This summer, the German Armed Forces will embark on the largest Indo-Pacific mission in its history. And this is even though Germany’s current naval and air force deployments in Gaza and the Red Sea are taking their toll. The long-planned deployment in the region shows that Germany is increasingly defending its own political and economic interests in the region. In addition to maintaining freedom of navigation in international waters in the Indo-Pacific region, the objectives include participating in five major exercises and monitoring UN sanctions against North Korea. The personnel requirements for the navy alone: up to 430 soldiers. Lisa-Martina Klein has analyzed why the willingness to show responsibility in the Indo-Pacific and not leave the countries alone is important in the current geopolitical situation.
The People’s Republic is expanding its renewable energy capacities faster than any other country. It is focusing primarily on wind and solar power. However, China is also building hydroelectric power plants: the Gangtuo mega-project, consisting of 13 cascading hydroelectric power plants, is being built in the Tibetan settlement area at 3,000 meters and above.
But the risks are growing – and almost ironically, climate change is why. Glaciers are melting, and the risk of landslides is increasing. As Marcel Grzanna writes, this has not been sufficiently considered in the project planning. Nor have the rights of the Tibetans protesting against the construction project. Over 1,000 were arrested in mid-February – another dangerous side effect of the ambitious project.
The fierce armed conflict in the Red Sea and participation in an air bridge to the Gaza Strip. These short-term deployments strain personnel and material resources. Nevertheless, the German Armed Forces are sticking to their plans for the largest deployment to date in the Indo-Pacific, which have been in the pipeline for a year: From May to December, the Navy will sail around the globe with two warships, while the Air Force will join them in the Indo-Pacific with 32 aircraft from June to August.
The focus is on maintaining freedom of navigation in international waters in the Indo-Pacific region, participation in five major exercises, including the US-led Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) off Hawaii, arms talks with partners and monitoring UN sanctions against North Korea. The personnel requirements for the Navy alone: up to 430 soldiers.
The attacks by the Houthi rebels against international merchant vessels in the Red Sea and the war in Ukraine give the presence of the German Armed Forces in the Indo-Pacific region a new urgency: Above all, China takes an aggressive military stance in the South China Sea and claims international waters as its own – with potentially serious repercussions for global trade. North Korean weapons are finding their way into Russia’s war against Ukraine despite the UN embargo.
The German government has signaled its willingness to take on more responsibility in the region in its policy guidelines for the Indo-Pacific and its national security strategy. It was important to show that Germany is not abandoning the countries in the region, said Petra Sigmund, Director General for Asia and the Pacific at the German Foreign Office, at the Parliamentary Evening of the Navy and Air Force on Indo-Pacific Deployment (IPD) last week in Berlin. “This has become even more important since the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, since partners from Asia have been supporting us and Ukraine,” says Sigmund.
Countries such as Singapore, Japan and Malaysia explicitly count on Germany’s efforts; the size of the fleet plays a secondary role, says naval inspector Vice Admiral Jan Christian Kaack in Berlin: “With this deployment, we are committed to free and secure sea lanes and the preservation of the rules-based international order in the region,” adding that the Navy is a good expression of a flexible instrument of foreign and security policy, ranging from maritime defense diplomacy to exercises and maneuvers with partners to joint operations. “And that for almost eight months,” says Kaack. All in addition to NATO obligations and regular drills.
The German Armed Forces have had an increased presence in the Indo-Pacific region for four years. In 2021, the “Bayern” frigate sailed the Indo-Pacific from August to February 2022, formally on a foreign training mission, but with a diplomatic and security policy mandate. In 2022, the Air Force then followed for the first time, and in 2023, the Army participated in the Talisman Sabre exercise in Australia for the first time. The Air Force’s renewed commitment in the Indo-Pacific region is very much welcomed by the Asian countries, says Air Force inspector Ingo Gerhartz: “When we were there for the first time two years ago, I was often asked: ‘Will you return or is this a flash in the pan? And this is exactly the consolidation of that trust.”
This year’s IPD is significantly larger. On May 7, the frigate “Baden-Wuerttemberg” and the task force supply ship “Frankfurt am Main” will depart from Wilhelmshaven and Rota in Spain respectively – initially heading west. Current plans call for 13 port visits, many of them combined with talks with the local industry. Starting on the east coast of Canada and the United States, it will then sail through the Panama Canal to San Diego and Hawaii.
Only then will the ships reach the Indo-Pacific region and head for Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore and India, among others. On the way back, they will return through the Red Sea, with stops in Saudi Arabia and Israel. Depending on the security situation, the decision whether the naval ships will pass through the Taiwan Strait will be made at short notice – and will be a political one.
The German shipping companies insist that the warships should make their presence felt there: “This is our way of making it clear that we are vigilant and will not stand idly by,” said Gaby Bornheim, Chairwoman of the German Shipowners’ Association, at the Parliamentary Evening. 90 percent of global trade is shipped across the ocean, two-thirds of which passes through the Indo-Pacific region. More than 2,000 ships transport goods through and into the South China Sea every day. 60 percent of German imports and exports are also transported by sea, said Bornheim. “People must be constantly reminded of how crucial we are as shipping companies,” says Bornheim.
Kaack also hopes that the IPD will have a certain “drafting effect” for the Navy in order to improve the strained personnel situation of the smallest branch of the armed forces. A social media team will accompany the deployment. However, soldiers will also post on their own social media accounts to show “the magic of the Navy.” Little can be done to prevent the Chinese government from using the posts for its own propaganda purposes, but there are counter-strategies, says Kaack.
From June to August, the German Air Force will participate with a total of 32 aircraft, including twelve Tornados, eight Eurofighters and four A400M troop transporters. It will be joined by France and Spain. “We are going into this area with three nations ‘holding hands.’ This also has a defense policy component, the FCAS project. But I think the message is more important: We are going into this area with a European face,” says Gerhartz.
In Alaska, the Air Force will conduct the “Arctic Defender” exercise, which, according to Gerhartz, is “almost on the scale of Air Defender 2023”. His fleet will then head for Japan and Australia. One part will take part in the “Pitch Black” exercise and then head to India for the first time for an exercise. The other part will participate in the RIMPAC exercise surrounding Hawaii together with the Navy.
The first hydropower plant in China’s history is now a historical site. The Shilongba plant, located not far from the provincial capital of Kunming in Yunnan, has been reliably generating electricity since 1912. With turbines and generators from the Heidelberg-based Voith Group, a German company supplied the necessary technology to the country even back then. In 2018, the People’s Republic added Shilongba to the national list of industrial assets worth protecting.
If ancient Chinese religious sites received similar protection from the state as the hydropower plant on the Pudu River, many Tibetans would have been spared prison. However, over 1,000 people were arrested in mid-February for campaigning for the preservation of a medieval Buddhist monastery in Garze Prefecture located in the west of Sichuan Province, which is part of the Tibetan settlement area. The 13th-century monastery will be flooded by the reservoir of the new Gangtuo hydropower plant on the Jinsha River. Along with it, five other monasteries and two villages will fall victim to the flood. 2,000 people will be resettled.
Although most of the imprisoned Tibetans have since been released, the alleged ringleaders have been transferred to other prisons. Anonymous sources speak of brutal police violence. The Tibet Policy Institute (TPI), a think tank of the Tibetan exile government in Dharamshala in northern India, criticizes the impact on the people and warns of far-reaching effects on the environment.
The Gangtuo hydropower plant is part of a project comprising 13 cascading hydropower plants along the Jinsha River, which is part of the upper Yangtze catchment area. Once completed, the power plants will have a combined installed capacity of almost 14 gigawatts. As the leading plant, Gangtuo alone will have an output of 1.1 GW, and its wall will be 229 meters high. In the future, water will be pumped from its reservoir as part of the planned western route of the South-North Canal to northern China. To tackle the water shortage in northern China, the huge project has so far diverted water from the Yangtze into the Yellow River via two routes.
In 2011, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the responsible ministries and the provincial governments of Sichuan, Tibet and Qinghai examined the entire megaproject. In 2016, feasibility studies finally set the course for the project launch. Several dams are already under construction next to Gangtuo.
However, the project remains a risky undertaking. “These and other hydropower projects are moving ever closer to the glaciers and thus to glacial natural hazards,” says geomorphologist Wolfgang Schwanghart from the University of Potsdam. Flash floods and landslides are often associated with the climate-induced melting of glaciers and the disappearance of permafrost. “In the Himalayas, these are also regions that are highly vulnerable to seismic activity. The effects of tremors on mass movements such as landslides and rockslides are much greater in these steep landscapes,” the researcher says.
Schwanghart and an international team of researchers developed a probability model years ago to predict the risk of flooding from glacial lakes in the Himalayas. Rising temperatures are melting the glaciers, a natural reservoir for large volumes of water. In the process, they often leave behind water-filled depressions that can erupt catastrophically.
Hydropower plants built at high altitudes in the Himalayas are exposed to these risks. Schwanghart fears that such considerations are often not sufficiently taken into account during the project planning phase. The Garze prefecture, separated from the Tibet Autonomous Region by the Yangtze River, is located in the high mountains at over 3,000 meters.
In the event of earthquakes, the dangers are amplified by enormous erosion in the form of landslides and vast quantities of sediment, which then settle in the reservoirs and bury dams, massively disrupting or even preventing the operation of hydropower plants. Nevertheless, there are several reasons why more and more hydropower plants are being built at altitudes of over 3000 or 4000 meters: On the one hand, because there is hardly any space left in the lower river course. A group of Chinese researchers from Xi’an and Yinchuan put the number of hydropower plants in the Yangtze basin at 24,100 – including micro plants with an installed capacity of just a few watts.
On the other hand, purely economic interests also have a possible influence. The projects create jobs and boost the gross domestic product. In addition, eager local officials can contribute to the energy transition and thus make a name for themselves with the central government. This often happens in China at any cost – in the case of the Gangtuo Dam, at the expense of Tibetan monasteries and settlement areas.
The Tibet Policy Institute sees the 13-stage project in conflict with the Chinese legal framework. In an article for the online magazine The Diplomat, the Institute’s authors accuse the government of violating its own laws, which mandate transparency, public feedback and proper environmental impact assessment procedures during the project development phase.
The Human Rights Action Plan of China, published as part of the government’s 14th Five-Year Plan, grants Tibetans and other minorities the right to voice their needs and concerns in the planning of such projects – at least on paper. However, according to the TPI, they are instead criminalized for protesting against the direct consequences of such projects.
“Despite the massive repression of Tibetans in China, they dared to take to the streets and demonstrate for their rights. Now the Chinese state has cracked down on them with stun guns, water cannons and pepper spray,” commented Tenzyn Zoechbauer, Managing Director of the Tibet Initiative. She has called on German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock to publicly condemn the government’s actions – so far in vain.
Sinolytics is a research-based business consultancy entirely focused on China. It advises European companies on their strategic orientation and specific business activities in the People’s Republic.
Pink aurora borealis appear in the sky above the city of Nehe, in China’s northernmost province of Heilongjiang – observed by a single camper in the freezing cold.
Auroras are caused by the Earth’s natural electric fields in both the northern and southern hemispheres. They usually occur at high latitudes in the Arctic Circle, such as northern Norway or Lapland.
The far north of China does not reach such latitudes: at 48 degrees north latitude, Nehe lies further south than Germany’s northernmost city of Flensburg (54.8 degrees). However, for several months, the mysterious light phenomena have been observed more frequently than average.
This summer, the German Armed Forces will embark on the largest Indo-Pacific mission in its history. And this is even though Germany’s current naval and air force deployments in Gaza and the Red Sea are taking their toll. The long-planned deployment in the region shows that Germany is increasingly defending its own political and economic interests in the region. In addition to maintaining freedom of navigation in international waters in the Indo-Pacific region, the objectives include participating in five major exercises and monitoring UN sanctions against North Korea. The personnel requirements for the navy alone: up to 430 soldiers. Lisa-Martina Klein has analyzed why the willingness to show responsibility in the Indo-Pacific and not leave the countries alone is important in the current geopolitical situation.
The People’s Republic is expanding its renewable energy capacities faster than any other country. It is focusing primarily on wind and solar power. However, China is also building hydroelectric power plants: the Gangtuo mega-project, consisting of 13 cascading hydroelectric power plants, is being built in the Tibetan settlement area at 3,000 meters and above.
But the risks are growing – and almost ironically, climate change is why. Glaciers are melting, and the risk of landslides is increasing. As Marcel Grzanna writes, this has not been sufficiently considered in the project planning. Nor have the rights of the Tibetans protesting against the construction project. Over 1,000 were arrested in mid-February – another dangerous side effect of the ambitious project.
The fierce armed conflict in the Red Sea and participation in an air bridge to the Gaza Strip. These short-term deployments strain personnel and material resources. Nevertheless, the German Armed Forces are sticking to their plans for the largest deployment to date in the Indo-Pacific, which have been in the pipeline for a year: From May to December, the Navy will sail around the globe with two warships, while the Air Force will join them in the Indo-Pacific with 32 aircraft from June to August.
The focus is on maintaining freedom of navigation in international waters in the Indo-Pacific region, participation in five major exercises, including the US-led Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) off Hawaii, arms talks with partners and monitoring UN sanctions against North Korea. The personnel requirements for the Navy alone: up to 430 soldiers.
The attacks by the Houthi rebels against international merchant vessels in the Red Sea and the war in Ukraine give the presence of the German Armed Forces in the Indo-Pacific region a new urgency: Above all, China takes an aggressive military stance in the South China Sea and claims international waters as its own – with potentially serious repercussions for global trade. North Korean weapons are finding their way into Russia’s war against Ukraine despite the UN embargo.
The German government has signaled its willingness to take on more responsibility in the region in its policy guidelines for the Indo-Pacific and its national security strategy. It was important to show that Germany is not abandoning the countries in the region, said Petra Sigmund, Director General for Asia and the Pacific at the German Foreign Office, at the Parliamentary Evening of the Navy and Air Force on Indo-Pacific Deployment (IPD) last week in Berlin. “This has become even more important since the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, since partners from Asia have been supporting us and Ukraine,” says Sigmund.
Countries such as Singapore, Japan and Malaysia explicitly count on Germany’s efforts; the size of the fleet plays a secondary role, says naval inspector Vice Admiral Jan Christian Kaack in Berlin: “With this deployment, we are committed to free and secure sea lanes and the preservation of the rules-based international order in the region,” adding that the Navy is a good expression of a flexible instrument of foreign and security policy, ranging from maritime defense diplomacy to exercises and maneuvers with partners to joint operations. “And that for almost eight months,” says Kaack. All in addition to NATO obligations and regular drills.
The German Armed Forces have had an increased presence in the Indo-Pacific region for four years. In 2021, the “Bayern” frigate sailed the Indo-Pacific from August to February 2022, formally on a foreign training mission, but with a diplomatic and security policy mandate. In 2022, the Air Force then followed for the first time, and in 2023, the Army participated in the Talisman Sabre exercise in Australia for the first time. The Air Force’s renewed commitment in the Indo-Pacific region is very much welcomed by the Asian countries, says Air Force inspector Ingo Gerhartz: “When we were there for the first time two years ago, I was often asked: ‘Will you return or is this a flash in the pan? And this is exactly the consolidation of that trust.”
This year’s IPD is significantly larger. On May 7, the frigate “Baden-Wuerttemberg” and the task force supply ship “Frankfurt am Main” will depart from Wilhelmshaven and Rota in Spain respectively – initially heading west. Current plans call for 13 port visits, many of them combined with talks with the local industry. Starting on the east coast of Canada and the United States, it will then sail through the Panama Canal to San Diego and Hawaii.
Only then will the ships reach the Indo-Pacific region and head for Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore and India, among others. On the way back, they will return through the Red Sea, with stops in Saudi Arabia and Israel. Depending on the security situation, the decision whether the naval ships will pass through the Taiwan Strait will be made at short notice – and will be a political one.
The German shipping companies insist that the warships should make their presence felt there: “This is our way of making it clear that we are vigilant and will not stand idly by,” said Gaby Bornheim, Chairwoman of the German Shipowners’ Association, at the Parliamentary Evening. 90 percent of global trade is shipped across the ocean, two-thirds of which passes through the Indo-Pacific region. More than 2,000 ships transport goods through and into the South China Sea every day. 60 percent of German imports and exports are also transported by sea, said Bornheim. “People must be constantly reminded of how crucial we are as shipping companies,” says Bornheim.
Kaack also hopes that the IPD will have a certain “drafting effect” for the Navy in order to improve the strained personnel situation of the smallest branch of the armed forces. A social media team will accompany the deployment. However, soldiers will also post on their own social media accounts to show “the magic of the Navy.” Little can be done to prevent the Chinese government from using the posts for its own propaganda purposes, but there are counter-strategies, says Kaack.
From June to August, the German Air Force will participate with a total of 32 aircraft, including twelve Tornados, eight Eurofighters and four A400M troop transporters. It will be joined by France and Spain. “We are going into this area with three nations ‘holding hands.’ This also has a defense policy component, the FCAS project. But I think the message is more important: We are going into this area with a European face,” says Gerhartz.
In Alaska, the Air Force will conduct the “Arctic Defender” exercise, which, according to Gerhartz, is “almost on the scale of Air Defender 2023”. His fleet will then head for Japan and Australia. One part will take part in the “Pitch Black” exercise and then head to India for the first time for an exercise. The other part will participate in the RIMPAC exercise surrounding Hawaii together with the Navy.
The first hydropower plant in China’s history is now a historical site. The Shilongba plant, located not far from the provincial capital of Kunming in Yunnan, has been reliably generating electricity since 1912. With turbines and generators from the Heidelberg-based Voith Group, a German company supplied the necessary technology to the country even back then. In 2018, the People’s Republic added Shilongba to the national list of industrial assets worth protecting.
If ancient Chinese religious sites received similar protection from the state as the hydropower plant on the Pudu River, many Tibetans would have been spared prison. However, over 1,000 people were arrested in mid-February for campaigning for the preservation of a medieval Buddhist monastery in Garze Prefecture located in the west of Sichuan Province, which is part of the Tibetan settlement area. The 13th-century monastery will be flooded by the reservoir of the new Gangtuo hydropower plant on the Jinsha River. Along with it, five other monasteries and two villages will fall victim to the flood. 2,000 people will be resettled.
Although most of the imprisoned Tibetans have since been released, the alleged ringleaders have been transferred to other prisons. Anonymous sources speak of brutal police violence. The Tibet Policy Institute (TPI), a think tank of the Tibetan exile government in Dharamshala in northern India, criticizes the impact on the people and warns of far-reaching effects on the environment.
The Gangtuo hydropower plant is part of a project comprising 13 cascading hydropower plants along the Jinsha River, which is part of the upper Yangtze catchment area. Once completed, the power plants will have a combined installed capacity of almost 14 gigawatts. As the leading plant, Gangtuo alone will have an output of 1.1 GW, and its wall will be 229 meters high. In the future, water will be pumped from its reservoir as part of the planned western route of the South-North Canal to northern China. To tackle the water shortage in northern China, the huge project has so far diverted water from the Yangtze into the Yellow River via two routes.
In 2011, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the responsible ministries and the provincial governments of Sichuan, Tibet and Qinghai examined the entire megaproject. In 2016, feasibility studies finally set the course for the project launch. Several dams are already under construction next to Gangtuo.
However, the project remains a risky undertaking. “These and other hydropower projects are moving ever closer to the glaciers and thus to glacial natural hazards,” says geomorphologist Wolfgang Schwanghart from the University of Potsdam. Flash floods and landslides are often associated with the climate-induced melting of glaciers and the disappearance of permafrost. “In the Himalayas, these are also regions that are highly vulnerable to seismic activity. The effects of tremors on mass movements such as landslides and rockslides are much greater in these steep landscapes,” the researcher says.
Schwanghart and an international team of researchers developed a probability model years ago to predict the risk of flooding from glacial lakes in the Himalayas. Rising temperatures are melting the glaciers, a natural reservoir for large volumes of water. In the process, they often leave behind water-filled depressions that can erupt catastrophically.
Hydropower plants built at high altitudes in the Himalayas are exposed to these risks. Schwanghart fears that such considerations are often not sufficiently taken into account during the project planning phase. The Garze prefecture, separated from the Tibet Autonomous Region by the Yangtze River, is located in the high mountains at over 3,000 meters.
In the event of earthquakes, the dangers are amplified by enormous erosion in the form of landslides and vast quantities of sediment, which then settle in the reservoirs and bury dams, massively disrupting or even preventing the operation of hydropower plants. Nevertheless, there are several reasons why more and more hydropower plants are being built at altitudes of over 3000 or 4000 meters: On the one hand, because there is hardly any space left in the lower river course. A group of Chinese researchers from Xi’an and Yinchuan put the number of hydropower plants in the Yangtze basin at 24,100 – including micro plants with an installed capacity of just a few watts.
On the other hand, purely economic interests also have a possible influence. The projects create jobs and boost the gross domestic product. In addition, eager local officials can contribute to the energy transition and thus make a name for themselves with the central government. This often happens in China at any cost – in the case of the Gangtuo Dam, at the expense of Tibetan monasteries and settlement areas.
The Tibet Policy Institute sees the 13-stage project in conflict with the Chinese legal framework. In an article for the online magazine The Diplomat, the Institute’s authors accuse the government of violating its own laws, which mandate transparency, public feedback and proper environmental impact assessment procedures during the project development phase.
The Human Rights Action Plan of China, published as part of the government’s 14th Five-Year Plan, grants Tibetans and other minorities the right to voice their needs and concerns in the planning of such projects – at least on paper. However, according to the TPI, they are instead criminalized for protesting against the direct consequences of such projects.
“Despite the massive repression of Tibetans in China, they dared to take to the streets and demonstrate for their rights. Now the Chinese state has cracked down on them with stun guns, water cannons and pepper spray,” commented Tenzyn Zoechbauer, Managing Director of the Tibet Initiative. She has called on German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock to publicly condemn the government’s actions – so far in vain.
Sinolytics is a research-based business consultancy entirely focused on China. It advises European companies on their strategic orientation and specific business activities in the People’s Republic.
Pink aurora borealis appear in the sky above the city of Nehe, in China’s northernmost province of Heilongjiang – observed by a single camper in the freezing cold.
Auroras are caused by the Earth’s natural electric fields in both the northern and southern hemispheres. They usually occur at high latitudes in the Arctic Circle, such as northern Norway or Lapland.
The far north of China does not reach such latitudes: at 48 degrees north latitude, Nehe lies further south than Germany’s northernmost city of Flensburg (54.8 degrees). However, for several months, the mysterious light phenomena have been observed more frequently than average.
