This weekend, it was an important Quad summit in Joe Biden’s hometown of Wilmington. Twenty years after its founding in 2004 and four years after Biden elevated the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue to government leader level, the group consisting of the US, India, Japan and Australia is at a critical juncture. For one thing, three of the four heads of government who met in Delaware could no longer be in office next year. Secondly, different interests are clashing within the Quad.
However, the democracies can agree on one thing: They want to show the authoritarian and increasingly aggressive China some boundaries in the Indo-Pacific. Even if the group only addressed the issue indirectly, it quickly became clear where the emphasis would be placed in this regard, writes Michael Radunski. These include joint coastguard operations to defend maritime claims and contribute to the protection of the respective exclusive economic zones.
An eagerly awaited ruling was handed down in Taiwan on Friday: Taiwan’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the death penalty is in line with the constitution, but has also set stricter conditions for its application. In the future, death sentences must be decided unanimously and may only be enforced for particularly severe crimes. However, not everyone likes the decision, writes David Demes, who followed the debate and the pronouncement of the ruling on the ground.
The conservative Kuomintang (KMT) has criticized the ruling for “effectively abolishing” the death penalty, which it says is not in the interests of citizens. In polls, more than 80 percent of Taiwanese regularly oppose abolition. Human rights organizations, however, argue that the court’s decision is a surrender to majority opinion. They believe that there can be no exceptions when it comes to the right to life enshrined in the constitution.
At the Quad Summit in Delaware, Joe Biden did what was supposed to be avoided at all costs – openly naming the elephant in the room. “China continues to behave aggressively, testing us all across the region,” the US President told his counterparts from Australia, India and Japan. China’s president is “looking to buy himself some diplomatic space” to aggressively pursue China’s interests, Biden added.
The US President’s remarks could hardly be clearer. The problem: They were not meant for the public. An open microphone caused Biden’s confidential words to be made public. They also reveal what the Quad Group is essentially about: Australia, India, Japan and the USA want to counter the authoritarian and increasingly aggressive China in the Indo-Pacific by forming a democratic bloc.
However, the Quad actually want to avoid such an open confrontation. Instead of negative “anti-China” rhetoric, they attempted to publicly demonstrate a future-oriented unity over the weekend by
The joint declaration states: “The Quad is more strategically aligned than ever before and is a force for good that delivers real, positive, and enduring impact for the Indo-Pacific.” It emphasizes its commitment to an open, secure and free Indo-Pacific, to the development of all countries, to secure supply chains, to the sovereignty of states and to democratic values.
The resolutions passed in Delaware:
The People’s Republic of China, on the other hand, is not explicitly mentioned in the official joint declaration. And yet, it is clear between the lines who the Quad has in mind: China and North Korea.
It says – indirectly about China:
And regarding North Korea:
It was an important Quad summit over the weekend in Joe Biden’s hometown of Wilmington. Twenty years after its founding in 2004 and four years after Joe Biden elevated the Quad to the head of government level, the group is at a critical juncture.
Biden’s term is coming to an end. Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will step down next week and Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will have to run for election next year.
Added to this are diverging interests. Due to China’s increasingly aggressive policy, the United States and Australia, in particular, favor military presence and cooperation, while Japan and India are skeptical about this development.
There is also potential for conflict in supply chain protection and economic decoupling. “US efforts to economically and technologically constrain China is causing bicasuality among Japanese, Taiwanese, and Korean firms.” Yoichiro Sato explains in an interview with Table.Briefings. The professor of international politics at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Beppu, Japan, warns against overly brash rhetoric in view of the upcoming elections: “Adding Trump-like economic nationalism onto the process of interest coordination is a trouble Japan wants to avoid.”
So, the Quad is trying to find a way to overcome this critical juncture through joint projects. Achieving concrete results will be important, as this is the only way to gain the support of the people. Sometimes this can also be achieved by simply clearly naming the common antipode – even if it is over a microphone that is not switched off.
The death penalty is constitutional, explained the President of the Constitutional Court in Taiwan, Hsu Tzung-li, in Taipei on Friday. The Court stressed that the Taiwanese Constitution does protect the right to life, “such protection is not absolute.” In Taiwan’s “social and historical context,” the Constitutional Court explained in its ruling that “justice and the deterrence of serious crimes that violate the right to life continue to represent a significant public interest.”
The majority of the Taiwanese public is still in favor of the death penalty. Polls regularly show that more than 80 percent of respondents are against abolishing it. Executions are carried out with a single shot to the heart, with the death row inmate being anesthetized beforehand. Sentenced individuals often only learn of their execution shortly before it is carried out – they have no chance to say goodbye to their families.
However, the Court not only confirmed the constitutionality of capital punishment on Friday. They also raised the bar above which a person can be sentenced to death and tightened the procedural requirements for corresponding criminal proceedings. They stipulate that the death penalty should only be an option if a particularly serious crime can be proven. From now on, death sentences must also be confirmed unanimously by all judges in the respective criminal chamber. Observers expect that this will considerably complicate the application of the death penalty. In recent years, Taiwanese courts have already handed down the death penalty less and less. It remains to be seen what the ruling will mean in detail for the 37 prisoners who have already been sentenced to death. Some of them can hope to successfully lodge an extraordinary appeal following a review by the Public Prosecutor General.
In a written statement, the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) disapproved of the decision. The ruling “practically abolishes the death penalty,” criticized the conservative party, adding that this would deviate massively from how a large majority of the Taiwanese population felt. Criticism also came from civil society, albeit for very different reasons.
A coalition of human rights organizations held a press conference after the ruling. Many of the speakers present, who have been campaigning for the abolition of the death penalty for decades, expressed their disappointment and emotion. According to Huang Song-lih from Covenants Watch Taiwan, the judges’ decision represented a surrender to the majority opinion. The organization monitors compliance with the UN human rights covenants ICCPR and ICESCR, which have been national law in Taiwan since 2009.
Nevertheless, Huang remained determined and called for the ruling not to be interpreted as the end of the death penalty abolition movement in Taiwan. “We will continue to fight,” the activist promised. Meanwhile, Helen Ko from the Taiwan Innocence Project pointed out the risk of miscarriages of justice. Ko said even the most sophisticated system cannot completely eliminate the risk of wrongful convictions, “Miscarriages of justice are a systemic error. This is not a theoretical problem. To date, seven people originally sentenced to death have already been rehabilitated in Taiwan,” Ko pointed out.
Human rights activists, on the other hand, praised constitutional judge Jan Sheng-lin. In a 33-page dissent, the Frankfurt-educated lawyer argues that courts and the Ministry of Justice should not misinterpret the ruling as a “license to kill.” When it comes to the constitutional right to life, there cannot be any exceptions, Jan says, adding that although the death penalty offers the illusion of swift and direct enforcement of justice by providing a “promise of ‘repaying evil with evil’” seemingly easing the pain of victims. “But once the ‘Pandora’s box’ of the death penalty is opened, the related issues of the right to life, humanitarianism, disproportionality of punishment and culpability, arbitrary standards, and the risks of wrongful convictions will never be resolved,” Jan argues in his dissent.
The last time the death penalty was applied in Taiwan was in 2020. It was one of two executions during President Tsai Ing-wen’s term. Critics have repeatedly accused various governments in the past of using the death penalty to politically capitalize or distract from other issues. For instance, an execution in 2018 was carried out less than three months before the local elections. The use of the death penalty is regularly criticized by the EU and other countries.
In recent months, the status of the death penalty has repeatedly been at the center of public debate. Particularly during the election campaign, the KMT tried to weaken the ruling DPP by raising the issue. The opposition interpreted the fact that “only” two convicted criminals were executed under Tsai as a sign that the DPP wanted to abolish the death penalty through the back door.
In a coordinated campaign, leading KMT politicians have repeatedly targeted the judges of the Constitutional Court in recent weeks, vilifying them as “watchdogs” of the ruling party and questioning their legitimacy.
Like in the United States, the Constitutional Court judges are appointed by the president and confirmed by parliament. Unlike in America, however, their term is limited to eight years. All the current 15 Constitutional Court judges have been appointed by President Tsai. Seven of them will have to hand in their robes again at the end of October. Whether the opposition-controlled parliament will approve President Lai Ching-te’s candidate is highly doubtful. Over the weekend, a leading KMT MP announced plans to change the Court’s decision-making process by amending the law. Instead of a simple majority, decisions would only be possible with a two-thirds majority. If parliament were to block the appointment of the seven new judges, this would effectively render the Court inoperable.
Winters in northeast China are dark and harsh. Fortunately, Beatrix Keim had already lived in Beijing for a while during her studies and was also familiar with the pleasant, summery China. When Changchun greeted the recent graduate with icy cold, all she saw was a huge adventure. It was January 1, 1998, and Keim started her first job in China – in marketing at FAW-Volkswagen.
Beatrix Keim was born in Neustadt an der Weinstraße in 1967 and developed an interest in languages early on. After Latinum and Graecum, studying Sinology was the next challenge – at that time, it was still an orchid subject and, at most universities in Germany, strongly philologically oriented. One of the few exceptions was Bochum, where Keim was able to combine sinology with business studies. In 1991, she spent a year abroad at the Foreign Languages University in Beijing and subsequently graduated in Ludwigshafen with a degree in Business Administration in Marketing East Asia. The perfect training for her future career.
Volkswagen founded its second joint venture in China in 1994 – with the state-owned company FAW. However, sales did not really take off, and FAW-Volkswagen also had to compete with products from the already-established Shanghai-Volkswagen joint venture. The company was looking for someone for a newly founded sales company in Changchun: a marketing employee who could also build bridges between Wolfsburg and China.
Marketing had previously been handled by the partner FAW, as was customary for the joint ventures of international car manufacturers at the time. Now a new team was put together from FAW marketing staff, of which Keim became a part. The department was headed by Fu Qiang, who later made a name for himself in China as the founder of an EV start-up. The name of his company: Aiways.
Her good Chinese quickly earned “Xiao Fei” the respect of her Chinese colleagues. This was invaluable for the German VW colleagues in Changchun. Despite interpreters, there were many misunderstandings between German and Chinese colleagues. Volkswagen was breaking new ground with Keim – until then, the company had mainly sent engineers to its Chinese plants. The staffing proved successful and was soon copied by Group brands. A few months later, Audi also hired a sinologist – Miriam Mayer-Ebert, who now holds an executive role at Audi in Beijing.
It was the turn of the millennium, and the Chinese automotive market started gaining momentum. It was a critical time, but the joint ventures lacked sales expertise. They had left sales to their Chinese partners, while the car models came from Wolfsburg. Volkswagen faced many unknowns when it came to understanding the Chinese market.
Beatrix Keim moved to Wolfsburg as Marketing Coordinator Asia Pacific. Her task there was not only to bring the two Volkswagen joint ventures closer together, but also to create a better understanding of Chinese customers through market research, studies and vehicle tests. Previously, all German manufacturers had carried out a joint market study every two years, limited to the three wealthiest metropolitan areas. A better understanding of the market finally allowed Volkswagen to offer the right models and lead the wave of success in China’s automotive industry.
After a stint at Shanghai-Volkswagen, Keim joined BMW and later Jaguar Land Rover. She also used her broad experience in China in consulting, including as Digital Automotive Lead at Accenture China and in a company in the digital creative industry, which she managed in China.
Beatrix Keim fondly remembers the friendships and professional connections she made during this time. She particularly liked the northern Chinese in Changchun because of their straightforward manner. And the experience of living in the city in the late 1990s, which was very different from the cosmopolitan Shanghai or Beijing of today.
Towards the end of the Covid pandemic, the automotive expert returned to Germany. There, she joined the Center Automotive Research (CAR) in 2022. As Director Business Development & China Projects, she organizes congresses for CAR and represents CAR as an expert for the automotive industry and China. In her role, she draws on her wealth of experience, which not only covers the automotive industry, but also Chinese society and culture. Julia Fiedler
Apple is losing more and more market share in China to local competitors. Nevertheless, people still stand in line whenever a new iPhone is launched – as shown here in front of the Apple Store in Hangzhou. This is despite the fact that the iPhone 16 in the People’s Republic has to make do without the AI of the new “Apple Intelligence” function. But not everyone in line wants to buy: Many mainly wanted to compare the smartphone with Huawei’s Mate XT, which was unveiled two days later and which – at least according to many Chinese tech bloggers – has finally beaten the Americans.
This weekend, it was an important Quad summit in Joe Biden’s hometown of Wilmington. Twenty years after its founding in 2004 and four years after Biden elevated the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue to government leader level, the group consisting of the US, India, Japan and Australia is at a critical juncture. For one thing, three of the four heads of government who met in Delaware could no longer be in office next year. Secondly, different interests are clashing within the Quad.
However, the democracies can agree on one thing: They want to show the authoritarian and increasingly aggressive China some boundaries in the Indo-Pacific. Even if the group only addressed the issue indirectly, it quickly became clear where the emphasis would be placed in this regard, writes Michael Radunski. These include joint coastguard operations to defend maritime claims and contribute to the protection of the respective exclusive economic zones.
An eagerly awaited ruling was handed down in Taiwan on Friday: Taiwan’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the death penalty is in line with the constitution, but has also set stricter conditions for its application. In the future, death sentences must be decided unanimously and may only be enforced for particularly severe crimes. However, not everyone likes the decision, writes David Demes, who followed the debate and the pronouncement of the ruling on the ground.
The conservative Kuomintang (KMT) has criticized the ruling for “effectively abolishing” the death penalty, which it says is not in the interests of citizens. In polls, more than 80 percent of Taiwanese regularly oppose abolition. Human rights organizations, however, argue that the court’s decision is a surrender to majority opinion. They believe that there can be no exceptions when it comes to the right to life enshrined in the constitution.
At the Quad Summit in Delaware, Joe Biden did what was supposed to be avoided at all costs – openly naming the elephant in the room. “China continues to behave aggressively, testing us all across the region,” the US President told his counterparts from Australia, India and Japan. China’s president is “looking to buy himself some diplomatic space” to aggressively pursue China’s interests, Biden added.
The US President’s remarks could hardly be clearer. The problem: They were not meant for the public. An open microphone caused Biden’s confidential words to be made public. They also reveal what the Quad Group is essentially about: Australia, India, Japan and the USA want to counter the authoritarian and increasingly aggressive China in the Indo-Pacific by forming a democratic bloc.
However, the Quad actually want to avoid such an open confrontation. Instead of negative “anti-China” rhetoric, they attempted to publicly demonstrate a future-oriented unity over the weekend by
The joint declaration states: “The Quad is more strategically aligned than ever before and is a force for good that delivers real, positive, and enduring impact for the Indo-Pacific.” It emphasizes its commitment to an open, secure and free Indo-Pacific, to the development of all countries, to secure supply chains, to the sovereignty of states and to democratic values.
The resolutions passed in Delaware:
The People’s Republic of China, on the other hand, is not explicitly mentioned in the official joint declaration. And yet, it is clear between the lines who the Quad has in mind: China and North Korea.
It says – indirectly about China:
And regarding North Korea:
It was an important Quad summit over the weekend in Joe Biden’s hometown of Wilmington. Twenty years after its founding in 2004 and four years after Joe Biden elevated the Quad to the head of government level, the group is at a critical juncture.
Biden’s term is coming to an end. Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will step down next week and Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will have to run for election next year.
Added to this are diverging interests. Due to China’s increasingly aggressive policy, the United States and Australia, in particular, favor military presence and cooperation, while Japan and India are skeptical about this development.
There is also potential for conflict in supply chain protection and economic decoupling. “US efforts to economically and technologically constrain China is causing bicasuality among Japanese, Taiwanese, and Korean firms.” Yoichiro Sato explains in an interview with Table.Briefings. The professor of international politics at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Beppu, Japan, warns against overly brash rhetoric in view of the upcoming elections: “Adding Trump-like economic nationalism onto the process of interest coordination is a trouble Japan wants to avoid.”
So, the Quad is trying to find a way to overcome this critical juncture through joint projects. Achieving concrete results will be important, as this is the only way to gain the support of the people. Sometimes this can also be achieved by simply clearly naming the common antipode – even if it is over a microphone that is not switched off.
The death penalty is constitutional, explained the President of the Constitutional Court in Taiwan, Hsu Tzung-li, in Taipei on Friday. The Court stressed that the Taiwanese Constitution does protect the right to life, “such protection is not absolute.” In Taiwan’s “social and historical context,” the Constitutional Court explained in its ruling that “justice and the deterrence of serious crimes that violate the right to life continue to represent a significant public interest.”
The majority of the Taiwanese public is still in favor of the death penalty. Polls regularly show that more than 80 percent of respondents are against abolishing it. Executions are carried out with a single shot to the heart, with the death row inmate being anesthetized beforehand. Sentenced individuals often only learn of their execution shortly before it is carried out – they have no chance to say goodbye to their families.
However, the Court not only confirmed the constitutionality of capital punishment on Friday. They also raised the bar above which a person can be sentenced to death and tightened the procedural requirements for corresponding criminal proceedings. They stipulate that the death penalty should only be an option if a particularly serious crime can be proven. From now on, death sentences must also be confirmed unanimously by all judges in the respective criminal chamber. Observers expect that this will considerably complicate the application of the death penalty. In recent years, Taiwanese courts have already handed down the death penalty less and less. It remains to be seen what the ruling will mean in detail for the 37 prisoners who have already been sentenced to death. Some of them can hope to successfully lodge an extraordinary appeal following a review by the Public Prosecutor General.
In a written statement, the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) disapproved of the decision. The ruling “practically abolishes the death penalty,” criticized the conservative party, adding that this would deviate massively from how a large majority of the Taiwanese population felt. Criticism also came from civil society, albeit for very different reasons.
A coalition of human rights organizations held a press conference after the ruling. Many of the speakers present, who have been campaigning for the abolition of the death penalty for decades, expressed their disappointment and emotion. According to Huang Song-lih from Covenants Watch Taiwan, the judges’ decision represented a surrender to the majority opinion. The organization monitors compliance with the UN human rights covenants ICCPR and ICESCR, which have been national law in Taiwan since 2009.
Nevertheless, Huang remained determined and called for the ruling not to be interpreted as the end of the death penalty abolition movement in Taiwan. “We will continue to fight,” the activist promised. Meanwhile, Helen Ko from the Taiwan Innocence Project pointed out the risk of miscarriages of justice. Ko said even the most sophisticated system cannot completely eliminate the risk of wrongful convictions, “Miscarriages of justice are a systemic error. This is not a theoretical problem. To date, seven people originally sentenced to death have already been rehabilitated in Taiwan,” Ko pointed out.
Human rights activists, on the other hand, praised constitutional judge Jan Sheng-lin. In a 33-page dissent, the Frankfurt-educated lawyer argues that courts and the Ministry of Justice should not misinterpret the ruling as a “license to kill.” When it comes to the constitutional right to life, there cannot be any exceptions, Jan says, adding that although the death penalty offers the illusion of swift and direct enforcement of justice by providing a “promise of ‘repaying evil with evil’” seemingly easing the pain of victims. “But once the ‘Pandora’s box’ of the death penalty is opened, the related issues of the right to life, humanitarianism, disproportionality of punishment and culpability, arbitrary standards, and the risks of wrongful convictions will never be resolved,” Jan argues in his dissent.
The last time the death penalty was applied in Taiwan was in 2020. It was one of two executions during President Tsai Ing-wen’s term. Critics have repeatedly accused various governments in the past of using the death penalty to politically capitalize or distract from other issues. For instance, an execution in 2018 was carried out less than three months before the local elections. The use of the death penalty is regularly criticized by the EU and other countries.
In recent months, the status of the death penalty has repeatedly been at the center of public debate. Particularly during the election campaign, the KMT tried to weaken the ruling DPP by raising the issue. The opposition interpreted the fact that “only” two convicted criminals were executed under Tsai as a sign that the DPP wanted to abolish the death penalty through the back door.
In a coordinated campaign, leading KMT politicians have repeatedly targeted the judges of the Constitutional Court in recent weeks, vilifying them as “watchdogs” of the ruling party and questioning their legitimacy.
Like in the United States, the Constitutional Court judges are appointed by the president and confirmed by parliament. Unlike in America, however, their term is limited to eight years. All the current 15 Constitutional Court judges have been appointed by President Tsai. Seven of them will have to hand in their robes again at the end of October. Whether the opposition-controlled parliament will approve President Lai Ching-te’s candidate is highly doubtful. Over the weekend, a leading KMT MP announced plans to change the Court’s decision-making process by amending the law. Instead of a simple majority, decisions would only be possible with a two-thirds majority. If parliament were to block the appointment of the seven new judges, this would effectively render the Court inoperable.
Winters in northeast China are dark and harsh. Fortunately, Beatrix Keim had already lived in Beijing for a while during her studies and was also familiar with the pleasant, summery China. When Changchun greeted the recent graduate with icy cold, all she saw was a huge adventure. It was January 1, 1998, and Keim started her first job in China – in marketing at FAW-Volkswagen.
Beatrix Keim was born in Neustadt an der Weinstraße in 1967 and developed an interest in languages early on. After Latinum and Graecum, studying Sinology was the next challenge – at that time, it was still an orchid subject and, at most universities in Germany, strongly philologically oriented. One of the few exceptions was Bochum, where Keim was able to combine sinology with business studies. In 1991, she spent a year abroad at the Foreign Languages University in Beijing and subsequently graduated in Ludwigshafen with a degree in Business Administration in Marketing East Asia. The perfect training for her future career.
Volkswagen founded its second joint venture in China in 1994 – with the state-owned company FAW. However, sales did not really take off, and FAW-Volkswagen also had to compete with products from the already-established Shanghai-Volkswagen joint venture. The company was looking for someone for a newly founded sales company in Changchun: a marketing employee who could also build bridges between Wolfsburg and China.
Marketing had previously been handled by the partner FAW, as was customary for the joint ventures of international car manufacturers at the time. Now a new team was put together from FAW marketing staff, of which Keim became a part. The department was headed by Fu Qiang, who later made a name for himself in China as the founder of an EV start-up. The name of his company: Aiways.
Her good Chinese quickly earned “Xiao Fei” the respect of her Chinese colleagues. This was invaluable for the German VW colleagues in Changchun. Despite interpreters, there were many misunderstandings between German and Chinese colleagues. Volkswagen was breaking new ground with Keim – until then, the company had mainly sent engineers to its Chinese plants. The staffing proved successful and was soon copied by Group brands. A few months later, Audi also hired a sinologist – Miriam Mayer-Ebert, who now holds an executive role at Audi in Beijing.
It was the turn of the millennium, and the Chinese automotive market started gaining momentum. It was a critical time, but the joint ventures lacked sales expertise. They had left sales to their Chinese partners, while the car models came from Wolfsburg. Volkswagen faced many unknowns when it came to understanding the Chinese market.
Beatrix Keim moved to Wolfsburg as Marketing Coordinator Asia Pacific. Her task there was not only to bring the two Volkswagen joint ventures closer together, but also to create a better understanding of Chinese customers through market research, studies and vehicle tests. Previously, all German manufacturers had carried out a joint market study every two years, limited to the three wealthiest metropolitan areas. A better understanding of the market finally allowed Volkswagen to offer the right models and lead the wave of success in China’s automotive industry.
After a stint at Shanghai-Volkswagen, Keim joined BMW and later Jaguar Land Rover. She also used her broad experience in China in consulting, including as Digital Automotive Lead at Accenture China and in a company in the digital creative industry, which she managed in China.
Beatrix Keim fondly remembers the friendships and professional connections she made during this time. She particularly liked the northern Chinese in Changchun because of their straightforward manner. And the experience of living in the city in the late 1990s, which was very different from the cosmopolitan Shanghai or Beijing of today.
Towards the end of the Covid pandemic, the automotive expert returned to Germany. There, she joined the Center Automotive Research (CAR) in 2022. As Director Business Development & China Projects, she organizes congresses for CAR and represents CAR as an expert for the automotive industry and China. In her role, she draws on her wealth of experience, which not only covers the automotive industry, but also Chinese society and culture. Julia Fiedler
Apple is losing more and more market share in China to local competitors. Nevertheless, people still stand in line whenever a new iPhone is launched – as shown here in front of the Apple Store in Hangzhou. This is despite the fact that the iPhone 16 in the People’s Republic has to make do without the AI of the new “Apple Intelligence” function. But not everyone in line wants to buy: Many mainly wanted to compare the smartphone with Huawei’s Mate XT, which was unveiled two days later and which – at least according to many Chinese tech bloggers – has finally beaten the Americans.
