A semester abroad is always something special. Ideally, students should immerse themselves deeply in the new culture. However, according to the human rights organization Amnesty International, the experience for Chinese students in Germany is quite different: An AI report reveals that many Chinese students in Germany live under constant surveillance and in a climate of insecurity.
They avoid contact with political and civil society events for fear of repression by the Chinese government, worrying that any interaction with activists or political activities could be recorded and used against them. German universities are powerless against the Chinese Communist Party’s actions, writes Marcel Grzanna.
China has built massive overcapacities in green technologies such as batteries and solar panels. In the West, these products are criticized as dumping modules that undermine competitiveness. However, for developing countries, they can be a blessing, as Christian Mihatsch analyzes. The affordable cleantech products from China make the energy transition more affordable there.
In addition, today we present the Top 100 decision-makers in the China scene from the field of associations.
Hong Kong exile activist Ray Wong has trained himself to ignore his Chinese friends on the Göttingen campus. The reason: He doesn’t want to put them in danger. Greeting, waving, or approaching them could be noted. Wong is convinced the campus is a dangerous place. Informants could be lurking anywhere.
Chinese students who publicly interact with Wong must be aware that staff from the Chinese embassy or security agencies will sooner or later inquire about the content of their interactions. Wong faces an arrest warrant in Hong Kong for his political activism, criminalized under the security law. Associating with him can quickly lead to suspicions of sharing his democratic views.
Wong has developed his own strategies for dealing with the delicate situation. “I never make the first move; I let Chinese students approach me if they feel safe.” Most wear face masks to avoid easy identification from a distance. “If we arrange meetings, it’s always far away from campus,” says Wong.
The University of Goettingen is just one of dozens in Germany and many worldwide where such scenes occur. There are about 900,000 Chinese students abroad globally. Recently, Amnesty International published a report detailing the situation of Chinese students in Germany and seven other countries. Thirty-two respondents painted a picture of their reality, dominated by an atmosphere of fear.
Every Chinese student knows that their government can monitor everything and everyone, according to the report. This creates a climate of uncertainty where no one wants to be part of a movement. Participation in political events is therefore excluded for most Chinese students.
Ray Wong points to an example of one of his cousins born in the People’s Republic. She was a scholarship holder from the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC) and was summoned to the Chinese embassy every three months to report on the daily habits of her fellow students and to report any deviations from state ideology. Refusal to cooperate resulted in sanctions, with the worst case being the cessation of funding.
Students also worry about the well-being of their families in China. Chinese security agencies use repression against relatives as a tool to keep Chinese nationals abroad in line. This applies to students, as well as scientists, businesspeople, or athletes.
The consequences of such a reality are multifaceted. Most Chinese students have few contacts with other nationalities. They prefer to avoid events with a civil society background, staying mostly among their own, and avoid discussing politics or party control.
Mutual distrust dominates their relationships. Getting close is a process that takes months, sometimes years. “To find out if you can speak critically to someone, you send tiny signals and wait for a response,” says Wong. However, many Chinese students are ideologically firm, so they don’t question the police contacts.
Universities are largely helpless. “Universities can offer low-threshold conversation opportunities through their international offices – ideally with someone knowledgeable about China who understands the complicated situation of the students,” says Matthias Jaroch from the German Association of University Professors and Lecturers (DHV). “Whether this offer is taken up in a time of need cannot be influenced by the university.”
Even if they were accepted, universities cannot protect Chinese students from state repression. Families back home remain the strongest leverage for the CCP to control dissenters.
The consequences are isolation from the host country and a lack of interaction with the international university community. “The value of studying abroad also lies in participating in the social life of the host country, broadening one’s horizons, and getting to know another culture,” said DHV spokesperson Jaroch. “China deprives its students of this benefit, thereby hindering deeper international understanding.”
One of the hot topics today is whether Germany should support its solar industry to maintain competitiveness against China’s dumping of solar modules. China has created enormous overcapacity in the cleantech sector, selling these products at low prices on global markets for months. This is a concern for solar manufacturers like Meyer Burger. However, installers warn that protectionist measures could raise the cost of Chinese modules and hinder the energy transition.
For developing countries, the situation is different: unlike industrialized nations, it is unrealistic for these countries to invest billions in their own manufacturing. China’s affordable cleantech products make the energy transition affordable for them. In 2023, Asian countries saw the largest increase in solar module imports from China, although Europe remained the largest market. However, Europe’s share of Chinese solar exports fell to 46.35 percent in 2023 from 55 percent in 2022.
In 2023, Chinese production capacity for batteries was more than double the demand, and the gap is growing. By next year, capacity will be three times larger than needed, according to data from the British industry service CRU Group. For solar panels, China had enough manufacturing capacity last year for panels with a nominal capacity of 861 gigawatts, while only 390 gigawatts were installed globally. This was a record and exceeded the previous year’s installations by nearly 40 percent, but still did not come close to utilizing China’s manufacturing capacity. Despite this, capacity is expected to grow, with an additional 500 to 600 gigawatts expected this year.
This has impacted prices: Solar cells have become two-thirds cheaper in the last twelve months. Battery prices have also halved, aided by the falling cost of lithium, which soared in mid-2021, peaked at the end of 2022 and has since fallen by over 80 percent. Even if lithium prices stabilize, battery prices continue to drop. CATL, the world leader in batteries, expects prices to halve again this year. A price war is looming, with BYD, the second-largest battery producer, aggressively cutting costs to survive.
The reason behind this is that China’s government promotes investment more than consumption. Investments account for 42 percent of China’s GDP, compared to just half that in Germany. These investments were previously directed primarily at the real estate sector, creating a massive boom that has since ended. Now, investments are being redirected to the manufacturing industry, leading to overcapacity. Subsidies, such as tax breaks and cheap loans, encourage Chinese solar manufacturers to build ever-larger factories to reduce costs further.
This is a problem for Western industrialized countries like Germany, which also want to build manufacturing capacity for batteries and solar panels. However, the flood of cheap Chinese solar modules has caused a rapid price decline since summer 2023, threatening the survival of some young EU manufacturers.
For poorer countries, Chinese overcapacity and rapidly falling prices are positive, says Gary Hufbauer from the US think tank Peterson Institute: “If China pursues a massive ‘export solution,’ it will harm manufacturing companies in Japan, the EU, Korea and other industrialized countries. But low prices will be welcomed in many developing countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia.”
Chinese solar firms are increasingly targeting Asia with their exports. While solar imports in the EU declined in the second half of 2023 (leading to a 25 percent decrease for the whole year in Germany), photovoltaic imports from China in Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Malaysia, and Pakistan more than doubled. These four countries are now among the top markets for Chinese panels and modules. Brazil, Mexico and Turkey also imported significantly more solar products from China in 2023 than in 2022.
China’s market share in the US was a mere 0.3 percent in 2023 and is unlikely to increase. The Biden administration recently announced a significant tariff increase on Chinese photovoltaic products to 50 percent and an end to the tariff exemption for bifacial solar modules.
China’s overcapacity could lead to a bifurcated world market for products like batteries and solar panels: Industrialized nations protect their markets with anti-dumping tariffs and build their own industries, while other countries gratefully accept the cheap Chinese products. The progress of the Chinese solar industry makes “solar energy one of the most economical energy sources for the vast majority of countries and regions worldwide,” said Liu Yiyang, Deputy Secretary General of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association, quoted by the state newspaper China Daily.
If this accelerates the global transition to renewable energy, there would be a clear winner from China’s economic policy: the climate.
The European Commission will postpone its decision on Chinese electric vehicle tariffs until after the European election on June 9, German magazine Der Spiegel reported on Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the matter. The provisional tariffs, expected to be announced by June 5, will be a sticker shock representing billions of dollars in new costs for Chinese electric vehicle makers. The delay aims to keep the issue out of the election campaign phase, Der Spiegel wrote. The European Commission was not immediately available for comment.
The investigation, officially launched on Oct. 4, can last up to 13 months. The Commission can impose provisional anti-subsidy duties nine months after the start of the probe. This period ends on July 4. The EU elections will take place from June 6 to 9 and will determine the new composition of the European Parliament and, as a result, that of the EU Commission.
Observers had assumed that the current EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen would want to announce the anti-subsidy tariffs before the vote. It is expected that the Commission will initially raise the tariffs from the current ten percent to between 15 and 30 percent. German car manufacturers are very critical of the EU’s move and have concerns about retaliatory tariffs from Beijing. ari
Friedolin Strack – Head of the International Markets Department at the Federation of German Industries (BDI)
Friedolin Strack‘s department at BDI is not only responsible for bilateral economic relations with the Asia-Pacific region but also handles Latin America, the Near and Middle East and North Africa. Additionally, it coordinates the Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business (APA), and the BDI office in Beijing also falls under Strack’s purview. Strack started at BDI 30 years ago, in 1994, in Bonn. With the move to Berlin, he shifted his focus towards Asia and has since been regarded as one of the leading experts in his field.
Roland Busch – Chairman of the Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business (APA)
Roland Busch, who is primarily the CEO of Siemens, has been leading the Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business (APA) since 2021. He took over from his predecessor at Siemens, Joe Kaeser. The physicist not only qualifies for the APA leadership through his role as Siemens CEO but also through his Asia expertise, which he developed in the 2000s while managing the Asia-Pacific business for the now-sold Siemens VDO Automotive from Shanghai.
Jörg Wuttke – Emeritus President of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China
In the summer of 2023, Joerg Wuttke left China after about 30 years in the country. Until then, he was considered the most well-known and influential German in the People’s Republic. Since 1997, he has been the Chief Representative and General Authorized Representative of BASF, co-founded the German Chamber of Commerce in China in 1999, and the EU Chamber in 2000. He served as President of the German Chamber for three years and repeatedly headed the European interest group starting in 2007.
Andrea Hideg – Head of East Asia (Greater China, Korea, Japan) at the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK)
Andrea Hideg has been working for DIHK since the summer of 2022. After studying Japanology with a minor in Southeast Asian Studies and Economics at FU Berlin, she initially started at BDI. Later, she was responsible for the Asia region at Metro and worked for the Federation of Wholesale, Foreign Trade, Services (BGA) as Head of the Export Department.
Thomas König – Head of China/Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business (APA) at the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK)
Thomas König, who previously worked for the EU Chamber of Commerce in China and as Asia Program Coordinator at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), studied at Yale, the London School of Economics (LSE), and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). He is the co-author of the books “China – Mastering Business and every-day life” and “How to succeed in China”.
Michael Schumann – Chairman of China-Brücke e.V.
Michael Schumann is also the Chairman of the Board of the Federal Association for Economic Development and Foreign Trade. However, he is particularly passionate about China-Brücke, an independent dialogue platform focused on shaping relations with China. He first encountered China at the 2010 Expo in Shanghai.
Wei Duan – Managing Director of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Germany e.V.
A mediator between worlds: Wei Duan has represented approximately 350 Chinese companies as the Managing Director of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Germany (CHKD) since 2019. Originally from Xuancheng in Anhui, he began studying law in Leipzig in 2004, passed the state examination in 2012, and started working at a law firm in Düsseldorf. Duan now lives in Berlin.
Jochen Schultz – Managing Director of the China Network Baden-Württemberg e.V.
The China Network Baden-Württemberg is a platform for the German-Chinese community in the southwest. Jochen Schultz significantly drives its activities forward. He also offers professional training through Schultz Professional Trainings and is responsible for business development in China at the Haufe Academy. He is a trained lawyer.
Jendrik Niebuhr – Trade Policy Officer at the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA)
Since June 2023, Jendrik Niebuhr has been responsible for trade policy at the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), making him responsible for the key market of China within a key German industry. Previously, as an officer for industry and digital strategy, China also played a role. At the CDU in Lower Saxony, he served as the personal assistant to the state chairman.
Claudia Barkowsky – Managing Director of the China Liaison Office of the German Mechanical Engineering Industry Association (VDMA)
Claudia Barkowsky has been the representative of the German Mechanical Engineering Industry Association (VDMA) in China since 2016. A sinologist by training, she has lived in China for 17 years. She found her first job at the Chamber of Foreign Trade in Beijing and also worked locally for Daimler. The Beijing office of the VDMA is the largest foreign office of the association.
At the International Chinese Animation and Cartoon Festival in Hangzhou, visitors watched a pack of robotic dogs performing a lion dance. These state-of-the-art robotic animals can jump, lie down, walk backward and apparently dance as well. Technicians from the People’s Liberation Army demonstrated another use for this technological innovation this month – without costumes but equipped with rifles on their backs, the machines participated in a military exercise with local units in Cambodia.
A semester abroad is always something special. Ideally, students should immerse themselves deeply in the new culture. However, according to the human rights organization Amnesty International, the experience for Chinese students in Germany is quite different: An AI report reveals that many Chinese students in Germany live under constant surveillance and in a climate of insecurity.
They avoid contact with political and civil society events for fear of repression by the Chinese government, worrying that any interaction with activists or political activities could be recorded and used against them. German universities are powerless against the Chinese Communist Party’s actions, writes Marcel Grzanna.
China has built massive overcapacities in green technologies such as batteries and solar panels. In the West, these products are criticized as dumping modules that undermine competitiveness. However, for developing countries, they can be a blessing, as Christian Mihatsch analyzes. The affordable cleantech products from China make the energy transition more affordable there.
In addition, today we present the Top 100 decision-makers in the China scene from the field of associations.
Hong Kong exile activist Ray Wong has trained himself to ignore his Chinese friends on the Göttingen campus. The reason: He doesn’t want to put them in danger. Greeting, waving, or approaching them could be noted. Wong is convinced the campus is a dangerous place. Informants could be lurking anywhere.
Chinese students who publicly interact with Wong must be aware that staff from the Chinese embassy or security agencies will sooner or later inquire about the content of their interactions. Wong faces an arrest warrant in Hong Kong for his political activism, criminalized under the security law. Associating with him can quickly lead to suspicions of sharing his democratic views.
Wong has developed his own strategies for dealing with the delicate situation. “I never make the first move; I let Chinese students approach me if they feel safe.” Most wear face masks to avoid easy identification from a distance. “If we arrange meetings, it’s always far away from campus,” says Wong.
The University of Goettingen is just one of dozens in Germany and many worldwide where such scenes occur. There are about 900,000 Chinese students abroad globally. Recently, Amnesty International published a report detailing the situation of Chinese students in Germany and seven other countries. Thirty-two respondents painted a picture of their reality, dominated by an atmosphere of fear.
Every Chinese student knows that their government can monitor everything and everyone, according to the report. This creates a climate of uncertainty where no one wants to be part of a movement. Participation in political events is therefore excluded for most Chinese students.
Ray Wong points to an example of one of his cousins born in the People’s Republic. She was a scholarship holder from the Chinese Scholarship Council (CSC) and was summoned to the Chinese embassy every three months to report on the daily habits of her fellow students and to report any deviations from state ideology. Refusal to cooperate resulted in sanctions, with the worst case being the cessation of funding.
Students also worry about the well-being of their families in China. Chinese security agencies use repression against relatives as a tool to keep Chinese nationals abroad in line. This applies to students, as well as scientists, businesspeople, or athletes.
The consequences of such a reality are multifaceted. Most Chinese students have few contacts with other nationalities. They prefer to avoid events with a civil society background, staying mostly among their own, and avoid discussing politics or party control.
Mutual distrust dominates their relationships. Getting close is a process that takes months, sometimes years. “To find out if you can speak critically to someone, you send tiny signals and wait for a response,” says Wong. However, many Chinese students are ideologically firm, so they don’t question the police contacts.
Universities are largely helpless. “Universities can offer low-threshold conversation opportunities through their international offices – ideally with someone knowledgeable about China who understands the complicated situation of the students,” says Matthias Jaroch from the German Association of University Professors and Lecturers (DHV). “Whether this offer is taken up in a time of need cannot be influenced by the university.”
Even if they were accepted, universities cannot protect Chinese students from state repression. Families back home remain the strongest leverage for the CCP to control dissenters.
The consequences are isolation from the host country and a lack of interaction with the international university community. “The value of studying abroad also lies in participating in the social life of the host country, broadening one’s horizons, and getting to know another culture,” said DHV spokesperson Jaroch. “China deprives its students of this benefit, thereby hindering deeper international understanding.”
One of the hot topics today is whether Germany should support its solar industry to maintain competitiveness against China’s dumping of solar modules. China has created enormous overcapacity in the cleantech sector, selling these products at low prices on global markets for months. This is a concern for solar manufacturers like Meyer Burger. However, installers warn that protectionist measures could raise the cost of Chinese modules and hinder the energy transition.
For developing countries, the situation is different: unlike industrialized nations, it is unrealistic for these countries to invest billions in their own manufacturing. China’s affordable cleantech products make the energy transition affordable for them. In 2023, Asian countries saw the largest increase in solar module imports from China, although Europe remained the largest market. However, Europe’s share of Chinese solar exports fell to 46.35 percent in 2023 from 55 percent in 2022.
In 2023, Chinese production capacity for batteries was more than double the demand, and the gap is growing. By next year, capacity will be three times larger than needed, according to data from the British industry service CRU Group. For solar panels, China had enough manufacturing capacity last year for panels with a nominal capacity of 861 gigawatts, while only 390 gigawatts were installed globally. This was a record and exceeded the previous year’s installations by nearly 40 percent, but still did not come close to utilizing China’s manufacturing capacity. Despite this, capacity is expected to grow, with an additional 500 to 600 gigawatts expected this year.
This has impacted prices: Solar cells have become two-thirds cheaper in the last twelve months. Battery prices have also halved, aided by the falling cost of lithium, which soared in mid-2021, peaked at the end of 2022 and has since fallen by over 80 percent. Even if lithium prices stabilize, battery prices continue to drop. CATL, the world leader in batteries, expects prices to halve again this year. A price war is looming, with BYD, the second-largest battery producer, aggressively cutting costs to survive.
The reason behind this is that China’s government promotes investment more than consumption. Investments account for 42 percent of China’s GDP, compared to just half that in Germany. These investments were previously directed primarily at the real estate sector, creating a massive boom that has since ended. Now, investments are being redirected to the manufacturing industry, leading to overcapacity. Subsidies, such as tax breaks and cheap loans, encourage Chinese solar manufacturers to build ever-larger factories to reduce costs further.
This is a problem for Western industrialized countries like Germany, which also want to build manufacturing capacity for batteries and solar panels. However, the flood of cheap Chinese solar modules has caused a rapid price decline since summer 2023, threatening the survival of some young EU manufacturers.
For poorer countries, Chinese overcapacity and rapidly falling prices are positive, says Gary Hufbauer from the US think tank Peterson Institute: “If China pursues a massive ‘export solution,’ it will harm manufacturing companies in Japan, the EU, Korea and other industrialized countries. But low prices will be welcomed in many developing countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia.”
Chinese solar firms are increasingly targeting Asia with their exports. While solar imports in the EU declined in the second half of 2023 (leading to a 25 percent decrease for the whole year in Germany), photovoltaic imports from China in Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Malaysia, and Pakistan more than doubled. These four countries are now among the top markets for Chinese panels and modules. Brazil, Mexico and Turkey also imported significantly more solar products from China in 2023 than in 2022.
China’s market share in the US was a mere 0.3 percent in 2023 and is unlikely to increase. The Biden administration recently announced a significant tariff increase on Chinese photovoltaic products to 50 percent and an end to the tariff exemption for bifacial solar modules.
China’s overcapacity could lead to a bifurcated world market for products like batteries and solar panels: Industrialized nations protect their markets with anti-dumping tariffs and build their own industries, while other countries gratefully accept the cheap Chinese products. The progress of the Chinese solar industry makes “solar energy one of the most economical energy sources for the vast majority of countries and regions worldwide,” said Liu Yiyang, Deputy Secretary General of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association, quoted by the state newspaper China Daily.
If this accelerates the global transition to renewable energy, there would be a clear winner from China’s economic policy: the climate.
The European Commission will postpone its decision on Chinese electric vehicle tariffs until after the European election on June 9, German magazine Der Spiegel reported on Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the matter. The provisional tariffs, expected to be announced by June 5, will be a sticker shock representing billions of dollars in new costs for Chinese electric vehicle makers. The delay aims to keep the issue out of the election campaign phase, Der Spiegel wrote. The European Commission was not immediately available for comment.
The investigation, officially launched on Oct. 4, can last up to 13 months. The Commission can impose provisional anti-subsidy duties nine months after the start of the probe. This period ends on July 4. The EU elections will take place from June 6 to 9 and will determine the new composition of the European Parliament and, as a result, that of the EU Commission.
Observers had assumed that the current EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen would want to announce the anti-subsidy tariffs before the vote. It is expected that the Commission will initially raise the tariffs from the current ten percent to between 15 and 30 percent. German car manufacturers are very critical of the EU’s move and have concerns about retaliatory tariffs from Beijing. ari
Friedolin Strack – Head of the International Markets Department at the Federation of German Industries (BDI)
Friedolin Strack‘s department at BDI is not only responsible for bilateral economic relations with the Asia-Pacific region but also handles Latin America, the Near and Middle East and North Africa. Additionally, it coordinates the Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business (APA), and the BDI office in Beijing also falls under Strack’s purview. Strack started at BDI 30 years ago, in 1994, in Bonn. With the move to Berlin, he shifted his focus towards Asia and has since been regarded as one of the leading experts in his field.
Roland Busch – Chairman of the Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business (APA)
Roland Busch, who is primarily the CEO of Siemens, has been leading the Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business (APA) since 2021. He took over from his predecessor at Siemens, Joe Kaeser. The physicist not only qualifies for the APA leadership through his role as Siemens CEO but also through his Asia expertise, which he developed in the 2000s while managing the Asia-Pacific business for the now-sold Siemens VDO Automotive from Shanghai.
Jörg Wuttke – Emeritus President of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China
In the summer of 2023, Joerg Wuttke left China after about 30 years in the country. Until then, he was considered the most well-known and influential German in the People’s Republic. Since 1997, he has been the Chief Representative and General Authorized Representative of BASF, co-founded the German Chamber of Commerce in China in 1999, and the EU Chamber in 2000. He served as President of the German Chamber for three years and repeatedly headed the European interest group starting in 2007.
Andrea Hideg – Head of East Asia (Greater China, Korea, Japan) at the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK)
Andrea Hideg has been working for DIHK since the summer of 2022. After studying Japanology with a minor in Southeast Asian Studies and Economics at FU Berlin, she initially started at BDI. Later, she was responsible for the Asia region at Metro and worked for the Federation of Wholesale, Foreign Trade, Services (BGA) as Head of the Export Department.
Thomas König – Head of China/Asia-Pacific Committee of German Business (APA) at the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK)
Thomas König, who previously worked for the EU Chamber of Commerce in China and as Asia Program Coordinator at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), studied at Yale, the London School of Economics (LSE), and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). He is the co-author of the books “China – Mastering Business and every-day life” and “How to succeed in China”.
Michael Schumann – Chairman of China-Brücke e.V.
Michael Schumann is also the Chairman of the Board of the Federal Association for Economic Development and Foreign Trade. However, he is particularly passionate about China-Brücke, an independent dialogue platform focused on shaping relations with China. He first encountered China at the 2010 Expo in Shanghai.
Wei Duan – Managing Director of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Germany e.V.
A mediator between worlds: Wei Duan has represented approximately 350 Chinese companies as the Managing Director of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Germany (CHKD) since 2019. Originally from Xuancheng in Anhui, he began studying law in Leipzig in 2004, passed the state examination in 2012, and started working at a law firm in Düsseldorf. Duan now lives in Berlin.
Jochen Schultz – Managing Director of the China Network Baden-Württemberg e.V.
The China Network Baden-Württemberg is a platform for the German-Chinese community in the southwest. Jochen Schultz significantly drives its activities forward. He also offers professional training through Schultz Professional Trainings and is responsible for business development in China at the Haufe Academy. He is a trained lawyer.
Jendrik Niebuhr – Trade Policy Officer at the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA)
Since June 2023, Jendrik Niebuhr has been responsible for trade policy at the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), making him responsible for the key market of China within a key German industry. Previously, as an officer for industry and digital strategy, China also played a role. At the CDU in Lower Saxony, he served as the personal assistant to the state chairman.
Claudia Barkowsky – Managing Director of the China Liaison Office of the German Mechanical Engineering Industry Association (VDMA)
Claudia Barkowsky has been the representative of the German Mechanical Engineering Industry Association (VDMA) in China since 2016. A sinologist by training, she has lived in China for 17 years. She found her first job at the Chamber of Foreign Trade in Beijing and also worked locally for Daimler. The Beijing office of the VDMA is the largest foreign office of the association.
At the International Chinese Animation and Cartoon Festival in Hangzhou, visitors watched a pack of robotic dogs performing a lion dance. These state-of-the-art robotic animals can jump, lie down, walk backward and apparently dance as well. Technicians from the People’s Liberation Army demonstrated another use for this technological innovation this month – without costumes but equipped with rifles on their backs, the machines participated in a military exercise with local units in Cambodia.
