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There is little that better symbolizes the discord within the EU when dealing with the People’s Republic of China than the speech by Valdis Dombrovskis at Tsinghua University. The trade commissioner raised many issues that rankle politicians in Brussels – and, at the same time, emphasized that Europe nevertheless wants to cooperate closely with the second-largest economy.
It seemed as if Dombrovskis was struggling with himself and the words he chose. Not to say anything wrong, but at the same time, take a firm stance. Criticize, but don’t alienate. Relationship status: complicated. But by now, one must accept that, decades after China’s accession to the WTO, Europeans have simply had enough of China’s unfair business practices that put Europe at a disadvantage.
How this frustration will manifest itself in actual policy remains to be seen. Amelie Richter closely followed Dombrovski’s visit and wrote down how the Trade Commissioner envisions future cooperation with China.
The Philippines, too, can tell a thing or two about the unfair methods the People’s Republic uses whenever it wants to assert its national interests. The two countries frequently clash over maritime sovereignty in the South China Sea. Mainly because China does what it wants in the region, despite all international agreements and court rulings. Michael Radunski explains what Beijing has come up with this time to cut off the Philippines from the disputed Scarborough Reef. Manila’s reaction leaves little hope for détente.
As a powerful global player, China can afford to be ruthless because other players lack the courage and strength to retaliate. That’s just the way it is in Realpolitik. Whether we like it or not. China doesn’t owe anything to anyone. However, this reduces the mutual trust that Beijing constantly promotes internationally to a rhetorical bubble.
Incidentally, German state-owned investment and development bank KfW will also distinguish between appearance and reality from now on. The state-owned development bank will stop lending to China next year, as China.Table has exclusively learned. The reason: Beijing’s portrayal of China as a developing country is no longer believable.
The list of results after the meeting between EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis and China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng is long. There even was no public outcry over the EU investigation into China’s alleged EV subsidies. However, the true atmosphere of the first face-to-face EU-China trade dialogue was difficult to read from the faces of Dombrovskis and He.
Both calmly presented their points to the press in the Chinese capital on Thursday. Dombrovskis stressed in advance how important it was for him to have personal exchanges on the ground. In addition to He, he had met Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao, Minister of Finance Liu Kun as well as Pan Gongsheng, the new governor of the People’s Bank of China.
At the 10th trade dialogue, the EU and China agreed, among other things, on several joint working groups and a possible commodity early warning system. The most important points and statements at a glance:
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the upcoming investigation in her State of the European Union address. Before Dombrovski’s visit to Beijing, it was considered to be the biggest point of conflict with Beijing.
The EU trade commissioner did not address the investigation directly during his visit – but he showed a clear stance in several speeches, including one at Tsinghua University, the alma mater of China’s leader Xi Jinping, on Monday morning: “We recognize that the world needs China. But China also needs the world. The lack of reciprocity and level playing field from China, coupled with wider geopolitical shifts, has forced the EU to become more assertive,” Dombrovskis said. He delivered his 20-minute speech to students and faculty. “We have heard China’s concerns about the EU’s economic security plans.”
Before the meeting, Dombrovskis had also visited the representation of the EU Chamber of Commerce in Beijing. Last week, the chamber presented a sobering position paper and hoped Dombrovskis would speak out. “We discussed improving the business environment for EU companies,” the EU trade commissioner wrote on X, formerly Twitter, after the meeting. He said resolving the concerns was in the interest of both the EU and China.
Dombrovski’s visit is not the only one from Brussels: EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius is also currently in China. On Monday, he met his Chinese counterpart Huang Runqiu and the Minister responsible for Water Resources, Li Guoying. The “cornerstone of our global cooperation” has been laid at the 9th Ministerial Dialogue on Environmental Policy, Sinkevičius wrote on X. The dialogue was essential for exchanges on biodiversity, waste management and pollution control. Last weekend, Sinkevičius spoke at the Blue Partnership Forum for the Ocean in Shenzhen, where he stressed China’s and the EU’s shared responsibility for the oceans.
EU leaders will continue to travel to the Chinese capital in the coming weeks. Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson is expected next week, EU top diplomat Josep Borrell is then scheduled to visit next month.
Beijing’s latest weapon in the dispute over the South China Sea is comparatively simple: floating white plastic balls. Strung together on a rope forming a 300-meter-long chain, they create a floating barrier intended to cut the Philippines off from the disputed Scarborough Reef once and for all.
The Philippine Coast Guard expressed corresponding concern on Monday. “We condemn the installation of floating barriers by the Chinese coast guard,” National Security Adviser Eduardo Año said in a statement. He said the barrier poses a danger to navigation and clearly violates international law. The Scarborough Reef is “an integral part of the Philippine territory.” The barrier was discovered Friday during a routine patrol in the Bajo de Masinloc.
China’s Foreign Ministry did not directly mention the floating barrier on Monday, but defended the actions of its coast guard as “necessary measures” after a Philippine agency fishing vessel had “intruded” into its waters on Friday.
The dispute over the strategically important and resource-rich reef reflects the relationship between China and the Philippines. Although the atoll is much closer to the Philippine coast, both countries lay claim to it. In 2012, China seized the reef. A few months later, the government of the Philippines called the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague to settle the territorial claims between China and the Philippines.
The South China Sea is one of the most important geostrategic regions in the world: Around a third of all global trade passes through it, and the area is also rich in natural resources. Whoever has control here is in an extremely powerful position. That is why all neighboring countries are competing for control of the region. With its “nine-dash line,” China claims more than 80 percent of the 3.5 million square kilometers.
When relations between China and the Philippines improved under former President Rodrigo Duterte, China allowed the Philippines to fish near the reef again. But two setbacks to the Sino-Philippine honeymoon followed: The Hague ruling and the election of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as president of the Philippines.
In 2016, the arbitral tribunal ruled in favor of the Philippines. In addition, the judges found that China had no legal basis to claim historical rights to most of the South China Sea. Regarding Scarborough Reef, they noted that several countries traditionally used the atoll’s fishing grounds. Neither China nor the Philippines could prevent others from fishing there. The government of the Philippines welcomed the ruling, but Beijing did not feel obliged to abide by it.
In addition, the current Philippine president is again seeking closer ties with the United States. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. wants to reinvigorate the old partnership with Washington. For example, the Philippines has granted the US access to key military bases in recent months, hosted the two countries’ largest-ever joint military exercises and repeatedly denounced Beijing’s aggression in the South China Sea.
Beijing’s response has been correspondingly brash. Over the past few months, Chinese ships have used water cannons and lasers to chase away Philippine vessels. “China has created a coastguard with a mission to expand Chinese control in the South China Sea. This is all based on a warped historical narrative that bears little relation to the evidence,” Bill Hayton, the author of The South China Sea, told the Guardian.
China’s coast guard was again deployed on Monday. According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Monday, necessary measures were taken in accordance with the law to repel a Philippine ship in a disputed area in the South China Sea.
In any case, the authorities in the Philippines no longer want to put up with Beijing’s aggressive behavior. However, the trouble a simple Chinese buoy chain can cause was clearly evident. “We have to be very careful (not to commit) any diplomatic misstep,” a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman said Monday when asked if the Coast Guard planned to remove the barrier. Manila authorities are all too aware of the unequal balance of power between China and the Philippines.
Then, on Monday evening, the breakthrough came – literally: A Philippine Coast Guard task force removed the floating barrier in the South China Sea at the behest of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
In order to avoid a major conflict with China, but still be able to defend itself, Manila wants to take its fishermen to task in the future – and train them to hold their grounds at sea independently.
As understandable as the plan may be, it is dangerous. After all, Manila is further fueling the conflict. A Coast Guard spokesman called a Filipino’s defense of China’s “aggressive behavior” unpatriotic and a betrayal of the Philippines and its own people.
China’s social media platforms are a universe unto themselves. Rarely do influencers find their way out of this parallel world and onto a global stage. One who has made it despite language barriers and cultural differences is Li Ziqi 李子柒. The young woman from Sichuan has 17.7 million followers on YouTube – no other Chinese-speaking channel has ever reached such numbers, according to the Guinness Book of Records.
The 33-year-old is a so-called rural influencer. Her videos, which average five minutes, focus on life in the countryside, or rather, life in an idealized rural idyll. Perfectly illuminated and accompanied by birdsong and sparkling piano, the young woman plants, harvests and cooks her way up and down the days. Sometimes, she sickles mushrooms into raffia baskets she has woven, and other times, she presses tofu from home-grown soy following a traditional recipe – and all without sweat, aching muscles or mosquito bites.
However, the true star of her videos is the mountainous landscape of northern Sichuan. Lotus dew, wooden pagodas on misty slopes and sun rays falling through the kitchen window, as if Jan Vermeer had painted his genre scenes not in Baroque Netherlands but in Ming Dynasty China. This tranquilizing aestheticization of rural life is also called “cottage core.” The genre experienced a high point during the pandemic. While many cities were closed down into fun wastelands, many people projected their yearnings onto the once-so-hated backwoods.
These fantasies have made Li Ziqi a kind of Henry Thoreau for the Instagram and hygge age. And this is especially true in China. Twenty million people follow her on Weibo alone. Young Chinese, in particular, saw a different kind of Chinese dream in her videos, one that had nothing to do with burnout and the elbow society in metropolises like Shanghai and Shenzhen. But the bucolic portrayal of rural life also fitted well into Xi Jinping’s campaign of rural revitalization, which was not least intended to attract well-educated city dwellers to smaller towns and villages. Quite a few were indeed inspired by Li Ziqi and dared to escape the city, especially during the pandemic.
Li Ziqi soon became China’s new soft-power hope, who did not cozy up to the West, yet enjoyed success there with Chinese culture. The provincial capital of Sichuan, Chengdu, appointed Li as the region’s official intangible cultural heritage ambassador. In 2018, she also signed an advertising contract with a food company licensed by Beijing’s famous Palace Museum. An achievement for the child of divorced parents from humble beginnings who was mainly raised by her grandparents, as she explained in interviews with Chinese media.
It also paid off financially for Li. Together with Hangzhou Weinian, an online content agency, the influencer, who had once dabbled in music, found professional management. Together, they opened a successful shopping channel on the e-commerce platform Tmall, among other things. People could buy, for example, the knives Li used to chop herbs or the clothes that always seemed spotless during her graceful cooking ceremonies.
But in July 2021, after 128 videos, it was suddenly over. Li Ziqi stopped posting content and disappeared. Did she give in to her critics who claimed her videos concealed rural poverty? Or perhaps those who criticized her for portraying China as too backward? Or was it, as so often, for political reasons, maybe even a corruption scandal?
As it turned out, Li simply got involved with the wrong partners. Although the Weinian agency was partly responsible for promoting Li’s videos overseas, the company also secured a majority stake of over 50 percent in the jointly founded joint venture “Sichuan Li Ziqi Culture Communication.” This allowed the management to increasingly take control. The videos became more didactic. Some say more politically correct, including party messages that seeped in on the side. Also, Li was allegedly upset by the over-commercialization of her videos without getting a fair share.
In 2021 and 2022, the two parties sued each other a total of five times until they finally reached an agreement in a mediation process in the spring of last year. Li’s stake in “Sichuan Culture Communication” increased to ninety-nine percent. Still, the young influencer did not post any new videos for over two years, until eleven days ago. On 15 September, Li suddenly showed signs of life. In a clip that was instantly shared thousands of times, she is seen standing in an orchard. With her usual gentle gaze, the social media star declares that she will soon be back telling “traditional Chinese agricultural and farming stories” and encouraging young people to discover rural life as a career path.
News of Li’s return to the limelight spread rapidly, with many comments focusing mainly on her changed appearance. Her eyes and chin had changed, users wrote between gloating and surprise. Perhaps for the first time, they realized that appearances were deceiving, even with the beauty of nature they admired so much in Li’s videos. Yet the influencer had never made a secret of this. You had to be blind to take her dream of a Chinese Garden of Eden at face value. Fabian Peltsch
The first medals were awarded at the Asian Games in Hangzhou last weekend. The Chinese and Japanese shared the precious metal equally in park skateboarding. Mao Jaisi won bronze for the People’s Republic in the women’s competition.
There is little that better symbolizes the discord within the EU when dealing with the People’s Republic of China than the speech by Valdis Dombrovskis at Tsinghua University. The trade commissioner raised many issues that rankle politicians in Brussels – and, at the same time, emphasized that Europe nevertheless wants to cooperate closely with the second-largest economy.
It seemed as if Dombrovskis was struggling with himself and the words he chose. Not to say anything wrong, but at the same time, take a firm stance. Criticize, but don’t alienate. Relationship status: complicated. But by now, one must accept that, decades after China’s accession to the WTO, Europeans have simply had enough of China’s unfair business practices that put Europe at a disadvantage.
How this frustration will manifest itself in actual policy remains to be seen. Amelie Richter closely followed Dombrovski’s visit and wrote down how the Trade Commissioner envisions future cooperation with China.
The Philippines, too, can tell a thing or two about the unfair methods the People’s Republic uses whenever it wants to assert its national interests. The two countries frequently clash over maritime sovereignty in the South China Sea. Mainly because China does what it wants in the region, despite all international agreements and court rulings. Michael Radunski explains what Beijing has come up with this time to cut off the Philippines from the disputed Scarborough Reef. Manila’s reaction leaves little hope for détente.
As a powerful global player, China can afford to be ruthless because other players lack the courage and strength to retaliate. That’s just the way it is in Realpolitik. Whether we like it or not. China doesn’t owe anything to anyone. However, this reduces the mutual trust that Beijing constantly promotes internationally to a rhetorical bubble.
Incidentally, German state-owned investment and development bank KfW will also distinguish between appearance and reality from now on. The state-owned development bank will stop lending to China next year, as China.Table has exclusively learned. The reason: Beijing’s portrayal of China as a developing country is no longer believable.
The list of results after the meeting between EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis and China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng is long. There even was no public outcry over the EU investigation into China’s alleged EV subsidies. However, the true atmosphere of the first face-to-face EU-China trade dialogue was difficult to read from the faces of Dombrovskis and He.
Both calmly presented their points to the press in the Chinese capital on Thursday. Dombrovskis stressed in advance how important it was for him to have personal exchanges on the ground. In addition to He, he had met Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao, Minister of Finance Liu Kun as well as Pan Gongsheng, the new governor of the People’s Bank of China.
At the 10th trade dialogue, the EU and China agreed, among other things, on several joint working groups and a possible commodity early warning system. The most important points and statements at a glance:
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the upcoming investigation in her State of the European Union address. Before Dombrovski’s visit to Beijing, it was considered to be the biggest point of conflict with Beijing.
The EU trade commissioner did not address the investigation directly during his visit – but he showed a clear stance in several speeches, including one at Tsinghua University, the alma mater of China’s leader Xi Jinping, on Monday morning: “We recognize that the world needs China. But China also needs the world. The lack of reciprocity and level playing field from China, coupled with wider geopolitical shifts, has forced the EU to become more assertive,” Dombrovskis said. He delivered his 20-minute speech to students and faculty. “We have heard China’s concerns about the EU’s economic security plans.”
Before the meeting, Dombrovskis had also visited the representation of the EU Chamber of Commerce in Beijing. Last week, the chamber presented a sobering position paper and hoped Dombrovskis would speak out. “We discussed improving the business environment for EU companies,” the EU trade commissioner wrote on X, formerly Twitter, after the meeting. He said resolving the concerns was in the interest of both the EU and China.
Dombrovski’s visit is not the only one from Brussels: EU Environment Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius is also currently in China. On Monday, he met his Chinese counterpart Huang Runqiu and the Minister responsible for Water Resources, Li Guoying. The “cornerstone of our global cooperation” has been laid at the 9th Ministerial Dialogue on Environmental Policy, Sinkevičius wrote on X. The dialogue was essential for exchanges on biodiversity, waste management and pollution control. Last weekend, Sinkevičius spoke at the Blue Partnership Forum for the Ocean in Shenzhen, where he stressed China’s and the EU’s shared responsibility for the oceans.
EU leaders will continue to travel to the Chinese capital in the coming weeks. Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson is expected next week, EU top diplomat Josep Borrell is then scheduled to visit next month.
Beijing’s latest weapon in the dispute over the South China Sea is comparatively simple: floating white plastic balls. Strung together on a rope forming a 300-meter-long chain, they create a floating barrier intended to cut the Philippines off from the disputed Scarborough Reef once and for all.
The Philippine Coast Guard expressed corresponding concern on Monday. “We condemn the installation of floating barriers by the Chinese coast guard,” National Security Adviser Eduardo Año said in a statement. He said the barrier poses a danger to navigation and clearly violates international law. The Scarborough Reef is “an integral part of the Philippine territory.” The barrier was discovered Friday during a routine patrol in the Bajo de Masinloc.
China’s Foreign Ministry did not directly mention the floating barrier on Monday, but defended the actions of its coast guard as “necessary measures” after a Philippine agency fishing vessel had “intruded” into its waters on Friday.
The dispute over the strategically important and resource-rich reef reflects the relationship between China and the Philippines. Although the atoll is much closer to the Philippine coast, both countries lay claim to it. In 2012, China seized the reef. A few months later, the government of the Philippines called the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague to settle the territorial claims between China and the Philippines.
The South China Sea is one of the most important geostrategic regions in the world: Around a third of all global trade passes through it, and the area is also rich in natural resources. Whoever has control here is in an extremely powerful position. That is why all neighboring countries are competing for control of the region. With its “nine-dash line,” China claims more than 80 percent of the 3.5 million square kilometers.
When relations between China and the Philippines improved under former President Rodrigo Duterte, China allowed the Philippines to fish near the reef again. But two setbacks to the Sino-Philippine honeymoon followed: The Hague ruling and the election of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as president of the Philippines.
In 2016, the arbitral tribunal ruled in favor of the Philippines. In addition, the judges found that China had no legal basis to claim historical rights to most of the South China Sea. Regarding Scarborough Reef, they noted that several countries traditionally used the atoll’s fishing grounds. Neither China nor the Philippines could prevent others from fishing there. The government of the Philippines welcomed the ruling, but Beijing did not feel obliged to abide by it.
In addition, the current Philippine president is again seeking closer ties with the United States. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. wants to reinvigorate the old partnership with Washington. For example, the Philippines has granted the US access to key military bases in recent months, hosted the two countries’ largest-ever joint military exercises and repeatedly denounced Beijing’s aggression in the South China Sea.
Beijing’s response has been correspondingly brash. Over the past few months, Chinese ships have used water cannons and lasers to chase away Philippine vessels. “China has created a coastguard with a mission to expand Chinese control in the South China Sea. This is all based on a warped historical narrative that bears little relation to the evidence,” Bill Hayton, the author of The South China Sea, told the Guardian.
China’s coast guard was again deployed on Monday. According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Monday, necessary measures were taken in accordance with the law to repel a Philippine ship in a disputed area in the South China Sea.
In any case, the authorities in the Philippines no longer want to put up with Beijing’s aggressive behavior. However, the trouble a simple Chinese buoy chain can cause was clearly evident. “We have to be very careful (not to commit) any diplomatic misstep,” a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman said Monday when asked if the Coast Guard planned to remove the barrier. Manila authorities are all too aware of the unequal balance of power between China and the Philippines.
Then, on Monday evening, the breakthrough came – literally: A Philippine Coast Guard task force removed the floating barrier in the South China Sea at the behest of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
In order to avoid a major conflict with China, but still be able to defend itself, Manila wants to take its fishermen to task in the future – and train them to hold their grounds at sea independently.
As understandable as the plan may be, it is dangerous. After all, Manila is further fueling the conflict. A Coast Guard spokesman called a Filipino’s defense of China’s “aggressive behavior” unpatriotic and a betrayal of the Philippines and its own people.
China’s social media platforms are a universe unto themselves. Rarely do influencers find their way out of this parallel world and onto a global stage. One who has made it despite language barriers and cultural differences is Li Ziqi 李子柒. The young woman from Sichuan has 17.7 million followers on YouTube – no other Chinese-speaking channel has ever reached such numbers, according to the Guinness Book of Records.
The 33-year-old is a so-called rural influencer. Her videos, which average five minutes, focus on life in the countryside, or rather, life in an idealized rural idyll. Perfectly illuminated and accompanied by birdsong and sparkling piano, the young woman plants, harvests and cooks her way up and down the days. Sometimes, she sickles mushrooms into raffia baskets she has woven, and other times, she presses tofu from home-grown soy following a traditional recipe – and all without sweat, aching muscles or mosquito bites.
However, the true star of her videos is the mountainous landscape of northern Sichuan. Lotus dew, wooden pagodas on misty slopes and sun rays falling through the kitchen window, as if Jan Vermeer had painted his genre scenes not in Baroque Netherlands but in Ming Dynasty China. This tranquilizing aestheticization of rural life is also called “cottage core.” The genre experienced a high point during the pandemic. While many cities were closed down into fun wastelands, many people projected their yearnings onto the once-so-hated backwoods.
These fantasies have made Li Ziqi a kind of Henry Thoreau for the Instagram and hygge age. And this is especially true in China. Twenty million people follow her on Weibo alone. Young Chinese, in particular, saw a different kind of Chinese dream in her videos, one that had nothing to do with burnout and the elbow society in metropolises like Shanghai and Shenzhen. But the bucolic portrayal of rural life also fitted well into Xi Jinping’s campaign of rural revitalization, which was not least intended to attract well-educated city dwellers to smaller towns and villages. Quite a few were indeed inspired by Li Ziqi and dared to escape the city, especially during the pandemic.
Li Ziqi soon became China’s new soft-power hope, who did not cozy up to the West, yet enjoyed success there with Chinese culture. The provincial capital of Sichuan, Chengdu, appointed Li as the region’s official intangible cultural heritage ambassador. In 2018, she also signed an advertising contract with a food company licensed by Beijing’s famous Palace Museum. An achievement for the child of divorced parents from humble beginnings who was mainly raised by her grandparents, as she explained in interviews with Chinese media.
It also paid off financially for Li. Together with Hangzhou Weinian, an online content agency, the influencer, who had once dabbled in music, found professional management. Together, they opened a successful shopping channel on the e-commerce platform Tmall, among other things. People could buy, for example, the knives Li used to chop herbs or the clothes that always seemed spotless during her graceful cooking ceremonies.
But in July 2021, after 128 videos, it was suddenly over. Li Ziqi stopped posting content and disappeared. Did she give in to her critics who claimed her videos concealed rural poverty? Or perhaps those who criticized her for portraying China as too backward? Or was it, as so often, for political reasons, maybe even a corruption scandal?
As it turned out, Li simply got involved with the wrong partners. Although the Weinian agency was partly responsible for promoting Li’s videos overseas, the company also secured a majority stake of over 50 percent in the jointly founded joint venture “Sichuan Li Ziqi Culture Communication.” This allowed the management to increasingly take control. The videos became more didactic. Some say more politically correct, including party messages that seeped in on the side. Also, Li was allegedly upset by the over-commercialization of her videos without getting a fair share.
In 2021 and 2022, the two parties sued each other a total of five times until they finally reached an agreement in a mediation process in the spring of last year. Li’s stake in “Sichuan Culture Communication” increased to ninety-nine percent. Still, the young influencer did not post any new videos for over two years, until eleven days ago. On 15 September, Li suddenly showed signs of life. In a clip that was instantly shared thousands of times, she is seen standing in an orchard. With her usual gentle gaze, the social media star declares that she will soon be back telling “traditional Chinese agricultural and farming stories” and encouraging young people to discover rural life as a career path.
News of Li’s return to the limelight spread rapidly, with many comments focusing mainly on her changed appearance. Her eyes and chin had changed, users wrote between gloating and surprise. Perhaps for the first time, they realized that appearances were deceiving, even with the beauty of nature they admired so much in Li’s videos. Yet the influencer had never made a secret of this. You had to be blind to take her dream of a Chinese Garden of Eden at face value. Fabian Peltsch
The first medals were awarded at the Asian Games in Hangzhou last weekend. The Chinese and Japanese shared the precious metal equally in park skateboarding. Mao Jaisi won bronze for the People’s Republic in the women’s competition.