothered by his ties to Beijing, Bondaz says.
However, the foreign policy advisors in the presidential office have far more influence on Macron – and they are quite experienced in dealing with China, says Bondaz. On the diplomatic staff of the Élysée, Walid Fouque currently handles Asia and Oceania. Fouque worked at the French Embassy in Beijing from 2014 to 2017 and speaks Korean and Japanese as well as Mandarin.
He has been on Macron’s team of advisors since November 2020. Virtually nothing is known about his approach to the China dossier, and Fouque hardly ever appears in interviews. But his appointment as Asia advisor shows that the People’s Republic is being followed closely in the Élysée, says French historian and China observer Emmanuel Lincot. Fouque is an “expert on Chinese affairs,” Lincot said.
However, FRS researcher Bondaz explains that China expertise does not otherwise play a major role in the formation of the new cabinet and the advisory council. A lot is in motion right now between the presidential election and the parliamentary election. “We don’t know yet if the current advisors will stay,” Bondaz believes. French diplomacy in China could also be reshuffled after Macron’s cabinet was formed: Ambassador Laurent Bili has been at his post in Beijing since 2019.
A change in the near future is very likely, according to Bondaz. Bili’s appointment in China in 2019 was considered a surprise; he is a close confidant of Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and was previously ambassador to Brazil and Thailand. Bili is considered very diplomatic, and rarely expresses criticism. There was discord between him and headquarters in Paris over a dispute at what point the embassy in Beijing warned of the dangers of the Coronavirus.
France’s China policy will be set in motion at various levels in the coming months. Most recently, President Macron even sent out a tweet in Mandarin for the first time after a meeting with his counterpart Xi Jinping. Developments will be particularly exciting in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. Because Buon Tan’s re-election is by no means certain. He is up against the Green Party candidate Sandrine Rousseau. And this in a constituency where the left-wing Jean-Luc Mélenchon was favored over Macron in the first round of presidential elections. If Buon Tan loses, Beijing will also lose a clear supporter in the French parliament.
Hong Kong’s new Security Minister Chris Tang has defended the arrest of 90-year-old Roman Catholic Cardinal Joseph Zen in mid-May. Tang told the South China Morning Post newspaper that the cleric had been arrested for his actions, and thus the arrest was in accordance with the values of the Catholic Church. The argument was that the Vatican is a place of justice and peace, and not acting in accordance with the law would “breach the Vatican’s principle of justice“.
Cardinal Zen is charged with violating the Security Law by conspiring with foreign forces against the city’s national interests. The background to the accusation is Zen’s role as a trustee of the “612 Humanitarian Relief Fund,” which had raised money to finance legal assistance for arrested members of Hong Kong’s opposition protest movement (China.Table reported). The fund had raised more than $30 million, including foreign donations. Last fall, however, the fund dissolved for fear of prosecution.
But critics see the arrest as a blow to religious freedom in Hong Kong. They are convinced that as Beijing’s authoritarian influence over the special administrative region grows, control over independent religious communities will increase. Zen, a Bishop Emeritus and Cardinal, is also a strong critic of the Chinese Communist Party, which he had repeatedly accused of lying. Zen also criticized the Vatican for its deal with Beijing to let the Party appoint bishops in the People’s Republic. Security Chief Tang dismissed the criticism as a “smear campaign” against Hong Kong.
Cardinal Zen is currently free on bail. However, the investigation against him and four other trustees of the 612 Fund continues. Today, Tuesday, Zen and his associates have to appear before court. grz
Rana Mitter describes himself as just a guy who writes books about the 1940s. This is clearly British reserve. After all, the 52-year-old has been teaching about the history of modern China at Oxford University’s St. Cross College for more than twenty years now – even though Mitter received his doctorate from Cambridge University. He has since written several books and keeps coming back to the 1940s and China’s role after World War II. “The late 1940s is one of the least studied periods in Chinese history,” Mitter says.
1949 was the year in which the Communists finally took the helm in China. But Mitter is convinced that the foundation for China’s claim to great power had already been laid earlier: “Just like almost the entire rest of the Western world, which sees 1945 as its turning point, 1945 is also the moment for China when it begins to see itself as a model for other countries leaving colonialism behind.” To understand this shift in China’s self-perception, Mitter combs through the diaries of important Chinese leaders of that period for his new book. Mitter aims to create a holistic picture of how that revolutionary moment came to be in the first place.
Mitter’s first visit to China, however, came at a very different time. He encountered the country when China’s attempts at reform and opening up came to a sudden and temporary end with the Tiananmen Square massacre. Mitter followed the developments on the Mainland from democratic Taiwan and Hong Kong, which was still under British rule at the time.
The fact that he developed an interest in the country at all was by no means a given. Mitter grew up in Brighton in southern England, at a time when China was far from British focus. Connections to other Asian countries, such as India, were much closer due to colonial history. Mitter’s family also has roots in the Indian subcontinent. However, it is the unknown of China that fascinates Mitter. “I thought the prospect of an interesting and challenging language might open up new experiences,” Mitter explains.
Mitter has long been honored with various awards for his research. He has been awarded a Fellowship of the British Academy, and in the summer of 2019, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.
But even after almost 30 years, Mitter is not growing tired of China. “I think the modern history of China is one of the most interesting historical stories in the world,” he says. Especially because so much has happened there in such a short time. And also because there have been so many strong characters who have shaped the country over the past 100 years. “For us historians, it is important to point out precisely the unpleasant moments that don’t necessarily fit the narrative of the Communist Party.”
But Western politicians would also benefit from a better understanding of Chinese history, Mitter believes: “It would be a good idea for Western politicians to learn more about Chinese history as a whole, because it’s not unusual for Chinese to bring up a whole range of historical events.” After all, both the good moments – such as the Chinese alliance with the US and the British in World War II – and the bad moments, such as the Opium Wars – have not been forgotten by the Chinese either. The West would do well to show more interest in this part of its history, Mitter says. David Renke
These two bottlenose dolphins in the Yangtze River near Yichang belong to an endangered species. Photos of them are accordingly rare. They are not to be confused with the Yangtze River Dolphin, which has been considered extinct for about 15 years.
