Billion-dollar flying taxi market + Japanese and US car manufacturers struggle

Dear reader,

Not so long ago, flying taxis were – at least in the West – considered the epitome of a misguided understanding of innovation. They are now a reality and can be bought: A personal vertical take-off aircraft from EHang costs around 300,000 euros. The Chinese company has won the race for now.

Christian Domke-Seidel has investigated how big this market could actually become and who will dominate it. Forecasts vary between 50 billion and 9 trillion, depending on whether they include applications for surveillance, online shopping, food delivery services and the military. Either way, air taxis are not a fantasy, but a future market with massive potential – and China has started to realize it.

There has been no end to frustrating news for the German car manufacturers in China recently. But they are not the ones struggling. The Japanese and US manufacturers are doing even worse than the Germans and have neglected the mobility transition even more. Joern Petring has analyzed how this could happen and what they are now trying to do about it.

Your
Carolyn Braun

Flying taxis: China leads the race for the billion-euro market

Instead of driving, people in Shenzhen may soon take flying taxis.

By

Christian Domke Seidel

You can now buy one for around 300,000 euros: EHang’s autonomous flying passenger transport drone. It could be the starting signal for a new mobility revolution – at least that is the hope of China’s flying vehicle industry. “This revolution will surpass the electrification of cars,” Guo Liang, CEO of Chinese flying car developer Aerofugia, told Nikkei Asia. Several other companies are also already in the starting blocks.

Some experts share this euphoria, for example the investment bank Morgan Stanley. It predicts that the global market will grow to 9 trillion dollars by 2050. That would be almost four times the volume of the entire automotive market in 2023 (2.5 trillion dollars). Forecasts predict that Chinese manufacturers could hold around 23 percent of this market.

Flying taxis as a niche market

Others are more skeptical. Kersten Heineke is co-lead at the McKinsey Centre for Future Mobility and, in an interview with Table.Briefings, slams the brakes. “It will remain a niche market in the long term, if you look at the modal mix of cities. However, that doesn’t mean that this market isn’t large and profitable in itself.” The management consultancy estimates the market – once the niche has established itself – at around 50 billion euros per year.

The two experts assess the situation differently because Morgan Stanley also includes surveillance drones, last-mile deliveries (online shopping and food deliveries), and military applications in its “urban air mobility” forecast. McKinsey’s assessment focuses on flying taxis and larger cargo drones.

Government subsidizes eVOTL

Politics and business in the People’s Republic are keen to be among the technology drivers and leaders in any market that might emerge in this broad spectrum. The government granted a safety approval certification for a personal drone as early as the end of 2023. A framework plan for the development of a green aerospace industry, driven by four Chinese ministries, forms the basis for the offensive. It also sets out the goal of launching eVOTL (electrical vertical take-off and landing vehicles) into commercial trial operation by 2025.

Accordingly, the Communist Party encourages the development of eVOTL both financially and with quick approvals. In 2022, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Science jointly published a plan for the development of the transport industry, which encourages companies to develop new means of transport, such as flying cars. The leading brands include the EV manufacturer Xpeng and its so-called X2 and EHang Holdings, with the EH216-S model – the recently launched autonomous flying passenger drone.

Similar target group as super sports cars

McKinsey’s Kersten Heineke sees several practical applications for this type of transport. “There are always a few hundred people worldwide who buy super sports cars. These are collectors and enthusiasts. The number of private users of flying taxis is currently in the same range. However, the practical benefits for private users are currently very limited.”

But there is also commercial use. And a lucrative market could emerge here. There are potential tourist applications, for example, as eVOTLs are easier to operate thanks to their comparatively silent operation and autonomous control. Scenic flights over the city from the roof of a hotel or shuttle services to certain events or the airport are conceivable. However, Heineke does not believe that these aircraft will compete with cars in the long term. He believes that shifting individual passenger or goods transport (airport shuttles, scenic flights, cargo drones) to the air makes sense, but not the entire road traffic.

USA and Europe also invest

The fact that China is pressing ahead is also due to the global market. Last year, US start-ups in the sector raised around 10 billion dollars in investor funds, with another two billion dollars coming from Europe. McKinsey calculates that around 70 percent of the money went into passenger transport.

“We will see a two-technology world here: Chinese technology on the one side and American and European technology on the other,” Heineke estimates. He believes that the American and European markets will be open to each other’s products, while the Chinese market will have to rely more heavily on its own purchasing power.

Car industry: USA and Japan are also under pressure

Japan’s traditional brand, Honda, plans to reduce its capacity in China by 20 percent.

By

Jörn Petring

The EV boom in the Chinese market is putting the once-dominant international car manufacturers under increasing pressure. Japanese manufacturers Nissan and Honda are the most recent examples of this change, in which the combustion engine is rapidly losing importance in the world’s second-largest car market.

As the Japanese business newspaper Nikkei reports, both companies plan to drastically reduce their production capacities in China. Nissan reportedly plans to reduce its capacity by up to 30 percent or 500,000 cars per year, while Honda aims to reduce its capacity by 20 percent to around 1.2 million vehicles per year and has already informed suppliers about this, Nikkei reports.

Discussions in Japan are similar to those in Germany

Japan fears falling behind in the automotive industry. In 2020, Japanese car manufacturers reached their highest market share in China at 20 percent. However, as with all car manufacturers, the joint ventures with Chinese manufacturers also resulted in a lot of expertise and technology going to the Chinese.

In the meantime, modern Chinese EVs are seen as a threat in Japan. “If Japanese automakers lose out to domestic manufacturers in China, they will fall behind their Chinese competitors elsewhere,” Nikkei comments on the development.

‘Ford, GM and Jeep are dead in China’

Apart from Tesla, the US car industry has practically slept on the change in China. “Ford, GM and Jeep are dead in China – even if their executives can’t or won’t admit it,” industry expert Michael Dunne summarizes the situation of US manufacturers in the Chinese market. For a long time, things looked very different: For years, “GM made more money than God in China.”

But: “The global automakers wanted market access. And the Chinese wanted technology,” Dunne analyzes. “When a Chinese buyer considers an EV, he thinks Tesla or one of the Chinese brands.” Dunne sees the main reason for the decline of US manufacturers in their “complacency.” They long believed that Chinese consumers would prefer foreign brands to domestic ones and that combustion engines would dominate – an assumption that turned out to be false.

German manufacturers are winners among the losers

The three major Detroit brands – Ford, GM, and Jeep – were “once darlings of the Chinese consumer,” writes Dunne. However, their sales figures have long since collapsed. Between 2017 and 2023, their sales in China fell by three million cars from 5.4 million to 2.3 million. Jeep’s joint venture in China went bankrupt in October 2022. According to Dunne, Ford struggles with enormous losses and only operates at 25 percent capacity.

German manufacturers have clearly not excelled in China in recent years. Nevertheless, a look outside the box shows that they still seem to be doing quite well compared to many other foreign competitors.

Agreement on shipping with Houthis

According to a Bloomberg report, China and Russia have reached an agreement with the Houthi rebels in Yemen concerning maritime traffic in the Red Sea. The Houthi rebels reportedly agreed to allow Russian and Chinese ships to sail through the Red Sea without fear of attacks.

Since November, Houthi rebels have repeatedly attacked ships passing the region. They claim that these ships are associated with Israel and announced that the attacks will continue until Israel ceases its siege and attacks on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Some of the world’s most important shipping routes pass through the Red Sea.

Several countries joined the US initiative “Operation Prosperity Guardian” at the end of last year to protect ships in the Red Sea. The German frigate Hessen is also involved in protecting commercial shipping through the Red Sea and participates in the EU’s “Aspides” operation. rtr

EU and China meet for first financial dialogue

China and the EU have held the first meeting of the newly established financial dialogue. “Financial authorities from both sides exchanged views about the respective macroeconomic and financial stability situations, as well as on the regulatory and supervisory architecture in place in China and the EU respectively,” the European Commission announced on Wednesday. The meetings had already taken place on Monday and Tuesday in Beijing.

EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis and Vice Premier He Lifeng, who is responsible for financial affairs, announced the financial dialogue last September. The EU already maintains a similar format with the United States.

According to China’s Central Bank (PBOC), topics included cross-border data transmission, a financial supervision framework, improving the capital market, and sustainable financial transactions. The meeting was chaired by John Berrigan, Director General of the EU Directorate General of Finance, and PBOC Vice Governor Xuan Changneng. PBOC Governor Pan Gongsheng and EU Ambassador Jorge Toledo Albiñana gave opening speeches. ari

Kremlin: China’s banks under ‘unprecedented pressure’ from the US and EU

The Kremlin believes China is under “unprecedented pressure” from the EU and the US to adopt a tough stance towards Moscow. This statement refers to the refusal of some Chinese banks to accept payments from Russia. In January, Russian business people reported payment problems with Chinese banks.

The newspaper Izvestia reports, citing informed sources, that the Chinese banks Ping An Bank and Bank of Ningbo have stopped making payments in Chinese currency from Russia. Restrictions are also in place at DBS Bank, Great Wall West China Bank and China Zheshang Bank.

“Of course, unprecedented pressure from the United States and the European Union on the People’s Republic of China continues, including in the context of relations with us,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a daily conference call with reporters, adding that Russia and China could overcome such obstacles.

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has forced Moscow to open up new sales markets and has become a top exporter of oil to China, among other countries. The United States is pressuring banks in countries such as Turkey and China with so-called secondary sanctions, which are imposed on parties that do business with sanctioned countries. rtr

Central bank indicates further lowering bank reserve ratio

The Chinese central bank is signaling its willingness to support the domestic economy. “China’s monetary policy has ample room and rich policy tool reserves,” Central Bank Deputy Governor Xuan Changneng said at a press conference in Beijing on Thursday. “And there is still room to lower the reserve requirement ratio.” The minimum reserve ratio specifies how much money banks must hold as a safety buffer at the central bank.

The RRR is currently around seven percent. It was already lowered by half a percentage point at the beginning of February. The lower it is, the more room the banks have to grant loans. The latest reduction has freed up around one trillion yuan (equivalent to around 128 billion euros) in liquidity for the financial system.

Since its strict Covid measures ended in late 2022, the People’s Republic has been struggling to get the economy back on track. The crisis in the domestic property sector is weighing heavily on the economy, and high regional debt also slows down the recovery. rtr

China’s unbending feminists

If a native Chinese speaker describes a man as “smelling like daddy爹味(儿),” it is not a compliment. The meaning of this fatherly word is actually speaking in a patronizing way, in particular to women. Like misogyny and patriarchy, “smelling like daddy” is part of the basic vocabulary for Chinese feminists.

However, while misogyny 厌女 and patriarchy 父权 are not frequently used in everyday conversations, “smell like daddy” would definitely make it into any version of the Chinese urban dictionary because it is already a well-known word. This, in a way, reflected the depth of influence of feminism. Despite government crackdowns and smearing efforts by narrow-minded men, feminism has been taking root in the minds of more and more Chinese women, who would fight against condescending attitudes, discrimination, harassment, and abuse and fight for their rights and independence.

This bodes ill not only for male chauvinists but also for the government, which is keen to cajole women into making more babies to save the country’s dangerously declining birth rate.

Short-lived spring for Chinese NGOs

In the good old days – that is before Xi Jinping was the boss – women’s rights and assistance for disadvantaged females was only one of the areas where participants in the country’s burgeoning civil society worked. There were also thousands of non-profit organizations for workers’ rights, the disabled, LGBT rights, and even in the very sensitive areas of political rights and rights of ethnic minority groups. They could dedicate themselves to such specific issues as the rights of people with Hepatitis B and the rights of some unfortunate people from border regions of Southwest China who became stateless because of complicated international disputes. All these issues could be discussed on the media and the internet, which also impacted public policy.

That time is over. These organizations were almost all closed down in the mid-2010s. Activists were either put into prison, left the country, or quit the cause. Resisting voices are now rarely heard, with one exception: the feminists .

Chinese feminism’s links with the outside world

Women rights advocates were among the first targets of the government’s crackdown in 2015 on organizations in rights areas. Five women were arrested and released more than a month later amid loud domestic and international outcry. Offline activities for women’s rights became almost all but impossible. Online discussions and comments have also been heavily censored.

But the spirit lives on and remains palpable. The MeToo movement received a very resounding echo also in China, prompting women to stand up and accuse offenders, including some celebrities. Once in a while, cases of egregious cases of abuse of women would ignite waves of angry condemnation in cyberspace that are too strong to be censored right away.

The books by Japanese feminist sociologist Chizuko Ueno (上野千鶴子) are very popular, and students at one university managed to perform Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues” on campus. Female podcasters, video channel broadcasters, and writers, though they generally refrain from making too sharp statements, generate content permeated with feminist consciousness. Some of them are popular as well as commercially successful. Opinion leaders who have left China without intent of going back in the foreseeable future are, of course, as bold as how they want to be in their programs.

Subdued but unbroken resistance

However, as organized activities are not possible, feminists in China can only put their ideas into practice on an individual basis. The sad reality is that only women blessed with more resources, be it wealth or a good education, can afford to mount resistance against a sexist society. Still, these women could already be a force that can’t be ignored.

Some opinion leaders have gone as far as saying there is no way that a Chinese woman could have a happy married life in a totalitarian country with a long patriarchal tradition. In recent years, a slogan has been circulating among Chinese feminists: ‘No marriage and no babies to stay safe 不婚不育保平安,’ a parody of a well-known Falungong mantra: “Quit CCP, Quit Communist League to stay safe 退党退团保平安.”

Chinese authorities, which have been doing very little to address the widespread discrimination against women in the job market and rampant domestic violence at the grassroots level, find the feminist voices intolerable. “Foreign forces” were accused of “stoking antagonism between the two sexes.”

Whoever they blame, they will still find that an increasing number of Chinese women are not willing to play the role that the government wants to impose on them.

At Pizza Hut Taiwan, ads featuring disgusting pizzas have become a tradition. After the franchise company went viral last year on Halloween thanks to a pizza with ghost-shaped dumplings and chicken feet, it has now stepped up its game – with this turtle pizza.

The main ingredients of this abomination based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films are green mochi dough, red bean filling, and coriander topping. The mutant pizza has already caused a culinary outcry and numerous review videos online. A staff member of one branch explained anonymously in a forum that it took ages to prepare it during rush hour. The result ended up looking “like a frog that was stoned to death.”

CHINA.TABLE EDITORIAL OFFICE

Amelie
Richter

Marcel
Grzanna

Fabian
Peltsch

Julia
Fiedler

Angela
Köckritz

Jörn
Petring

Dear reader,

Not so long ago, flying taxis were – at least in the West – considered the epitome of a misguided understanding of innovation. They are now a reality and can be bought: A personal vertical take-off aircraft from EHang costs around 300,000 euros. The Chinese company has won the race for now.

Christian Domke-Seidel has investigated how big this market could actually become and who will dominate it. Forecasts vary between 50 billion and 9 trillion, depending on whether they include applications for surveillance, online shopping, food delivery services and the military. Either way, air taxis are not a fantasy, but a future market with massive potential – and China has started to realize it.

There has been no end to frustrating news for the German car manufacturers in China recently. But they are not the ones struggling. The Japanese and US manufacturers are doing even worse than the Germans and have neglected the mobility transition even more. Joern Petring has analyzed how this could happen and what they are now trying to do about it.

Your
Carolyn Braun

Flying taxis: China leads the race for the billion-euro market

By

Christian Domke Seidel

You can now buy one for around 300,000 euros: EHang’s autonomous flying passenger transport drone. It could be the starting signal for a new mobility revolution – at least that is the hope of China’s flying vehicle industry. “This revolution will surpass the electrification of cars,” Guo Liang, CEO of Chinese flying car developer Aerofugia, told Nikkei Asia. Several other companies are also already in the starting blocks.

Some experts share this euphoria, for example the investment bank Morgan Stanley. It predicts that the global market will grow to 9 trillion dollars by 2050. That would be almost four times the volume of the entire automotive market in 2023 (2.5 trillion dollars). Forecasts predict that Chinese manufacturers could hold around 23 percent of this market.

Flying taxis as a niche market

Others are more skeptical. Kersten Heineke is co-lead at the McKinsey Centre for Future Mobility and, in an interview with Table.Briefings, slams the brakes. “It will remain a niche market in the long term, if you look at the modal mix of cities. However, that doesn’t mean that this market isn’t large and profitable in itself.” The management consultancy estimates the market – once the niche has established itself – at around 50 billion euros per year.

The two experts assess the situation differently because Morgan Stanley also includes surveillance drones, last-mile deliveries (online shopping and food deliveries), and military applications in its “urban air mobility” forecast. McKinsey’s assessment focuses on flying taxis and larger cargo drones.

Government subsidizes eVOTL

Politics and business in the People’s Republic are keen to be among the technology drivers and leaders in any market that might emerge in this broad spectrum. The government granted a safety approval certification for a personal drone as early as the end of 2023. A framework plan for the development of a green aerospace industry, driven by four Chinese ministries, forms the basis for the offensive. It also sets out the goal of launching eVOTL (electrical vertical take-off and landing vehicles) into commercial trial operation by 2025.

Accordingly, the Communist Party encourages the development of eVOTL both financially and with quick approvals. In 2022, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Science jointly published a plan for the development of the transport industry, which encourages companies to develop new means of transport, such as flying cars. The leading brands include the EV manufacturer Xpeng and its so-called X2 and EHang Holdings, with the EH216-S model – the recently launched autonomous flying passenger drone.

Similar target group as super sports cars

McKinsey’s Kersten Heineke sees several practical applications for this type of transport. “There are always a few hundred people worldwide who buy super sports cars. These are collectors and enthusiasts. The number of private users of flying taxis is currently in the same range. However, the practical benefits for private users are currently very limited.”

But there is also commercial use. And a lucrative market could emerge here. There are potential tourist applications, for example, as eVOTLs are easier to operate thanks to their comparatively silent operation and autonomous control. Scenic flights over the city from the roof of a hotel or shuttle services to certain events or the airport are conceivable. However, Heineke does not believe that these aircraft will compete with cars in the long term. He believes that shifting individual passenger or goods transport (airport shuttles, scenic flights, cargo drones) to the air makes sense, but not the entire road traffic.

USA and Europe also invest

The fact that China is pressing ahead is also due to the global market. Last year, US start-ups in the sector raised around 10 billion dollars in investor funds, with another two billion dollars coming from Europe. McKinsey calculates that around 70 percent of the money went into passenger transport.

“We will see a two-technology world here: Chinese technology on the one side and American and European technology on the other,” Heineke estimates. He believes that the American and European markets will be open to each other’s products, while the Chinese market will have to rely more heavily on its own purchasing power.

Car industry: USA and Japan are also under pressure

By

Jörn Petring

The EV boom in the Chinese market is putting the once-dominant international car manufacturers under increasing pressure. Japanese manufacturers Nissan and Honda are the most recent examples of this change, in which the combustion engine is rapidly losing importance in the world’s second-largest car market.

As the Japanese business newspaper Nikkei reports, both companies plan to drastically reduce their production capacities in China. Nissan reportedly plans to reduce its capacity by up to 30 percent or 500,000 cars per year, while Honda aims to reduce its capacity by 20 percent to around 1.2 million vehicles per year and has already informed suppliers about this, Nikkei reports.

Discussions in Japan are similar to those in Germany

Japan fears falling behind in the automotive industry. In 2020, Japanese car manufacturers reached their highest market share in China at 20 percent. However, as with all car manufacturers, the joint ventures with Chinese manufacturers also resulted in a lot of expertise and technology going to the Chinese.

In the meantime, modern Chinese EVs are seen as a threat in Japan. “If Japanese automakers lose out to domestic manufacturers in China, they will fall behind their Chinese competitors elsewhere,” Nikkei comments on the development.

‘Ford, GM and Jeep are dead in China’

Apart from Tesla, the US car industry has practically slept on the change in China. “Ford, GM and Jeep are dead in China – even if their executives can’t or won’t admit it,” industry expert Michael Dunne summarizes the situation of US manufacturers in the Chinese market. For a long time, things looked very different: For years, “GM made more money than God in China.”

But: “The global automakers wanted market access. And the Chinese wanted technology,” Dunne analyzes. “When a Chinese buyer considers an EV, he thinks Tesla or one of the Chinese brands.” Dunne sees the main reason for the decline of US manufacturers in their “complacency.” They long believed that Chinese consumers would prefer foreign brands to domestic ones and that combustion engines would dominate – an assumption that turned out to be false.

German manufacturers are winners among the losers

The three major Detroit brands – Ford, GM, and Jeep – were “once darlings of the Chinese consumer,” writes Dunne. However, their sales figures have long since collapsed. Between 2017 and 2023, their sales in China fell by three million cars from 5.4 million to 2.3 million. Jeep’s joint venture in China went bankrupt in October 2022. According to Dunne, Ford struggles with enormous losses and only operates at 25 percent capacity.

German manufacturers have clearly not excelled in China in recent years. Nevertheless, a look outside the box shows that they still seem to be doing quite well compared to many other foreign competitors.

Agreement on shipping with Houthis

According to a Bloomberg report, China and Russia have reached an agreement with the Houthi rebels in Yemen concerning maritime traffic in the Red Sea. The Houthi rebels reportedly agreed to allow Russian and Chinese ships to sail through the Red Sea without fear of attacks.

Since November, Houthi rebels have repeatedly attacked ships passing the region. They claim that these ships are associated with Israel and announced that the attacks will continue until Israel ceases its siege and attacks on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Some of the world’s most important shipping routes pass through the Red Sea.

Several countries joined the US initiative “Operation Prosperity Guardian” at the end of last year to protect ships in the Red Sea. The German frigate Hessen is also involved in protecting commercial shipping through the Red Sea and participates in the EU’s “Aspides” operation. rtr

EU and China meet for first financial dialogue

China and the EU have held the first meeting of the newly established financial dialogue. “Financial authorities from both sides exchanged views about the respective macroeconomic and financial stability situations, as well as on the regulatory and supervisory architecture in place in China and the EU respectively,” the European Commission announced on Wednesday. The meetings had already taken place on Monday and Tuesday in Beijing.

EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis and Vice Premier He Lifeng, who is responsible for financial affairs, announced the financial dialogue last September. The EU already maintains a similar format with the United States.

According to China’s Central Bank (PBOC), topics included cross-border data transmission, a financial supervision framework, improving the capital market, and sustainable financial transactions. The meeting was chaired by John Berrigan, Director General of the EU Directorate General of Finance, and PBOC Vice Governor Xuan Changneng. PBOC Governor Pan Gongsheng and EU Ambassador Jorge Toledo Albiñana gave opening speeches. ari

Kremlin: China’s banks under ‘unprecedented pressure’ from the US and EU

The Kremlin believes China is under “unprecedented pressure” from the EU and the US to adopt a tough stance towards Moscow. This statement refers to the refusal of some Chinese banks to accept payments from Russia. In January, Russian business people reported payment problems with Chinese banks.

The newspaper Izvestia reports, citing informed sources, that the Chinese banks Ping An Bank and Bank of Ningbo have stopped making payments in Chinese currency from Russia. Restrictions are also in place at DBS Bank, Great Wall West China Bank and China Zheshang Bank.

“Of course, unprecedented pressure from the United States and the European Union on the People’s Republic of China continues, including in the context of relations with us,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a daily conference call with reporters, adding that Russia and China could overcome such obstacles.

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has forced Moscow to open up new sales markets and has become a top exporter of oil to China, among other countries. The United States is pressuring banks in countries such as Turkey and China with so-called secondary sanctions, which are imposed on parties that do business with sanctioned countries. rtr

Central bank indicates further lowering bank reserve ratio

The Chinese central bank is signaling its willingness to support the domestic economy. “China’s monetary policy has ample room and rich policy tool reserves,” Central Bank Deputy Governor Xuan Changneng said at a press conference in Beijing on Thursday. “And there is still room to lower the reserve requirement ratio.” The minimum reserve ratio specifies how much money banks must hold as a safety buffer at the central bank.

The RRR is currently around seven percent. It was already lowered by half a percentage point at the beginning of February. The lower it is, the more room the banks have to grant loans. The latest reduction has freed up around one trillion yuan (equivalent to around 128 billion euros) in liquidity for the financial system.

Since its strict Covid measures ended in late 2022, the People’s Republic has been struggling to get the economy back on track. The crisis in the domestic property sector is weighing heavily on the economy, and high regional debt also slows down the recovery. rtr

China’s unbending feminists

If a native Chinese speaker describes a man as “smelling like daddy爹味(儿),” it is not a compliment. The meaning of this fatherly word is actually speaking in a patronizing way, in particular to women. Like misogyny and patriarchy, “smelling like daddy” is part of the basic vocabulary for Chinese feminists.

However, while misogyny 厌女 and patriarchy 父权 are not frequently used in everyday conversations, “smell like daddy” would definitely make it into any version of the Chinese urban dictionary because it is already a well-known word. This, in a way, reflected the depth of influence of feminism. Despite government crackdowns and smearing efforts by narrow-minded men, feminism has been taking root in the minds of more and more Chinese women, who would fight against condescending attitudes, discrimination, harassment, and abuse and fight for their rights and independence.

This bodes ill not only for male chauvinists but also for the government, which is keen to cajole women into making more babies to save the country’s dangerously declining birth rate.

Short-lived spring for Chinese NGOs

In the good old days – that is before Xi Jinping was the boss – women’s rights and assistance for disadvantaged females was only one of the areas where participants in the country’s burgeoning civil society worked. There were also thousands of non-profit organizations for workers’ rights, the disabled, LGBT rights, and even in the very sensitive areas of political rights and rights of ethnic minority groups. They could dedicate themselves to such specific issues as the rights of people with Hepatitis B and the rights of some unfortunate people from border regions of Southwest China who became stateless because of complicated international disputes. All these issues could be discussed on the media and the internet, which also impacted public policy.

That time is over. These organizations were almost all closed down in the mid-2010s. Activists were either put into prison, left the country, or quit the cause. Resisting voices are now rarely heard, with one exception: the feminists .

Chinese feminism’s links with the outside world

Women rights advocates were among the first targets of the government’s crackdown in 2015 on organizations in rights areas. Five women were arrested and released more than a month later amid loud domestic and international outcry. Offline activities for women’s rights became almost all but impossible. Online discussions and comments have also been heavily censored.

But the spirit lives on and remains palpable. The MeToo movement received a very resounding echo also in China, prompting women to stand up and accuse offenders, including some celebrities. Once in a while, cases of egregious cases of abuse of women would ignite waves of angry condemnation in cyberspace that are too strong to be censored right away.

The books by Japanese feminist sociologist Chizuko Ueno (上野千鶴子) are very popular, and students at one university managed to perform Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues” on campus. Female podcasters, video channel broadcasters, and writers, though they generally refrain from making too sharp statements, generate content permeated with feminist consciousness. Some of them are popular as well as commercially successful. Opinion leaders who have left China without intent of going back in the foreseeable future are, of course, as bold as how they want to be in their programs.

Subdued but unbroken resistance

However, as organized activities are not possible, feminists in China can only put their ideas into practice on an individual basis. The sad reality is that only women blessed with more resources, be it wealth or a good education, can afford to mount resistance against a sexist society. Still, these women could already be a force that can’t be ignored.

Some opinion leaders have gone as far as saying there is no way that a Chinese woman could have a happy married life in a totalitarian country with a long patriarchal tradition. In recent years, a slogan has been circulating among Chinese feminists: ‘No marriage and no babies to stay safe 不婚不育保平安,’ a parody of a well-known Falungong mantra: “Quit CCP, Quit Communist League to stay safe 退党退团保平安.”

Chinese authorities, which have been doing very little to address the widespread discrimination against women in the job market and rampant domestic violence at the grassroots level, find the feminist voices intolerable. “Foreign forces” were accused of “stoking antagonism between the two sexes.”

Whoever they blame, they will still find that an increasing number of Chinese women are not willing to play the role that the government wants to impose on them.

At Pizza Hut Taiwan, ads featuring disgusting pizzas have become a tradition. After the franchise company went viral last year on Halloween thanks to a pizza with ghost-shaped dumplings and chicken feet, it has now stepped up its game – with this turtle pizza.

The main ingredients of this abomination based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films are green mochi dough, red bean filling, and coriander topping. The mutant pizza has already caused a culinary outcry and numerous review videos online. A staff member of one branch explained anonymously in a forum that it took ages to prepare it during rush hour. The result ended up looking “like a frog that was stoned to death.”

CHINA.TABLE EDITORIAL OFFICE

Amelie
Richter

Marcel
Grzanna

Fabian
Peltsch

Julia
Fiedler

Angela
Köckritz

Jörn
Petring

Feature

Flying taxis: China leads the race for the billion-euro market

Flying taxis as a niche market

Government subsidizes eVOTL

Similar target group as super sports cars

USA and Europe also invest

Car industry: USA and Japan are also under pressure

Discussions in Japan are similar to those in Germany

‘Ford, GM and Jeep are dead in China’

German manufacturers are winners among the losers

Events

News

Agreement on shipping with Houthis

EU and China meet for first financial dialogue

Kremlin: China’s banks under ‘unprecedented pressure’ from the US and EU

Central bank indicates further lowering bank reserve ratio

China Perspective

China’s unbending feminists

Short-lived spring for Chinese NGOs

Chinese feminism’s links with the outside world

Subdued but unbroken resistance

Executive Moves

Dessert

China.Table editorial team

CHINA.TABLE EDITORIAL OFFICE

Feature

Flying taxis: China leads the race for the billion-euro market

Flying taxis as a niche market

Government subsidizes eVOTL

Similar target group as super sports cars

USA and Europe also invest

Car industry: USA and Japan are also under pressure

Discussions in Japan are similar to those in Germany

‘Ford, GM and Jeep are dead in China’

German manufacturers are winners among the losers

Events

News

Agreement on shipping with Houthis

EU and China meet for first financial dialogue

Kremlin: China’s banks under ‘unprecedented pressure’ from the US and EU

Central bank indicates further lowering bank reserve ratio

China Perspective

China’s unbending feminists

Short-lived spring for Chinese NGOs

Chinese feminism’s links with the outside world

Subdued but unbroken resistance

Executive Moves

Dessert

China.Table editorial team

CHINA.TABLE EDITORIAL OFFICE

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