Chancellor Olaf Scholz plans to wrap up his entire China visit in just eleven hours this Friday. That is a whole new tempo. Angela Merkel always allowed herself two to three days. But that was also before Covid. It was a different time. That is precisely what the Chancellor now acknowledges in a written statement – that the situation in and toward China has changed. Because even before his departure, Scholz responded to the loud criticism of his visit in a guest article in the German newspaper FAZ. Finn Mayer-Kuckuk summarizes the chancellor’s key arguments and looks at how China’s media interpret his words.
The fact that Olaf Scholz’s China visit was so heavily criticized beforehand is mainly due to the timing just after the Party Congress. Kai Mueller of the International Campaign for Tibet shares the criticism: Germany is obligated to human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The chancellor of such a country must maintain a distance from those who fight these values, Mueller writes in today’s Opinion. He accuses both business and politics of being irresponsible and opportunistic. He demands a progressive human rights policy and hopes it will make its way into the German government’s new China strategy next spring.
A sign of extraordinary courage was the action of a man in Beijing who unfurled banners with critical slogans on the railings of the Sitong Bridge just before the Party Congress. The man’s fate is unknown, but his message lives on. Marcel Grzanna writes about the Bridge Man’s legacy. He identified a wave of protests at international universities inspired by the protest at the bridge.
The traces of the protest have largely faded away. But for a few days, dozens of black-and-white copies with the image of a smiling and waving Chinese President Xi Jinping were plastered on walls and poles around the university campus in Goettingen. Above it, the word “Dictator”.
Ray Wong, a Hong Kong exile and democracy activist who studies political science in Göttingen, knows who was behind it. Wong already enjoys political asylum in Germany since 2018. From here, the 29-year-old organizes part of the Hong Kong diaspora that tries to mobilize resistance against Beijing’s grip on their hometown from around the world. And he supports Chinese students in regime-critical activities.
“I helped a small group of Chinese students plant the protest so they could stay in the background,” Wong says. Fellow students feared being discovered and exposed as dissidents. Among an estimated four-digit number of Chinese students in Goettingen are a few who are being instrumentalized by the government as spies, he says. Anyone who leaves Beijing’s official political line must expect to face consequences, such as dropping out of their studies and returning home immediately.
The timing of the appearance of the “Dictator” leaflets was not random. On the contrary, the action was inspired by a protest in downtown Beijing days earlier. There, a few hours before the start of the 20th Communist Party Congress, a man had hung large banners on a highway bridge, calling Xi a dictator who betrays his people. Nothing is known about the man’s fate since his arrest. What remains is the name Bridge Man, which international media have given him.
Bridge Man even inspired secret protests in the People’s Republic itself. Vice magazine reports that memes criticizing Xi were sent in Shanghai via Apple phones, whose device-to-device connections can hardly be monitored by Chinese authorities. Slogans scrawled on walls by activists turned up in dozens of public toilets in Beijing and Chengdu. A popular pop song titled gū yǒng zhě (孤勇者) – The Lonely and Courageous Man – went viral on private WeChat groups.
Despite this, the likelihood that a movement will form in the People’s Republic that could challenge the stability of the regime in the short term is extremely unlikely. Surveillance of public and digital space has increased dramatically in recent years. Censorship usually crushes any form of civil debate on social media within hours and nips any spark of dissent in the bud. Within no time, security authorities knock on the doors of political troublemakers.
Thus, the room for potential protest has shifted overseas. For several weeks now, university campuses around the world have been taking action to express their displeasure over developments in the People’s Republic. In Oxford, England, unknown individuals glued their messages in Mandarin and partly in English to window panes. It was the same black-and-white image of Xi Jinping that covered the walls in Goettingen. In Stanford, California, expressions of solidarity with Bridge Man popped up. Similar actions followed at many universities in the US, Australia, Canada and the UK, and even in Japan. Teng Biao, a Chinese human rights lawyer, posted a “Thank you all,” on Twitter.
Whether these protests are always by Chinese students or by other groups that condemn China’s authoritarian system is largely unclear. On social media, supporters and opponents of the Communist Party debate whether the protests have any impact at all and whether they were initiated by Chinese citizens at all. But if they were not Chinese, the question arises why the activists did not simply protest in public under the democratic civil rights. Because only those who have to fear consequences protest silently and in secret.
In Australia, there have been several protest actions in recent years when local students have rallied against Communist Party rule – at first in support of fellow Hong Kong students. One of the organizers of such protests in Australia is Drew Pavlou. The 23-year-old has since drawn the wrath of Chinese authorities thanks to a series of spectacular protests.
Together with Hong Kong exiles and activists of Tibetan or Uyghur descent, Pavlou now marches outside Chinese embassies and consulates or protests in central London. In 2021, he interrupted the men’s final of the Wimbledon tennis tournament. Pavlou had smuggled and unfurled a banner into the spectator stands asking, “Where is Peng Shuai?” He was referring to the missing Chinese tennis player who earlier accused former Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault.
“My parents have begged me to stop these protests because they fear for my safety. But I have a strong conviction that I am doing the right thing,” Pavlou tells China.Table. Pavlou is not only a household name to the Chinese authorities, but has long been a thorn in their side, he believes. The Chinese embassy in London accuses him of having made a bomb threat. It submitted a corresponding e-mail to the police, sent from an address registered under his name.
Pavlou denies the allegations. “It’s so ridiculous to think I would make a bomb threat and then also greet people friendly with my real name,” he says. Still, he was not allowed to leave the country for four weeks and had to report with the London police in mid-October. The case is still pending. That did not stop Pavlou from asking his followers on Twitter to continue spreading the Bridge Man’s messages.
Whether protests outside China even have any impact at all is answered by the incident at the Oxford Union student organization. They invited Pavlou to speak at their debate club last week. The British students wanted to know more about why Pavlou was standing up to Beijing. The day before, Oxford University, which is not connected in any way to the debate club, received several private letters of complaint about the invitation to the Australian. The letters were supposedly sent by Beijing sympathizers in an attempt to discredit Pavlou and prevent him from speaking at the organization.
In a guest article published by the German daily FAZ on Thursday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave a detailed statement on his trip to Beijing. With it, he responded to numerous critics, who also spoke at China.Table, and reacted to the public mood, which is increasingly critical of China’s investments in Germany.
These are the five points in short summary:
Overall, Scholz summed up, there was “plenty of material for an inaugural visit” to Beijing. He vowed not to avoid controversies, but would also seek common ground. In the same spirit, he explained his approval of the Cosco deal in Hamburg. He said his government distinguishes between “risky dependencies” and sensible deals. There was no risk of losing control with the stake in the port terminal.
As is his nature, Scholz seeks a middle course with this text. He avoids confrontation with both China and his critics. In some points, he meets the demands of his coalition partners to find clearer words toward China. In others, he tried to appease his EU partners. All while trying not to snub Beijing.
China’s government-controlled media usually cherry-picks quotes from such documents to suit their needs. China News Network focused on one particular sentence in the chancellor’s guest article: “We don’t want to decouple.” It mainly quotes passages that talk about mutual interests. The article is here mainly interpreted as a broad cooperation proposal. The passages on rivalry and human rights are deliberately left out. Xinhua also focused on the economic aspect and on the fact that German companies want to “deepen cooperation.” In this respect, the Chancellor achieved his goal and sent the desired message to both sides.
But at times, the Chinese media also exaggerate their interpretation of the Chancellor’s words in a way Scholz would hardly approve of. “A pragmatic Germany is taking a step toward strategic autonomy,” commented Lin Min of the Shenzhen Daily earlier in the week. “Germany is now trying to prove that it will no longer be a lackey of the United States.” Germany and the EU have been proteges of the US up to now, but now Scholz would oppose US dominance by approving the Cosco deal. The paper also cited numerous older quotes from the Chancellor to further support its interpretation.
This “strategic autonomy” is an idea that China has been trying to embed in the German mind for many years: The US is an unloving, unreliable partner, with whom Germany only integrated economically and militarily as a consequence of the lost Second World War. Now, the argument goes, it is time to break away from this toxic relationship, become independent and turn to a new, more modern partner. China.
The Shenzhen Daily now applied this narrative to the current visit. “Scholz understands where his country’s interests lie. Eager to expand trade with China, he will visit China on Friday, becoming the first EU leader to make the trip since November 2019.” He thus shows “backbone by refusing to dance to the tune of the US”
Germany needs to reorient its foreign and human rights policy toward authoritarian states such as the People’s Republic of China. What has been evident for years has only now become painfully clear to decision-makers thanks to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But it is precisely the sale of critical infrastructure and key technologies to the totalitarian regime in Beijing that is preventing the “Zeitenwende” (change of times) proclaimed by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. A large part of business and politics is apparently still intoxicated by the prospect of quick gains. This is irresponsible and a gift for the just recrowned communist “emperor” in Beijing.
Germany’s China policy has reached a dead end. Long-held hopes for “change through trade” in the People’s Republic only strengthened autocracy and misanthropy. This has now come back to haunt us. The question now is: Have we learned from this painful process? Will the German government’s much-cited new China strategy depart from the mistakes of the past – or will it merely be a continuation of old misconceptions, with some human rights rhetoric as tinsel?
The polyphony of German and European foreign policy has made Europe and Germany vulnerable. While Beijing deliberately pursues a political “weaponization” of practically all relations and thus seeks to suppress unpopular criticism of its policies – successfully in most cases – human rights policy and foreign policy are stuck in old patterns.
Human rights belong in the human rights dialogue, separate from talks on the economy, trade or competition. In recent years, formats such as the human rights dialogue have in any case grown into ever larger fig leaves for German foreign policy. A condition that is convenient for both sides, but ultimately only to China’s advantage.
The “mainstreaming of human rights” approach has largely been lost. This is not surprising, since it is fundamentally opposed to the postulated triad of “rival, competitor, partner”. This allows European policy maximum flexibility and freedom from obligation when dealing with the regime in Beijing. But what we see as a sign of differentiated foreign policy actually opens the door to opportunism and duplicity. The Communist Party interprets this as a weakness. And unfortunately – it is right. Money first, values second.
German opportunism includes slurs coined by leading foreign policymakers when it came to justifying a toothless human rights policy toward China. There was the term “Schaufensterpolitik” (grandstanding) or the “monstrance” of human rights. When German President Steinmeier now warns against excessive dependence on China, we are looking at one of the former grand architects of this policy. The German president’s change of heart is a welcome one – but does the Chancellor’s office share this view?
Anticipatory human rights policy, especially with regard to the People’s Republic of China, is underdeveloped in Germany. It reacts to big crises, such as the current one in Xinjiang, and is reluctant on Hong Kong and Tibet, which already went unmentioned in the governing coalition agreement. Alternative policy approaches are not considered; threats are ignored. Emerging conflicts are being pushed aside. Large corporations and China experts who are all too sympathetic to Beijing have for far too long dictated what can be said to Beijing. This harmed Germany and Europe – and is no longer acceptable.
We have to change our thinking: The policy of the Chinese Communist Party toward the Uyghurs, the Tibetans, the Mongolians, toward the people of Hong Kong and Chinese human rights advocates is not only important for the security of the people directly affected. It is also relevant for the security of Germany and Europe. After all, the CCP’s domestic policy was and is the harbinger of an aggressive foreign policy that explicitly wants to fight the universal values that we Europeans also represent. This means: If the rights of the Tibetans, the Uyghurs and many others are violated by the Communist Party, then this is relevant to our security in Europe. Our silence is our weakness. Our weakness jeopardizes our safety.
Chancellor Scholz’s trip, on the other hand, comes immediately after the end of the 20th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. General Secretary Xi Jinping was re-elected for another five years, further consolidating the CCP’s autocratic one-party rule. As a representative of a country committed to human rights, democracy and the rule of law, it should be expected of Olaf Scholz to maintain a distance from those who fight these values. This distance from General Secretary Xi Jinping is not given when the Chancellor pays his respects to him immediately after the coronation mass. This is another gift to the autocrat in Beijing and a bad sign for human rights. We can only hope that the German government’s new China strategy will take a different line. We cannot be too sure. On the contrary. Cosco sends its regards.
Kai Mueller has been Managing Director of the International Campaign for Tibet Germany (ICT) since 2005. A lawyer and social scientist, he served as an honorary board member of the German section of Amnesty International from 2003 to 2005. Until 2005, he was a staff member of a German MP. As an expert, Kai Mueller spoke in the Human Rights Committee of the German Bundestag. The ICT Executive Director also regularly speaks before UN bodies, such as the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
While his peers complain about back problems, Le Mingchao really challenges his body. For a few years now, the 78-year-old has been a yoga instructor in Hangzhou and a master of the effective art of knotted legs. With his hobby, he follows the trend: yoga is booming, especially in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz plans to wrap up his entire China visit in just eleven hours this Friday. That is a whole new tempo. Angela Merkel always allowed herself two to three days. But that was also before Covid. It was a different time. That is precisely what the Chancellor now acknowledges in a written statement – that the situation in and toward China has changed. Because even before his departure, Scholz responded to the loud criticism of his visit in a guest article in the German newspaper FAZ. Finn Mayer-Kuckuk summarizes the chancellor’s key arguments and looks at how China’s media interpret his words.
The fact that Olaf Scholz’s China visit was so heavily criticized beforehand is mainly due to the timing just after the Party Congress. Kai Mueller of the International Campaign for Tibet shares the criticism: Germany is obligated to human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The chancellor of such a country must maintain a distance from those who fight these values, Mueller writes in today’s Opinion. He accuses both business and politics of being irresponsible and opportunistic. He demands a progressive human rights policy and hopes it will make its way into the German government’s new China strategy next spring.
A sign of extraordinary courage was the action of a man in Beijing who unfurled banners with critical slogans on the railings of the Sitong Bridge just before the Party Congress. The man’s fate is unknown, but his message lives on. Marcel Grzanna writes about the Bridge Man’s legacy. He identified a wave of protests at international universities inspired by the protest at the bridge.
The traces of the protest have largely faded away. But for a few days, dozens of black-and-white copies with the image of a smiling and waving Chinese President Xi Jinping were plastered on walls and poles around the university campus in Goettingen. Above it, the word “Dictator”.
Ray Wong, a Hong Kong exile and democracy activist who studies political science in Göttingen, knows who was behind it. Wong already enjoys political asylum in Germany since 2018. From here, the 29-year-old organizes part of the Hong Kong diaspora that tries to mobilize resistance against Beijing’s grip on their hometown from around the world. And he supports Chinese students in regime-critical activities.
“I helped a small group of Chinese students plant the protest so they could stay in the background,” Wong says. Fellow students feared being discovered and exposed as dissidents. Among an estimated four-digit number of Chinese students in Goettingen are a few who are being instrumentalized by the government as spies, he says. Anyone who leaves Beijing’s official political line must expect to face consequences, such as dropping out of their studies and returning home immediately.
The timing of the appearance of the “Dictator” leaflets was not random. On the contrary, the action was inspired by a protest in downtown Beijing days earlier. There, a few hours before the start of the 20th Communist Party Congress, a man had hung large banners on a highway bridge, calling Xi a dictator who betrays his people. Nothing is known about the man’s fate since his arrest. What remains is the name Bridge Man, which international media have given him.
Bridge Man even inspired secret protests in the People’s Republic itself. Vice magazine reports that memes criticizing Xi were sent in Shanghai via Apple phones, whose device-to-device connections can hardly be monitored by Chinese authorities. Slogans scrawled on walls by activists turned up in dozens of public toilets in Beijing and Chengdu. A popular pop song titled gū yǒng zhě (孤勇者) – The Lonely and Courageous Man – went viral on private WeChat groups.
Despite this, the likelihood that a movement will form in the People’s Republic that could challenge the stability of the regime in the short term is extremely unlikely. Surveillance of public and digital space has increased dramatically in recent years. Censorship usually crushes any form of civil debate on social media within hours and nips any spark of dissent in the bud. Within no time, security authorities knock on the doors of political troublemakers.
Thus, the room for potential protest has shifted overseas. For several weeks now, university campuses around the world have been taking action to express their displeasure over developments in the People’s Republic. In Oxford, England, unknown individuals glued their messages in Mandarin and partly in English to window panes. It was the same black-and-white image of Xi Jinping that covered the walls in Goettingen. In Stanford, California, expressions of solidarity with Bridge Man popped up. Similar actions followed at many universities in the US, Australia, Canada and the UK, and even in Japan. Teng Biao, a Chinese human rights lawyer, posted a “Thank you all,” on Twitter.
Whether these protests are always by Chinese students or by other groups that condemn China’s authoritarian system is largely unclear. On social media, supporters and opponents of the Communist Party debate whether the protests have any impact at all and whether they were initiated by Chinese citizens at all. But if they were not Chinese, the question arises why the activists did not simply protest in public under the democratic civil rights. Because only those who have to fear consequences protest silently and in secret.
In Australia, there have been several protest actions in recent years when local students have rallied against Communist Party rule – at first in support of fellow Hong Kong students. One of the organizers of such protests in Australia is Drew Pavlou. The 23-year-old has since drawn the wrath of Chinese authorities thanks to a series of spectacular protests.
Together with Hong Kong exiles and activists of Tibetan or Uyghur descent, Pavlou now marches outside Chinese embassies and consulates or protests in central London. In 2021, he interrupted the men’s final of the Wimbledon tennis tournament. Pavlou had smuggled and unfurled a banner into the spectator stands asking, “Where is Peng Shuai?” He was referring to the missing Chinese tennis player who earlier accused former Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault.
“My parents have begged me to stop these protests because they fear for my safety. But I have a strong conviction that I am doing the right thing,” Pavlou tells China.Table. Pavlou is not only a household name to the Chinese authorities, but has long been a thorn in their side, he believes. The Chinese embassy in London accuses him of having made a bomb threat. It submitted a corresponding e-mail to the police, sent from an address registered under his name.
Pavlou denies the allegations. “It’s so ridiculous to think I would make a bomb threat and then also greet people friendly with my real name,” he says. Still, he was not allowed to leave the country for four weeks and had to report with the London police in mid-October. The case is still pending. That did not stop Pavlou from asking his followers on Twitter to continue spreading the Bridge Man’s messages.
Whether protests outside China even have any impact at all is answered by the incident at the Oxford Union student organization. They invited Pavlou to speak at their debate club last week. The British students wanted to know more about why Pavlou was standing up to Beijing. The day before, Oxford University, which is not connected in any way to the debate club, received several private letters of complaint about the invitation to the Australian. The letters were supposedly sent by Beijing sympathizers in an attempt to discredit Pavlou and prevent him from speaking at the organization.
In a guest article published by the German daily FAZ on Thursday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave a detailed statement on his trip to Beijing. With it, he responded to numerous critics, who also spoke at China.Table, and reacted to the public mood, which is increasingly critical of China’s investments in Germany.
These are the five points in short summary:
Overall, Scholz summed up, there was “plenty of material for an inaugural visit” to Beijing. He vowed not to avoid controversies, but would also seek common ground. In the same spirit, he explained his approval of the Cosco deal in Hamburg. He said his government distinguishes between “risky dependencies” and sensible deals. There was no risk of losing control with the stake in the port terminal.
As is his nature, Scholz seeks a middle course with this text. He avoids confrontation with both China and his critics. In some points, he meets the demands of his coalition partners to find clearer words toward China. In others, he tried to appease his EU partners. All while trying not to snub Beijing.
China’s government-controlled media usually cherry-picks quotes from such documents to suit their needs. China News Network focused on one particular sentence in the chancellor’s guest article: “We don’t want to decouple.” It mainly quotes passages that talk about mutual interests. The article is here mainly interpreted as a broad cooperation proposal. The passages on rivalry and human rights are deliberately left out. Xinhua also focused on the economic aspect and on the fact that German companies want to “deepen cooperation.” In this respect, the Chancellor achieved his goal and sent the desired message to both sides.
But at times, the Chinese media also exaggerate their interpretation of the Chancellor’s words in a way Scholz would hardly approve of. “A pragmatic Germany is taking a step toward strategic autonomy,” commented Lin Min of the Shenzhen Daily earlier in the week. “Germany is now trying to prove that it will no longer be a lackey of the United States.” Germany and the EU have been proteges of the US up to now, but now Scholz would oppose US dominance by approving the Cosco deal. The paper also cited numerous older quotes from the Chancellor to further support its interpretation.
This “strategic autonomy” is an idea that China has been trying to embed in the German mind for many years: The US is an unloving, unreliable partner, with whom Germany only integrated economically and militarily as a consequence of the lost Second World War. Now, the argument goes, it is time to break away from this toxic relationship, become independent and turn to a new, more modern partner. China.
The Shenzhen Daily now applied this narrative to the current visit. “Scholz understands where his country’s interests lie. Eager to expand trade with China, he will visit China on Friday, becoming the first EU leader to make the trip since November 2019.” He thus shows “backbone by refusing to dance to the tune of the US”
Germany needs to reorient its foreign and human rights policy toward authoritarian states such as the People’s Republic of China. What has been evident for years has only now become painfully clear to decision-makers thanks to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But it is precisely the sale of critical infrastructure and key technologies to the totalitarian regime in Beijing that is preventing the “Zeitenwende” (change of times) proclaimed by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. A large part of business and politics is apparently still intoxicated by the prospect of quick gains. This is irresponsible and a gift for the just recrowned communist “emperor” in Beijing.
Germany’s China policy has reached a dead end. Long-held hopes for “change through trade” in the People’s Republic only strengthened autocracy and misanthropy. This has now come back to haunt us. The question now is: Have we learned from this painful process? Will the German government’s much-cited new China strategy depart from the mistakes of the past – or will it merely be a continuation of old misconceptions, with some human rights rhetoric as tinsel?
The polyphony of German and European foreign policy has made Europe and Germany vulnerable. While Beijing deliberately pursues a political “weaponization” of practically all relations and thus seeks to suppress unpopular criticism of its policies – successfully in most cases – human rights policy and foreign policy are stuck in old patterns.
Human rights belong in the human rights dialogue, separate from talks on the economy, trade or competition. In recent years, formats such as the human rights dialogue have in any case grown into ever larger fig leaves for German foreign policy. A condition that is convenient for both sides, but ultimately only to China’s advantage.
The “mainstreaming of human rights” approach has largely been lost. This is not surprising, since it is fundamentally opposed to the postulated triad of “rival, competitor, partner”. This allows European policy maximum flexibility and freedom from obligation when dealing with the regime in Beijing. But what we see as a sign of differentiated foreign policy actually opens the door to opportunism and duplicity. The Communist Party interprets this as a weakness. And unfortunately – it is right. Money first, values second.
German opportunism includes slurs coined by leading foreign policymakers when it came to justifying a toothless human rights policy toward China. There was the term “Schaufensterpolitik” (grandstanding) or the “monstrance” of human rights. When German President Steinmeier now warns against excessive dependence on China, we are looking at one of the former grand architects of this policy. The German president’s change of heart is a welcome one – but does the Chancellor’s office share this view?
Anticipatory human rights policy, especially with regard to the People’s Republic of China, is underdeveloped in Germany. It reacts to big crises, such as the current one in Xinjiang, and is reluctant on Hong Kong and Tibet, which already went unmentioned in the governing coalition agreement. Alternative policy approaches are not considered; threats are ignored. Emerging conflicts are being pushed aside. Large corporations and China experts who are all too sympathetic to Beijing have for far too long dictated what can be said to Beijing. This harmed Germany and Europe – and is no longer acceptable.
We have to change our thinking: The policy of the Chinese Communist Party toward the Uyghurs, the Tibetans, the Mongolians, toward the people of Hong Kong and Chinese human rights advocates is not only important for the security of the people directly affected. It is also relevant for the security of Germany and Europe. After all, the CCP’s domestic policy was and is the harbinger of an aggressive foreign policy that explicitly wants to fight the universal values that we Europeans also represent. This means: If the rights of the Tibetans, the Uyghurs and many others are violated by the Communist Party, then this is relevant to our security in Europe. Our silence is our weakness. Our weakness jeopardizes our safety.
Chancellor Scholz’s trip, on the other hand, comes immediately after the end of the 20th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. General Secretary Xi Jinping was re-elected for another five years, further consolidating the CCP’s autocratic one-party rule. As a representative of a country committed to human rights, democracy and the rule of law, it should be expected of Olaf Scholz to maintain a distance from those who fight these values. This distance from General Secretary Xi Jinping is not given when the Chancellor pays his respects to him immediately after the coronation mass. This is another gift to the autocrat in Beijing and a bad sign for human rights. We can only hope that the German government’s new China strategy will take a different line. We cannot be too sure. On the contrary. Cosco sends its regards.
Kai Mueller has been Managing Director of the International Campaign for Tibet Germany (ICT) since 2005. A lawyer and social scientist, he served as an honorary board member of the German section of Amnesty International from 2003 to 2005. Until 2005, he was a staff member of a German MP. As an expert, Kai Mueller spoke in the Human Rights Committee of the German Bundestag. The ICT Executive Director also regularly speaks before UN bodies, such as the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
While his peers complain about back problems, Le Mingchao really challenges his body. For a few years now, the 78-year-old has been a yoga instructor in Hangzhou and a master of the effective art of knotted legs. With his hobby, he follows the trend: yoga is booming, especially in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai.
