In light of declining birthrates, Beijing actually wants to propagate traditional gender roles and family models – even in films and TV shows. Nevertheless, “Hao Dongxi” is currently taking the Chinese box office by storm. The tragicomedy titled “Her Story” in English deals with sensitive socio-political issues such as gender inequality and sexual harassment. Critics and fans are already calling it the Chinese version of “Barbie.”
Dao Dongxi practically encapsulates the concerns of modern urban women: Career pressure and the urge for self-fulfilment, toxic dating culture, lack of recognition and parenting dilemmas. Fabian Peltsch argues why the box office hit can be seen as an emancipatory milestone.
Angela Merkel’s biography “Freedom” is another international hit. As German Chancellor, she visited the People’s Republic of China twelve times. She often traveled not only to Beijing, but also criss-crossed the country. In her memoirs, however, the pages about China remain blank – apart from a few observations about President Xi Jinping. Johnny Erling, who witnessed Merkel’s trips as Beijing correspondent, tries to fill in some gaps from his memories.
Jiyue was actually seen as a shining example and represented the direction in which Chinese automotive companies were headed. Tech giant Baidu and car manufacturer Geely founded the joint venture in 2021. Its super sports car resembling the Batmobile recently attracted attention at a car show in Guangzhou. But now, it seems to be on the verge of a deep downfall. The start-up apparently can no longer even pay its employees’ social security. Online videos show the CEO surrounded by employees demanding their wages. Julia Fiedler analyzes the reasons behind the crisis.
Have an informed start to the day.
“Hao Dongxi” (“好东西,” English title “Her Story”) has hit the Chinese box office by storm. Just two weeks after the official film release in late November, the tragicomedy had already cracked the 500 million RMB (68.7 million dollars) mark. This is even though it deals with sensitive socio-political issues such as gender inequality and sexual harassment, which are still part of everyday life for many of the approximately 690 million women in patriarchal China. Critics and fans are already calling it the Chinese version of “Barbie,” last year’s US box office hit, which also advocated female self-empowerment beneath its colorful surface.
The key to its success at the box office, alongside A-list stars such as Song Jia 宋佳, is probably the humor with which “Hao Dongxi” brings its feminist demands to mainstream cinema. The story revolves around single mother Wang Tiemei, who has to reconcile her career and the upbringing of her nine-year-old daughter Momo in contemporary Shanghai. The second main character is the charmingly chaotic musician Xiao Ye, who, out of a sense of female solidarity, becomes a kind of foster mother for Momo – and, in turn, gains new perspectives on her own childhood traumas from the precocious child.
The film was shot by 33-year-old director Shao Yihui 邵艺辉. Her 2021 comedy “B for Busy” (爱情神话) already dealt with the challenges that divorced and childless women face in China. But this time, she wanted to tell the story entirely from a female perspective. The men in the film remain side characters and come across as vain, complicated and awkward at best. Momo’s father, who seems like a big kid himself, is not even named and is simply referred to as 前夫: ex-husband.
Hao Dongxi’s work virtually encapsulates the concerns of modern urban women: career pressure and the urge for self-fulfillment, toxic dating culture, lack of recognition and parenting dilemmas. Some scenes seem to serve the feminist message alone, such as when the daughter talks about the normality of menstruation in a restaurant or Tiemei’s daily household chores are shown as poetic snapshots.
On top of that come numerous “Easter eggs” in the form of cross-references, books, pictures and quotes from feminist icons, such as the Japanese sociologist Chizuko Ueno or Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. It is sometimes obvious, perhaps too obvious for Western tastes with its many Anglicisms. But in China, feminist dialectics have never been so clearly presented to the mass audience. And since the state has recently been increasingly propagating classic gender roles and family models in light of declining birthrates, “Hao Dongxi” can rightly be seen as an emancipatory milestone.
“The film shows the life situations and voices of women in a warm and authentic way,” says a Chinese exchange student who came to one of two screenings of “Hao Dongxi” at Berlin’s UCI Luxe cinema. Her friend, who, like her, wishes to remain anonymous, adds that the film also addresses a number of other social problems in China, “for example, bureaucracy or all the bullying on the internet or in schools.” Both agree that the movie is not overrated, but “pretty well told and very entertaining” – especially “if you know what life is like in Shanghai.”
Of course, not everyone sees the box office hit in such a positive light. The director was promptly accused of hating men on social media. A lecturer at Tongji University’s Film Research Institute told Sixthtone magazine that although the film was well made, it should not contribute to fueling a “war of the sexes.” The social media watchblog Whatsonweibo quotes a viewer who also works in the film industry and accuses the director of “hypocrisy.” She argues that the producers of “Hao Dongxi” are primarily male, so the financial proceeds do not ultimately benefit women – feminist movie hit or not.
In any case, the film clearly shows one thing: Female voices are becoming increasingly important in China’s male-dominated film industry. In the past five years, several feature films and series have paved the way for “Hao Dongxi,” for example “YOLO” (麻辣滚烫), “Like a Rolling Stone” (出走的决心) or “To the Wonder” (我的阿勒泰), all of which focused on the fate of women in one way or another.
“I thought it was really nice to see a movie that was made by women for women,” says Leia, another student in the foyer of the Berlin cinema. “It tried to convey as much as possible within the scope of its possibilities,” says the 24-year-old. This shows that there is definitely “a shift on a societal level” and that audiences want to see stories like this, “at least as far as the stories of women living in rich cities like Shanghai are concerned,” adds her friend Lilian. Both believe that even more film investors will pay attention to works by women in the future and that even more female directors will explore social issues in cinema. “But that doesn’t mean it will be easy to address such things publicly.”
The Chinese electric car start-up Jiyue, originally founded in 2021 under Jidu as a “Robocar brand,” is in financial difficulties. The joint venture between Geely and Baidu is apparently no longer even able to pay employee social security. There are also rumors of mass layoffs. However, the company has denied bankruptcy. According to the trade newsletter Car News China, the company only sold just under 14,000 cars in the first eleven months of this year.
As a joint venture between an established and successful car manufacturer like Geely and leading tech company Baidu, Jiyue actually represents the direction in which Chinese automotive companies are headed, says Mark Rainford. He is an automotive expert in Shanghai and runs the Inside China Auto platform. Rainford is accordingly surprised at how bad the company’s situation appears to be.
CEO Xia Yiping informed employees in an online memo on Wednesday that the company would seek new funding and scrap projects. Departments and positions with redundant functions will be merged, which would result in numerous layoffs. However, the company denied any plans to cut jobs. According to Reuters, videos and live streams from the headquarters in Shanghai on Thursday show Xia surrounded by people who want to know when they will be paid.
“The size of the two players behind the scenes has helped Jiyue avoid serious scrutiny of its weak sales figures,” says auto expert Mark Rainford. “In the last few months, Jiyue has only achieved more than 2,000 units sold per month and only once more than 3,000. But everyone assumed the company was pretty safe because of the players involved.”
Experts in China saw the Jiyue brand as an experimental project by two large, successful corporations to test high-end technologies such as Baidu’s autonomous driving system. Most recently, the brand made a big and much-noticed appearance at the Guangzhou Motor Show with its Robo X super sports car, which was announced as a production model for 2027. The Batmobile-style car was to be equipped with Baidu’s Apollo autonomous driving technology, and according to Jiyue, all car functions could be controlled via voice commands.
Car expert Rainford attests the two Jiyue cars 01 and 07 very good performance, among other things due to its excellent EV platform, one of the best batteries on the market and the advanced driver assistance systems. Jiyue has over 140 sales offices in China, although the brand has only been on the market for a year. However, the company initially planned to have 250 sales offices by the end of 2024. Despite the parent companies Geely and Baidu, Jiyue remained under the customers’ radar.
This is partly due to the oversupply of electric car brands, which makes it difficult for young manufacturers to stand out and establish themselves among customers. The ongoing fierce price war on the Chinese car market, which puts many electric car start-ups under increasing pressure, has also become a problem for Jiyue. The company lowered its prices in the summer, but apparently, it was too late to win enough customers. With over 100 brands competing, only a few companies sell enough cars to be profitable. They rely on investor money and subsidies, which is why experts have been expecting consolidation for some time.
However, there are also positive examples that are doing well on the market. According to the trade publication China Automotive News, these include top dog BYD, Leapmotor and newcomer Xiaomi, which had already exceeded their annual sales targets by the end of November. Chang’an Automobile, NIO and others have achieved 80 percent of their annual targets, while many others have achieved around half of the sales they had set themselves for 2024.
However, numerous promising brands, such as Hiphi, have already vanished. The high-profile downfall of Jiyue could further reinforce this trend should customers become unsettled and decide to opt for large, established brands to avoid any disadvantages, for example, when it comes to spare parts or warranty claims, which may no longer be available if a start-up goes out of business.
Angela Merkel’s 720-page memoir broke all records with 200,000 copies sold in Germany in its first week of publication. However, critics were disappointed, calling it a book full of “gaps,” a “puzzle” that was missing too many pieces. This is also true for the China chapter. Merkel visited the People’s Republic twelve times during her term of office from 2005 to 2021, traveling all over the country.
Angela Merkel wanted to see more than just Beijing conference rooms during her short inaugural visit to China in May 2006. Her host, then Premier Wen Jiabao, persuaded her to go for a walk in Beijing Park 北京菖蒲河公园. Including early morning exercise: Wen taught her how to play Taiji ball. 太极柔力球.
Even on the first of their twelve trips to the People’s Republic, the atmosphere was relaxed and Wen and Merkel formed an unusual political friendship. When the Chancellor returned in late August 2007, the Premier chose Zhongshan Park at the Imperial Palace to take a stroll. The people of Beijing and international media were allowed to watch as Merkel tried her hand at diabolo 抖空竹.
The crisis came out of the blue. China’s charm offensive ended abruptly just as Merkel returned from Beijing to her official residence in Berlin to receive the Dalai Lama. She honored the Tibetan religious leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner with a private meeting. Beijing took it as an insult, as it saw the Dalai Lama as an enemy of the state and a separatist who wanted to secede Tibet from the People’s Republic. China’s leadership felt embarrassed and had Merkel attacked by incited bloggers as a “schemer” and, even worse, as a German “witch.” Beijing’s Foreign Ministry proclaimed an ice age in Sino-German relations. The Xinhua magazine China Newsweek was furious: “When Merkel met the Dalai on September 23, she had not been back from China for a month; her handshake with China’s leaders was still warm.”
Merkel’s memoir “Freedom” has no room for the turbulent period of her relationship with China. In the index of names (there is no subject index), only one sentence is hidden on page 385 under “Dalai Lama”: Merkel traveled to China, Japan and Africa in 2006 and 2007. She “received the Dalai Lama and the Saudi King Abdullah in Berlin.” That’s all. There is no mention of the three-month ice age that Beijing imposed on Berlin, which lasted until the beginning of 2008, or the domestic political controversy. China had managed to drive a wedge into German politics because of the Dalai Lama meeting. It found allies against Merkel in Frank Walter Steinmeier and former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who publicly criticized Merkel during a business trip to Beijing. China Daily reported this with delight on page 1 on November 9, 2007.
China is hardly mentioned in the book. Yet Merkel’s early trips speak volumes about her shifting view of the new superpower and her ambivalent relationship with Beijing. During her second visit, Merkel gave a keynote speech on climate policy at the Academy of Social Sciences on August 28, 2007. She skillfully drew a connection between the shared global responsibility for a sustainable world and the equally necessary debate on the values of the rule of law and freedom of opinion. She received much applause for this.
But not from everyone. China’s former ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, Mei Zhaorong, who had once studied in East Germany, joined the debate. He confronted Merkel: Does she see China as a kind of “enlarged East Germany”? That was “a rumor,” she responded coolly. “My knowledge is sufficient to know that your country is now following a path that is very exciting for us and where we also discuss some things with each other, but which has nothing to do with what happened in former East Germany.”
Three years later, in 2010, I asked Mei whether he still had any reservations about Merkel. He said: “Today, I realize she understands China much better. She has her values – we have ours.” He said he was not interested in her “changing her ideas, but only in her respecting ours.” She now knows “where our red line lies.”
Mei was not wrong. In background discussions that Merkel had with us correspondents, she initially confessed that nightmares had haunted her before her trip about the consequences if China were to collapse like East Germany.
Merkel knew what was going on in China. From 2006 onwards – and on every subsequent visit – she insisted on meeting informally at the embassy with persecuted authors and representatives of civil society. In very small groups, the author couple, Chen Guidi, and his wife, Chun Tao, informed her about the situation of disenfranchised farmers and migrant workers. Their investigative report had been banned. Both told us journalists how surprised they were to discuss social problems with Merkel in such detail. During her visit in 2007, the Chancellor met four critical journalists, bloggers and press lawyers to discuss censorship issues. Li Datong, a well-known investigative journalist banned from practicing his profession, told me: “We got into conversation with her so quickly that we completely forgot who was sitting in front of us. She knew immediately what we were talking about.”
Beijing was upset, but never openly objected to such meetings. In her book, Merkel only refers to this with an understatement: “During my visits to the German embassy in Beijing, I regularly met with members of the Chinese opposition, who were willing to take considerable risks to meet with me. I was able to help some people, but I could not change the systemic oppression of dissidents in China.” (p.587) World-renowned artists from Ai Weiwei to Liu Xia, the widow of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, who was persecuted until his cruel death, owed their freedom to Merkel’s intercession. Their names do not appear in the book “Freedom.”
Merkel sums up her China dilemma in one sentence: “My cooperation with the country was an example of realpolitik.” Although this did not mean “sweeping differences of opinion under the carpet,” it meant “respecting the respective political systems as a given and deriving areas of cooperation from common interests.” (S.588)
Apart from climate policy, the decisive factor for her was the realization that her annual visits to China were increasingly dominated by Germany’s “concrete” economic interests. One figure impresses her. During her first visit in 2006, China’s share of German foreign trade was 4.8 percent. This had doubled to “9.5 percent by the end of my term of office.” In 2014, Merkel signed a “strategic partnership agreement” with Xi Jinping and, towards the end of her trips to China, became a lobbyist for an investment agreement (CAI) with the EU, which Beijing wanted in particular. Merkel does not explain her change of heart in the book.
But from the very beginning, she followed the tradition of her predecessor in office, Gerhard Schröder, and took high-ranking business leaders with her on every trip to China. Schröder liked opening doors. Merkel was initially less accommodating to corporate executives. For example, on her fourth trip to China, to the old imperial city of Xi’an in July 2010, where she also celebrated her birthday. Premier Wen Jiabao and 25 German business leaders accompanied her.
Wen presented the Chancellor with a very special birthday present: Together, they hosted a business forum with a new format, where German and Chinese CEOs were invited to talk shop. Journalists were allowed to listen in. Wen and Merkel interrupted the first speaker, the CEO of Siemens, when he began to praise Beijing’s support for foreign investors in an old-fashioned servant-like manner. Wen said he would rather hear about problems. Merkel responded by saying that she had heard a completely different story from the CEO the evening before. An open discussion then began between the Germans and the Chinese. From then on, Merkel and China’s premiers would preside over such economic forums. A lot was discussed, but no solutions were found.
Merkel only goes into detail once in the book, in the passage on the “new global powers India and China.” (pp. 581-590) She immediately noticed how Xi Jinping, who became president in 2013, made everything his responsibility: “I discussed almost all problems with him. He repositioned China.”
She first met Xi in Beijing in July 2010, at the time vice president and head of the party academy.
Thanks to “my Marxist-Leninist knowledge,” she was able to talk shop with him about the Communist Party and China’s form of dictatorship. “Ultimately, it was about the question of what rights individuals have in a society and who is allowed to curtail them by invoking the common good.” In her view, there is not just one group “that knows and determines the best path for everyone else.” Such thinking would lead to the “lack of individual freedom.” Her conclusion: “When it came to human rights, our opinions could not be more different.” (S.567). It remains to be seen what of this will stay in the Beijing translation of Merkel’s “Freedom,” which will be published in early 2025.
China’s censors will also sweat when they read Merkel’s geopolitical appraisal of Xi’s Silk Road initiative: “The reality shows that countries, particularly in Asia and Africa, often become financially dependent on China due to the costs associated with the investments, which limits their sovereignty.” She takes a critical view of China’s territorial claims to the South China Sea, adding that Beijing refused to seek a compromise with neighboring countries and did not recognize the ruling on dispute resolution by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. “The commitment to multilateralism that is otherwise so often talked about by Chinese politicians proved to be lip service in this specific case.”
Merkel shies away from overly harsh criticism of Xi. She leaves it at indirect warnings. Unlike reform founder Deng Xiaoping, who followed the foreign policy maxim of hiding your strengths and waiting until the time is right, Xi felt after taking office that “now is the time to show your strengths.” Merkel’s pages about China remain blank, even though she would have so much more to say. If she dared to jump over her shadow and fill in the “blanks,” she would have enough material for an entire China book.
Which object does the character 丁 resemble? A nail? An umbrella? Or a coat hanger? A thong! This visual similarity is at least alluded to by the Chinese name for this tiny piece of underwear, which is 丁字裤 dīngzìkù, literally “character ‘thing’ pants.” In fact, “dīngzìkù” is not the only Chinese word that implies a similarity between objects and certain characters.
In light of declining birthrates, Beijing actually wants to propagate traditional gender roles and family models – even in films and TV shows. Nevertheless, “Hao Dongxi” is currently taking the Chinese box office by storm. The tragicomedy titled “Her Story” in English deals with sensitive socio-political issues such as gender inequality and sexual harassment. Critics and fans are already calling it the Chinese version of “Barbie.”
Dao Dongxi practically encapsulates the concerns of modern urban women: Career pressure and the urge for self-fulfilment, toxic dating culture, lack of recognition and parenting dilemmas. Fabian Peltsch argues why the box office hit can be seen as an emancipatory milestone.
Angela Merkel’s biography “Freedom” is another international hit. As German Chancellor, she visited the People’s Republic of China twelve times. She often traveled not only to Beijing, but also criss-crossed the country. In her memoirs, however, the pages about China remain blank – apart from a few observations about President Xi Jinping. Johnny Erling, who witnessed Merkel’s trips as Beijing correspondent, tries to fill in some gaps from his memories.
Jiyue was actually seen as a shining example and represented the direction in which Chinese automotive companies were headed. Tech giant Baidu and car manufacturer Geely founded the joint venture in 2021. Its super sports car resembling the Batmobile recently attracted attention at a car show in Guangzhou. But now, it seems to be on the verge of a deep downfall. The start-up apparently can no longer even pay its employees’ social security. Online videos show the CEO surrounded by employees demanding their wages. Julia Fiedler analyzes the reasons behind the crisis.
Have an informed start to the day.
“Hao Dongxi” (“好东西,” English title “Her Story”) has hit the Chinese box office by storm. Just two weeks after the official film release in late November, the tragicomedy had already cracked the 500 million RMB (68.7 million dollars) mark. This is even though it deals with sensitive socio-political issues such as gender inequality and sexual harassment, which are still part of everyday life for many of the approximately 690 million women in patriarchal China. Critics and fans are already calling it the Chinese version of “Barbie,” last year’s US box office hit, which also advocated female self-empowerment beneath its colorful surface.
The key to its success at the box office, alongside A-list stars such as Song Jia 宋佳, is probably the humor with which “Hao Dongxi” brings its feminist demands to mainstream cinema. The story revolves around single mother Wang Tiemei, who has to reconcile her career and the upbringing of her nine-year-old daughter Momo in contemporary Shanghai. The second main character is the charmingly chaotic musician Xiao Ye, who, out of a sense of female solidarity, becomes a kind of foster mother for Momo – and, in turn, gains new perspectives on her own childhood traumas from the precocious child.
The film was shot by 33-year-old director Shao Yihui 邵艺辉. Her 2021 comedy “B for Busy” (爱情神话) already dealt with the challenges that divorced and childless women face in China. But this time, she wanted to tell the story entirely from a female perspective. The men in the film remain side characters and come across as vain, complicated and awkward at best. Momo’s father, who seems like a big kid himself, is not even named and is simply referred to as 前夫: ex-husband.
Hao Dongxi’s work virtually encapsulates the concerns of modern urban women: career pressure and the urge for self-fulfillment, toxic dating culture, lack of recognition and parenting dilemmas. Some scenes seem to serve the feminist message alone, such as when the daughter talks about the normality of menstruation in a restaurant or Tiemei’s daily household chores are shown as poetic snapshots.
On top of that come numerous “Easter eggs” in the form of cross-references, books, pictures and quotes from feminist icons, such as the Japanese sociologist Chizuko Ueno or Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. It is sometimes obvious, perhaps too obvious for Western tastes with its many Anglicisms. But in China, feminist dialectics have never been so clearly presented to the mass audience. And since the state has recently been increasingly propagating classic gender roles and family models in light of declining birthrates, “Hao Dongxi” can rightly be seen as an emancipatory milestone.
“The film shows the life situations and voices of women in a warm and authentic way,” says a Chinese exchange student who came to one of two screenings of “Hao Dongxi” at Berlin’s UCI Luxe cinema. Her friend, who, like her, wishes to remain anonymous, adds that the film also addresses a number of other social problems in China, “for example, bureaucracy or all the bullying on the internet or in schools.” Both agree that the movie is not overrated, but “pretty well told and very entertaining” – especially “if you know what life is like in Shanghai.”
Of course, not everyone sees the box office hit in such a positive light. The director was promptly accused of hating men on social media. A lecturer at Tongji University’s Film Research Institute told Sixthtone magazine that although the film was well made, it should not contribute to fueling a “war of the sexes.” The social media watchblog Whatsonweibo quotes a viewer who also works in the film industry and accuses the director of “hypocrisy.” She argues that the producers of “Hao Dongxi” are primarily male, so the financial proceeds do not ultimately benefit women – feminist movie hit or not.
In any case, the film clearly shows one thing: Female voices are becoming increasingly important in China’s male-dominated film industry. In the past five years, several feature films and series have paved the way for “Hao Dongxi,” for example “YOLO” (麻辣滚烫), “Like a Rolling Stone” (出走的决心) or “To the Wonder” (我的阿勒泰), all of which focused on the fate of women in one way or another.
“I thought it was really nice to see a movie that was made by women for women,” says Leia, another student in the foyer of the Berlin cinema. “It tried to convey as much as possible within the scope of its possibilities,” says the 24-year-old. This shows that there is definitely “a shift on a societal level” and that audiences want to see stories like this, “at least as far as the stories of women living in rich cities like Shanghai are concerned,” adds her friend Lilian. Both believe that even more film investors will pay attention to works by women in the future and that even more female directors will explore social issues in cinema. “But that doesn’t mean it will be easy to address such things publicly.”
The Chinese electric car start-up Jiyue, originally founded in 2021 under Jidu as a “Robocar brand,” is in financial difficulties. The joint venture between Geely and Baidu is apparently no longer even able to pay employee social security. There are also rumors of mass layoffs. However, the company has denied bankruptcy. According to the trade newsletter Car News China, the company only sold just under 14,000 cars in the first eleven months of this year.
As a joint venture between an established and successful car manufacturer like Geely and leading tech company Baidu, Jiyue actually represents the direction in which Chinese automotive companies are headed, says Mark Rainford. He is an automotive expert in Shanghai and runs the Inside China Auto platform. Rainford is accordingly surprised at how bad the company’s situation appears to be.
CEO Xia Yiping informed employees in an online memo on Wednesday that the company would seek new funding and scrap projects. Departments and positions with redundant functions will be merged, which would result in numerous layoffs. However, the company denied any plans to cut jobs. According to Reuters, videos and live streams from the headquarters in Shanghai on Thursday show Xia surrounded by people who want to know when they will be paid.
“The size of the two players behind the scenes has helped Jiyue avoid serious scrutiny of its weak sales figures,” says auto expert Mark Rainford. “In the last few months, Jiyue has only achieved more than 2,000 units sold per month and only once more than 3,000. But everyone assumed the company was pretty safe because of the players involved.”
Experts in China saw the Jiyue brand as an experimental project by two large, successful corporations to test high-end technologies such as Baidu’s autonomous driving system. Most recently, the brand made a big and much-noticed appearance at the Guangzhou Motor Show with its Robo X super sports car, which was announced as a production model for 2027. The Batmobile-style car was to be equipped with Baidu’s Apollo autonomous driving technology, and according to Jiyue, all car functions could be controlled via voice commands.
Car expert Rainford attests the two Jiyue cars 01 and 07 very good performance, among other things due to its excellent EV platform, one of the best batteries on the market and the advanced driver assistance systems. Jiyue has over 140 sales offices in China, although the brand has only been on the market for a year. However, the company initially planned to have 250 sales offices by the end of 2024. Despite the parent companies Geely and Baidu, Jiyue remained under the customers’ radar.
This is partly due to the oversupply of electric car brands, which makes it difficult for young manufacturers to stand out and establish themselves among customers. The ongoing fierce price war on the Chinese car market, which puts many electric car start-ups under increasing pressure, has also become a problem for Jiyue. The company lowered its prices in the summer, but apparently, it was too late to win enough customers. With over 100 brands competing, only a few companies sell enough cars to be profitable. They rely on investor money and subsidies, which is why experts have been expecting consolidation for some time.
However, there are also positive examples that are doing well on the market. According to the trade publication China Automotive News, these include top dog BYD, Leapmotor and newcomer Xiaomi, which had already exceeded their annual sales targets by the end of November. Chang’an Automobile, NIO and others have achieved 80 percent of their annual targets, while many others have achieved around half of the sales they had set themselves for 2024.
However, numerous promising brands, such as Hiphi, have already vanished. The high-profile downfall of Jiyue could further reinforce this trend should customers become unsettled and decide to opt for large, established brands to avoid any disadvantages, for example, when it comes to spare parts or warranty claims, which may no longer be available if a start-up goes out of business.
Angela Merkel’s 720-page memoir broke all records with 200,000 copies sold in Germany in its first week of publication. However, critics were disappointed, calling it a book full of “gaps,” a “puzzle” that was missing too many pieces. This is also true for the China chapter. Merkel visited the People’s Republic twelve times during her term of office from 2005 to 2021, traveling all over the country.
Angela Merkel wanted to see more than just Beijing conference rooms during her short inaugural visit to China in May 2006. Her host, then Premier Wen Jiabao, persuaded her to go for a walk in Beijing Park 北京菖蒲河公园. Including early morning exercise: Wen taught her how to play Taiji ball. 太极柔力球.
Even on the first of their twelve trips to the People’s Republic, the atmosphere was relaxed and Wen and Merkel formed an unusual political friendship. When the Chancellor returned in late August 2007, the Premier chose Zhongshan Park at the Imperial Palace to take a stroll. The people of Beijing and international media were allowed to watch as Merkel tried her hand at diabolo 抖空竹.
The crisis came out of the blue. China’s charm offensive ended abruptly just as Merkel returned from Beijing to her official residence in Berlin to receive the Dalai Lama. She honored the Tibetan religious leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner with a private meeting. Beijing took it as an insult, as it saw the Dalai Lama as an enemy of the state and a separatist who wanted to secede Tibet from the People’s Republic. China’s leadership felt embarrassed and had Merkel attacked by incited bloggers as a “schemer” and, even worse, as a German “witch.” Beijing’s Foreign Ministry proclaimed an ice age in Sino-German relations. The Xinhua magazine China Newsweek was furious: “When Merkel met the Dalai on September 23, she had not been back from China for a month; her handshake with China’s leaders was still warm.”
Merkel’s memoir “Freedom” has no room for the turbulent period of her relationship with China. In the index of names (there is no subject index), only one sentence is hidden on page 385 under “Dalai Lama”: Merkel traveled to China, Japan and Africa in 2006 and 2007. She “received the Dalai Lama and the Saudi King Abdullah in Berlin.” That’s all. There is no mention of the three-month ice age that Beijing imposed on Berlin, which lasted until the beginning of 2008, or the domestic political controversy. China had managed to drive a wedge into German politics because of the Dalai Lama meeting. It found allies against Merkel in Frank Walter Steinmeier and former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who publicly criticized Merkel during a business trip to Beijing. China Daily reported this with delight on page 1 on November 9, 2007.
China is hardly mentioned in the book. Yet Merkel’s early trips speak volumes about her shifting view of the new superpower and her ambivalent relationship with Beijing. During her second visit, Merkel gave a keynote speech on climate policy at the Academy of Social Sciences on August 28, 2007. She skillfully drew a connection between the shared global responsibility for a sustainable world and the equally necessary debate on the values of the rule of law and freedom of opinion. She received much applause for this.
But not from everyone. China’s former ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, Mei Zhaorong, who had once studied in East Germany, joined the debate. He confronted Merkel: Does she see China as a kind of “enlarged East Germany”? That was “a rumor,” she responded coolly. “My knowledge is sufficient to know that your country is now following a path that is very exciting for us and where we also discuss some things with each other, but which has nothing to do with what happened in former East Germany.”
Three years later, in 2010, I asked Mei whether he still had any reservations about Merkel. He said: “Today, I realize she understands China much better. She has her values – we have ours.” He said he was not interested in her “changing her ideas, but only in her respecting ours.” She now knows “where our red line lies.”
Mei was not wrong. In background discussions that Merkel had with us correspondents, she initially confessed that nightmares had haunted her before her trip about the consequences if China were to collapse like East Germany.
Merkel knew what was going on in China. From 2006 onwards – and on every subsequent visit – she insisted on meeting informally at the embassy with persecuted authors and representatives of civil society. In very small groups, the author couple, Chen Guidi, and his wife, Chun Tao, informed her about the situation of disenfranchised farmers and migrant workers. Their investigative report had been banned. Both told us journalists how surprised they were to discuss social problems with Merkel in such detail. During her visit in 2007, the Chancellor met four critical journalists, bloggers and press lawyers to discuss censorship issues. Li Datong, a well-known investigative journalist banned from practicing his profession, told me: “We got into conversation with her so quickly that we completely forgot who was sitting in front of us. She knew immediately what we were talking about.”
Beijing was upset, but never openly objected to such meetings. In her book, Merkel only refers to this with an understatement: “During my visits to the German embassy in Beijing, I regularly met with members of the Chinese opposition, who were willing to take considerable risks to meet with me. I was able to help some people, but I could not change the systemic oppression of dissidents in China.” (p.587) World-renowned artists from Ai Weiwei to Liu Xia, the widow of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, who was persecuted until his cruel death, owed their freedom to Merkel’s intercession. Their names do not appear in the book “Freedom.”
Merkel sums up her China dilemma in one sentence: “My cooperation with the country was an example of realpolitik.” Although this did not mean “sweeping differences of opinion under the carpet,” it meant “respecting the respective political systems as a given and deriving areas of cooperation from common interests.” (S.588)
Apart from climate policy, the decisive factor for her was the realization that her annual visits to China were increasingly dominated by Germany’s “concrete” economic interests. One figure impresses her. During her first visit in 2006, China’s share of German foreign trade was 4.8 percent. This had doubled to “9.5 percent by the end of my term of office.” In 2014, Merkel signed a “strategic partnership agreement” with Xi Jinping and, towards the end of her trips to China, became a lobbyist for an investment agreement (CAI) with the EU, which Beijing wanted in particular. Merkel does not explain her change of heart in the book.
But from the very beginning, she followed the tradition of her predecessor in office, Gerhard Schröder, and took high-ranking business leaders with her on every trip to China. Schröder liked opening doors. Merkel was initially less accommodating to corporate executives. For example, on her fourth trip to China, to the old imperial city of Xi’an in July 2010, where she also celebrated her birthday. Premier Wen Jiabao and 25 German business leaders accompanied her.
Wen presented the Chancellor with a very special birthday present: Together, they hosted a business forum with a new format, where German and Chinese CEOs were invited to talk shop. Journalists were allowed to listen in. Wen and Merkel interrupted the first speaker, the CEO of Siemens, when he began to praise Beijing’s support for foreign investors in an old-fashioned servant-like manner. Wen said he would rather hear about problems. Merkel responded by saying that she had heard a completely different story from the CEO the evening before. An open discussion then began between the Germans and the Chinese. From then on, Merkel and China’s premiers would preside over such economic forums. A lot was discussed, but no solutions were found.
Merkel only goes into detail once in the book, in the passage on the “new global powers India and China.” (pp. 581-590) She immediately noticed how Xi Jinping, who became president in 2013, made everything his responsibility: “I discussed almost all problems with him. He repositioned China.”
She first met Xi in Beijing in July 2010, at the time vice president and head of the party academy.
Thanks to “my Marxist-Leninist knowledge,” she was able to talk shop with him about the Communist Party and China’s form of dictatorship. “Ultimately, it was about the question of what rights individuals have in a society and who is allowed to curtail them by invoking the common good.” In her view, there is not just one group “that knows and determines the best path for everyone else.” Such thinking would lead to the “lack of individual freedom.” Her conclusion: “When it came to human rights, our opinions could not be more different.” (S.567). It remains to be seen what of this will stay in the Beijing translation of Merkel’s “Freedom,” which will be published in early 2025.
China’s censors will also sweat when they read Merkel’s geopolitical appraisal of Xi’s Silk Road initiative: “The reality shows that countries, particularly in Asia and Africa, often become financially dependent on China due to the costs associated with the investments, which limits their sovereignty.” She takes a critical view of China’s territorial claims to the South China Sea, adding that Beijing refused to seek a compromise with neighboring countries and did not recognize the ruling on dispute resolution by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. “The commitment to multilateralism that is otherwise so often talked about by Chinese politicians proved to be lip service in this specific case.”
Merkel shies away from overly harsh criticism of Xi. She leaves it at indirect warnings. Unlike reform founder Deng Xiaoping, who followed the foreign policy maxim of hiding your strengths and waiting until the time is right, Xi felt after taking office that “now is the time to show your strengths.” Merkel’s pages about China remain blank, even though she would have so much more to say. If she dared to jump over her shadow and fill in the “blanks,” she would have enough material for an entire China book.
Which object does the character 丁 resemble? A nail? An umbrella? Or a coat hanger? A thong! This visual similarity is at least alluded to by the Chinese name for this tiny piece of underwear, which is 丁字裤 dīngzìkù, literally “character ‘thing’ pants.” In fact, “dīngzìkù” is not the only Chinese word that implies a similarity between objects and certain characters.
