The visit of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Beijing is currently a source of much debate. In a guest commentary, German politician Friedrich Merz considers the visit completely ill-timed. “The visit of the German chancellor and still acting president of the G7 countries directly after the 20th Party Congress of the CP of China will be highly welcome in China.” The CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader fears a “propaganda success” for the state leadership, especially since Scholz will carry the approval of the Cosco start-up in Hamburg in his luggage. In this context, Merz highlights that China continues to support Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The Scholz trip is also the focus of our analysis – but this time from Beijing’s point of view. With which Western countries can China still cooperate effectively? Germany is indeed one of the few remaining partners, writes Frank Sieren. In the US, Donald Trump could make a comeback as president, France has long been on a confrontational course, and newcomers are in power in the UK and Italy. Olaf Scholz could use this state of affairs on Thursday in Beijing to extract the best for mutual interests – not only for the battered economy, but also for climate protection or an end to the Ukraine war.
We are two days away from the exciting visit of the chancellor to Beijing. We continue to follow the debate from different angles.
Many of the current problems stem not only from power politics, but also from a lack of mutual understanding. This is where the EU wants to help. Two academic projects aim to help pool China expertise in Europe and make it accessible to decision-makers. Amelie Richter explains what DWARC and Reconnect China are all about.
There is not much time on his day trip to China. Nevertheless, Chancellor Olaf Scholz must make a move in Beijing: It is the only way to ease the domestic political pressure, which once again rose significantly after he approved of the partial sale of a terminal at the Port of Hamburg.
The discussion with Premier Li Keqiang, his exact counterpart by rank, will certainly be interesting, but is no longer important. Li’s faction has been stripped of its power. The only interesting thing now is what tone he will adopt as the loser. The decisive factor will be the talks with Xi Jinping, the state and party leader, who has been more powerful than ever since the 20th Party Congress (China.Table reported).
But what does the world look like from Xi’s perspective? Who in the West can Beijing talk to move forward on the big issues, such as the Ukraine war, pandemic control and, above all, climate change? These are issues that even Xi’s new self-confident to nationalistic China cannot solve on its own.
From Beijing’s perspective, the group in the West with whom consensus seems possible is certainly not big. The already weak US President Joe Biden is expected to lose his majority in both Congress and the House of Representatives on November 8. The two still know each other well from vice presidential days. But Biden’s leeway is small.
Beijing never really warmed to Emmanuel Macron, the French president. He is considered unreliable. Moreover, after the election results, he too has his back to the wall in terms of domestic politics. And the EU? Ursula von der Leyen is pouting in the face of the sanctions, is hardly visible in Beijing, and carries no political weight of her own. Rishi Sunak, the UK’s Prime Minister, is considered new, young, inexperienced. Beijing is convinced that his Indian roots will not help Chinese-British relations. Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is also new. With her “Italy first” policy, she is unlikely to be cooperative. Canadian Justin Trudeau has been in office for seven years, but failed to build up any international political weight.
So Scholz remains the only choice when cooperating with the West. Even though Beijing may consider him the one-eyed among the blind. With the port deal (China.Table reported), Scholz has proven that he is domestically heat-resistant. He has made an impression in Beijing.
As an interlocutor, however, Scholz has one major disadvantage from Beijing’s perspective: He governs a country where criticism of China currently grows louder; from the Chinese perception, it is already seen as hostile. Germany appears as a country where emotions dominate the mood outside the economy. Beijing is aware that Scholz has to take this into account. Not only with voters, but also within the government coalition.
Nevertheless, Beijing has four good reasons to reach out to Scholz and make him good offers.
In the Ukraine war, the task is to find a common linguistic approach. It cannot completely snub Putin at China’s request, but it should make clear that China, Germany and the EU have a common interest that they want to promote at the G20 meeting in Bali in mid-November: an end to the war. The G20 format has one major advantage: everyone is at the table. Biden, but also Putin. And unlike the UN, there is no veto power.
The pressure to act on climate change is even greater from Beijing’s point of view. It grows to become a matter of social stability and thus the very survival of the Communist Party. China was forced to experience this last summer. And the report on the 20th Party Congress already reflects this. The West promised a lot to the developing countries, but delivered little. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (ICPP) even complains that “the West has never fulfilled its obligations” under the Paris Agreement to “underdeveloped countries.”
But it won’t work without the West. Even China can see that. Getting India and Asia on a climate course will not be difficult. The potential risks are high everywhere. But how can Beijing cooperate with the West outside the United Nations, which has become too slow and too cumbersome as a result of Chinese influence? And above all, who will be the contact countries?
Olaf Scholz could be that contact person. Beijing and Berlin can easily agree on a common starting position: The market alone does not make the world green. It must be regulated. That is something Germany’s Economy Minister Robert Habeck can also get behind.
In China, regulation is to take place in a kind of “Climate Supply Chain Act”. However, this would have a major impact on German companies that produce and sell in China. Unless, that is, the rules were to apply equally to Germany and the EU, to German and Chinese companies in the respective countries. In other words, it is about the often demanded but ignored reciprocity. In the case of climate change, however, it would stand a realistic chance.
What could this look like in practice? Instead of Germany having to let China force it to play by new rules in climate protection, as it did with EVs, the two sides could join forces right away. After all, Germany and China are both determined to curb emissions. This could open up a lasting chapter of sustainable international cooperation.
What kind of mechanism could be at the center? Cooperation initiated by Germany and China would be based on permanent, sanction-free, barrier-free and reliable action – at least in some clearly defined areas.
When it comes to climate change, this can be done without losing face in each other’s eyes. Instead of waiting for the climate protection negotiations under the UN roof to yield robust results recognized by all countries as binding targets, China and some major industrialized countries could take a leading role in order to drag others along with them.
That is a big project, but something that Xi and Scholz could certainly kick off with an eye to Bali. Then, at any rate, the trip would have been worthwhile for Scholz, and he would be able to present his Green coalition partner with a green reconciliation gift. Because there is one thing Scholz should not do now: Come home from the business trip without flowers, even if he did not stay the night.
Just over two weeks ago, German Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger urged vigilance on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with China: “German-Chinese relations must always be critically scrutinized, especially with regard to research cooperation,” said the FDP politician (China.Table reported).
Several EU-funded scientific projects now seek to restructure cooperation with the People’s Republic in various areas. The programs “ReConnect China” and “Dealing with a resurgent China” (DWARC) are expected to produce not only recommendations for EU institutions, but also databases, workshops for companies and, as far as China is concerned, in-depth education for European youth.
“We need to develop an independent and autonomous knowledge of China in Europe, so we can also reach a more balanced China policy,” emphasizes sinology professor Bart Dessein from the University of Ghent in conversation with China.Table. Dessein heads “ReConnect China,” one of the research projects supported from Brussels as part of the EU’s Horizon research funding program. Dozens of project proposals submitted applications following the EU Commission’s call. The two consortia have been selected to receive funding.
Over the next four years, “ReConnect China” will examine the areas in which cooperation with the People’s Republic will be possible. This applies not only to the academic sector, but also to business and politics, as Dessein explains. The EU’s China policy has so far inevitably also been influenced by the tensions between Beijing and Washington, says the scientist. Here, the EU still needs to become more independent, he adds. Brussels also wants to use the projects to promote closer cooperation between existing China research institutions in the EU.
One potential area of cooperation that will also play a major role in the “ReConnect” research consortium is the field of sustainable energy generation, according to Dessein. So will the tech industry. The fact that academic cooperation in particular recently revealed deep ties between Chinese research institutes and the military will inevitably have to be addressed as well, Dessein says. “We hope that by the end of the project we will be able to see with whom cooperation is still possible and with whom rather not.”
A total of 15 different partners from various EU countries are involved in “ReConnect” in different working groups. In addition to the University of Ghent, these include the Egmont Institute, also based in Belgium, the French Institut Français des Relations Internationales, the University of Vienna and the Fundacion Real Instituto Elcano de Estudios Internacionales y Estrategicos in Spain. From the CEEC region, the Palacky University of Olomouc in the Czech Republic is involved, and from the Baltic region, among others, the University of Turku in Finland. Some four million euros will initially flow officially into the two research projects.
The scientists now have four years, at the end of which a database with assessments on politics, science and business is to be created. Workshops for company representatives and reports with recommendations to the EU institutions are also the goal of the project. During the project phase, there will be forums for exchange at regular intervals, explains Dessein.
As the name “ReConnect” suggests, the goal is also to “reconnect” with the People’s Republic. In view of Beijing’s isolationist zero-Covid policy, one might suspect that the project specifically works to re-establish contacts with China after the end of the Covid pandemic. However, the call of the EU Commission for China-related Horizon projects dates back to 2020, when it was not yet fully foreseeable how difficult it would still be to get into China in 2022.
The funding call started in 2021, officially “ReConnect China” and “DWARC” will start on November 1, a big launch event is planned for the end of November. Still, the lack of access is a bit of a disappointment for the consortia. “Of course, we would prefer to go to China two or three times a year,” Dessein says. But the research institutes involved have all maintained contacts with China for years and can now draw on this network, he adds.
The German China Institute Merics is part of the “DWARC” project. The Ruhr University in Bochum, the EU think tank Bruegel and the Fondations Nationale des Sciences Politiques from France are also involved.
Another goal is to better impart China expertise to young people. “It is important to raise awareness of China so that we can deal with the country intelligently,” says Dessein. Indeed, in European education, for example when it comes to history, there has so far been a lack of knowledge about what happened outside Europe, Dessein criticizes. “Only very few people know the history of China, Japan or African countries.” This is out of date, the sinology professor believes. “What Europe is and what it stands for is increasingly decided outside Europe.” That is why mutual understanding between China and Europe is so important, he says.
The German Embassy in Beijing commemorated the Tiananmen Square massacre with a clever online post on the short messaging service Weibo. To do so, the embassy used a tribute to the anniversary of diplomatic relations, recalling defining events in each of the two countries’ past 50 years. For 1989, it published a photo from the day the Wall fell next to an all-black image. Underneath, the German representative office wrote explanatory lines about the image from Berlin and another six blacked-out lines in reference to censorship in China.
The post received nearly 4,000 likes and more than 600 comments, some of which denigrated Germany. “German healthcare workers protest. Money to support Ukraine, but no money for a wage increase,” one says; “Germany lost both WW1 and WW2 when the 3rd …,” says another. Some comments were ambiguous: “Friendship endures” or included a reference to Taiwan: “Congratulations on the reunification of the German nation (good). Hopefully the G7 will not interfere further when we are peacefully united.”
For more than 30 years, the Chinese government has worked hard to banish the state-ordered bloodshed of June 1989 from the population’s collective memory. To this end, it strictly censors direct as well as indirect references to the tragedy and punishes any form of commemoration. As a result, users are unable to leave comments under such a post that advocate a culture of remembrance. They would expose themselves to repression by the authorities.
Germany’s new ambassador to Beijing, Patricia Flor, stated in an interview with China.Table a few weeks ago, that she wanted to make greater use of social media as a communication channel. With the post, the embassy holds a mirror up to the Chinese government just days before the visit of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. grz
China is rapidly turning its space strategy into reality: The national space agency has launched the last missing module of the Tiangong space station into space. The name of the module is “Mengtian“, “Heavenly Dreams”; it is a laboratory. With Tiangong, China now operates the second human space outpost outside the Earth’s atmosphere besides the ISS. The Chinese station has been permanently manned since this summer. With Mengtian, it is considered complete, but can still be expanded.
Tiangong orbits the Earth at a distance of 400 kilometers. After docking with Mengtian, its structure resembles a cross of three tubes: the Wentian and Mengtian science modules and the Tianhe control and habitation module. The US excluded China from participating in the ISS in 2011. The leadership’s goal now is to achieve as much independence as possible in aerospace technology. fin
This week, Olaf Scholz travels to China for his first visit as German Chancellor. The chosen date is more than ill-timed. For one thing, a new China strategy of the German government is still being drafted. The same applies to the EU. And since relations with France are already under severe strain, Germany’s refusal of a joint visit by Macron and Scholz will further weigh on bilateral relations. And most importantly, China is supporting Russia in the war against Ukraine. Without China, North Korea would not be able to advance its nuclear weaponization. The visit of the German chancellor and current president of the G7 countries directly after the 20th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party will therefore be highly welcome in China. With the involvement of the Chinese state-owned company Cosco in a terminal in the port of Hamburg in the baggage, the visit will above all be a propaganda success for the Chinese leadership.
China is the world’s second-largest economy, the world’s largest exporter, and China’s demand for energy, raw materials, food and much else moves the world’s markets. And because Germany has the highest degree of economic openness of any OECD country and thrives on it, the conversation must be with China. Beijing has certainly read the coalition agreement signed by the CDU/CSU and will ask the chancellor what the German government’s announced China strategy will include. If he does not want to again dupe his coalition partners, above all the foreign minister, then he can only say very little about it.
However, some framework conditions for future cooperation can already be mentioned today: China is not Germany’s largest and most important trading partner. Fortunately, it is and remains the European Union. Trade with our direct neighbors in the EU alone, with the Netherlands, France, Poland, Italy, Austria and Belgium, exceeds the volume of trade with China by a factor of four! China is important, but Europe is far more important. Then comes the United States of America, followed by China.
But China is the fastest growing market in the world right now, China possesses important raw materials, and so China remains a very important trading partner for us. But China is about to further bring us into economic dependencies. Especially after the experience with Russian gas, we should be very careful now because of that. In the first half of 2022, Germany’s trade deficit with China was around €40 billion, partly due to China’s decoupling strategy. However, the openly declared goal of the Chinese state and party leadership is to replace imports from Germany with production in China. And there, the influence of Communist Party cells on the management of German companies and German subsidiaries has been growing for years. This, too, creates new dependencies and vulnerabilities.
Because China has changed fundamentally under Xi Jinping’s rule. The country’s leadership is becoming increasingly repressive domestically and more aggressive in its foreign policy, even to the point of openly threatening war on Taiwan. This is accompanied by a focused strategy of asymmetrical dependencies with global trading partners, for instance, through the so-called “Silk Road Project.” The state of China has become a geostrategic and, above all, a geoeconomic actor. Xi Jinping pursues a hard-line Leninist-Maoist course of dominance and ideological supremacy like no other Chinese ruler since Mao. Beijing’s domestic behavior, be it against the Tibetan and Uyghur minorities, against advocates of freedom of expression or against the people of Hong Kong, but also its aggressive tone toward Taiwan, are warning signs in ever-increasing numbers.
Thus, all expectations of “change through trade,” which were also associated with China’s accession to the WTO in 2001, have remained unfulfilled. On the contrary, China is using all bilateral and multilateral relations solely for its own benefit, thus systematically expanding its political, economic and military supremacy beyond its immediate neighborhood.
For this reason, the previous German government already significantly tightened controls on Chinese direct investment in Germany, for example in critical infrastructure. The Foreign Trade and Payments Act now provides far greater scope for prohibiting minority shareholdings. But in addition to purely security-related inspections, a further inspection standard should be included. With its accession to the WTO, China committed itself to far-reaching market openings, in particular to the principles of reciprocity and non-discrimination.
The sheer numbers of reciprocal direct investments obscure the fact that these principles are still not being adhered to in China, for example in the acquisition of property and shareholdings. Therefore, the rules of reciprocity should be given greater attention in the future. It must be assumed that the “economic competitor” and “systemic rival” China under Xi will initially refuse this. But then, approvals of Chinese stakes and acquisitions in German companies will have to be handled far more restrictively in the future, even below the threshold of pure security considerations.
China and Germany share long and changing relations, which in recent years have been dominated by economic interests. The real challenge to our relations, however, lies in vastly different views of the world’s future political order. So if the Chancellor already travels to China at this point in time, the talks with today’s China must be focused on global political issues “beyond supply and demand”.
Friedrich Merz is the Chairman of the CDU and Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the German parliament.
The wheel of history continues to turn inexorably, bringing with it constant change. But despite all the changes the metropolis of Hong Kong experienced in recent years, there are still things that never seem to change. Here, an elderly man practices Tai Chi near Victoria Harbour.
The visit of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Beijing is currently a source of much debate. In a guest commentary, German politician Friedrich Merz considers the visit completely ill-timed. “The visit of the German chancellor and still acting president of the G7 countries directly after the 20th Party Congress of the CP of China will be highly welcome in China.” The CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader fears a “propaganda success” for the state leadership, especially since Scholz will carry the approval of the Cosco start-up in Hamburg in his luggage. In this context, Merz highlights that China continues to support Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The Scholz trip is also the focus of our analysis – but this time from Beijing’s point of view. With which Western countries can China still cooperate effectively? Germany is indeed one of the few remaining partners, writes Frank Sieren. In the US, Donald Trump could make a comeback as president, France has long been on a confrontational course, and newcomers are in power in the UK and Italy. Olaf Scholz could use this state of affairs on Thursday in Beijing to extract the best for mutual interests – not only for the battered economy, but also for climate protection or an end to the Ukraine war.
We are two days away from the exciting visit of the chancellor to Beijing. We continue to follow the debate from different angles.
Many of the current problems stem not only from power politics, but also from a lack of mutual understanding. This is where the EU wants to help. Two academic projects aim to help pool China expertise in Europe and make it accessible to decision-makers. Amelie Richter explains what DWARC and Reconnect China are all about.
There is not much time on his day trip to China. Nevertheless, Chancellor Olaf Scholz must make a move in Beijing: It is the only way to ease the domestic political pressure, which once again rose significantly after he approved of the partial sale of a terminal at the Port of Hamburg.
The discussion with Premier Li Keqiang, his exact counterpart by rank, will certainly be interesting, but is no longer important. Li’s faction has been stripped of its power. The only interesting thing now is what tone he will adopt as the loser. The decisive factor will be the talks with Xi Jinping, the state and party leader, who has been more powerful than ever since the 20th Party Congress (China.Table reported).
But what does the world look like from Xi’s perspective? Who in the West can Beijing talk to move forward on the big issues, such as the Ukraine war, pandemic control and, above all, climate change? These are issues that even Xi’s new self-confident to nationalistic China cannot solve on its own.
From Beijing’s perspective, the group in the West with whom consensus seems possible is certainly not big. The already weak US President Joe Biden is expected to lose his majority in both Congress and the House of Representatives on November 8. The two still know each other well from vice presidential days. But Biden’s leeway is small.
Beijing never really warmed to Emmanuel Macron, the French president. He is considered unreliable. Moreover, after the election results, he too has his back to the wall in terms of domestic politics. And the EU? Ursula von der Leyen is pouting in the face of the sanctions, is hardly visible in Beijing, and carries no political weight of her own. Rishi Sunak, the UK’s Prime Minister, is considered new, young, inexperienced. Beijing is convinced that his Indian roots will not help Chinese-British relations. Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is also new. With her “Italy first” policy, she is unlikely to be cooperative. Canadian Justin Trudeau has been in office for seven years, but failed to build up any international political weight.
So Scholz remains the only choice when cooperating with the West. Even though Beijing may consider him the one-eyed among the blind. With the port deal (China.Table reported), Scholz has proven that he is domestically heat-resistant. He has made an impression in Beijing.
As an interlocutor, however, Scholz has one major disadvantage from Beijing’s perspective: He governs a country where criticism of China currently grows louder; from the Chinese perception, it is already seen as hostile. Germany appears as a country where emotions dominate the mood outside the economy. Beijing is aware that Scholz has to take this into account. Not only with voters, but also within the government coalition.
Nevertheless, Beijing has four good reasons to reach out to Scholz and make him good offers.
In the Ukraine war, the task is to find a common linguistic approach. It cannot completely snub Putin at China’s request, but it should make clear that China, Germany and the EU have a common interest that they want to promote at the G20 meeting in Bali in mid-November: an end to the war. The G20 format has one major advantage: everyone is at the table. Biden, but also Putin. And unlike the UN, there is no veto power.
The pressure to act on climate change is even greater from Beijing’s point of view. It grows to become a matter of social stability and thus the very survival of the Communist Party. China was forced to experience this last summer. And the report on the 20th Party Congress already reflects this. The West promised a lot to the developing countries, but delivered little. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (ICPP) even complains that “the West has never fulfilled its obligations” under the Paris Agreement to “underdeveloped countries.”
But it won’t work without the West. Even China can see that. Getting India and Asia on a climate course will not be difficult. The potential risks are high everywhere. But how can Beijing cooperate with the West outside the United Nations, which has become too slow and too cumbersome as a result of Chinese influence? And above all, who will be the contact countries?
Olaf Scholz could be that contact person. Beijing and Berlin can easily agree on a common starting position: The market alone does not make the world green. It must be regulated. That is something Germany’s Economy Minister Robert Habeck can also get behind.
In China, regulation is to take place in a kind of “Climate Supply Chain Act”. However, this would have a major impact on German companies that produce and sell in China. Unless, that is, the rules were to apply equally to Germany and the EU, to German and Chinese companies in the respective countries. In other words, it is about the often demanded but ignored reciprocity. In the case of climate change, however, it would stand a realistic chance.
What could this look like in practice? Instead of Germany having to let China force it to play by new rules in climate protection, as it did with EVs, the two sides could join forces right away. After all, Germany and China are both determined to curb emissions. This could open up a lasting chapter of sustainable international cooperation.
What kind of mechanism could be at the center? Cooperation initiated by Germany and China would be based on permanent, sanction-free, barrier-free and reliable action – at least in some clearly defined areas.
When it comes to climate change, this can be done without losing face in each other’s eyes. Instead of waiting for the climate protection negotiations under the UN roof to yield robust results recognized by all countries as binding targets, China and some major industrialized countries could take a leading role in order to drag others along with them.
That is a big project, but something that Xi and Scholz could certainly kick off with an eye to Bali. Then, at any rate, the trip would have been worthwhile for Scholz, and he would be able to present his Green coalition partner with a green reconciliation gift. Because there is one thing Scholz should not do now: Come home from the business trip without flowers, even if he did not stay the night.
Just over two weeks ago, German Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger urged vigilance on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with China: “German-Chinese relations must always be critically scrutinized, especially with regard to research cooperation,” said the FDP politician (China.Table reported).
Several EU-funded scientific projects now seek to restructure cooperation with the People’s Republic in various areas. The programs “ReConnect China” and “Dealing with a resurgent China” (DWARC) are expected to produce not only recommendations for EU institutions, but also databases, workshops for companies and, as far as China is concerned, in-depth education for European youth.
“We need to develop an independent and autonomous knowledge of China in Europe, so we can also reach a more balanced China policy,” emphasizes sinology professor Bart Dessein from the University of Ghent in conversation with China.Table. Dessein heads “ReConnect China,” one of the research projects supported from Brussels as part of the EU’s Horizon research funding program. Dozens of project proposals submitted applications following the EU Commission’s call. The two consortia have been selected to receive funding.
Over the next four years, “ReConnect China” will examine the areas in which cooperation with the People’s Republic will be possible. This applies not only to the academic sector, but also to business and politics, as Dessein explains. The EU’s China policy has so far inevitably also been influenced by the tensions between Beijing and Washington, says the scientist. Here, the EU still needs to become more independent, he adds. Brussels also wants to use the projects to promote closer cooperation between existing China research institutions in the EU.
One potential area of cooperation that will also play a major role in the “ReConnect” research consortium is the field of sustainable energy generation, according to Dessein. So will the tech industry. The fact that academic cooperation in particular recently revealed deep ties between Chinese research institutes and the military will inevitably have to be addressed as well, Dessein says. “We hope that by the end of the project we will be able to see with whom cooperation is still possible and with whom rather not.”
A total of 15 different partners from various EU countries are involved in “ReConnect” in different working groups. In addition to the University of Ghent, these include the Egmont Institute, also based in Belgium, the French Institut Français des Relations Internationales, the University of Vienna and the Fundacion Real Instituto Elcano de Estudios Internacionales y Estrategicos in Spain. From the CEEC region, the Palacky University of Olomouc in the Czech Republic is involved, and from the Baltic region, among others, the University of Turku in Finland. Some four million euros will initially flow officially into the two research projects.
The scientists now have four years, at the end of which a database with assessments on politics, science and business is to be created. Workshops for company representatives and reports with recommendations to the EU institutions are also the goal of the project. During the project phase, there will be forums for exchange at regular intervals, explains Dessein.
As the name “ReConnect” suggests, the goal is also to “reconnect” with the People’s Republic. In view of Beijing’s isolationist zero-Covid policy, one might suspect that the project specifically works to re-establish contacts with China after the end of the Covid pandemic. However, the call of the EU Commission for China-related Horizon projects dates back to 2020, when it was not yet fully foreseeable how difficult it would still be to get into China in 2022.
The funding call started in 2021, officially “ReConnect China” and “DWARC” will start on November 1, a big launch event is planned for the end of November. Still, the lack of access is a bit of a disappointment for the consortia. “Of course, we would prefer to go to China two or three times a year,” Dessein says. But the research institutes involved have all maintained contacts with China for years and can now draw on this network, he adds.
The German China Institute Merics is part of the “DWARC” project. The Ruhr University in Bochum, the EU think tank Bruegel and the Fondations Nationale des Sciences Politiques from France are also involved.
Another goal is to better impart China expertise to young people. “It is important to raise awareness of China so that we can deal with the country intelligently,” says Dessein. Indeed, in European education, for example when it comes to history, there has so far been a lack of knowledge about what happened outside Europe, Dessein criticizes. “Only very few people know the history of China, Japan or African countries.” This is out of date, the sinology professor believes. “What Europe is and what it stands for is increasingly decided outside Europe.” That is why mutual understanding between China and Europe is so important, he says.
The German Embassy in Beijing commemorated the Tiananmen Square massacre with a clever online post on the short messaging service Weibo. To do so, the embassy used a tribute to the anniversary of diplomatic relations, recalling defining events in each of the two countries’ past 50 years. For 1989, it published a photo from the day the Wall fell next to an all-black image. Underneath, the German representative office wrote explanatory lines about the image from Berlin and another six blacked-out lines in reference to censorship in China.
The post received nearly 4,000 likes and more than 600 comments, some of which denigrated Germany. “German healthcare workers protest. Money to support Ukraine, but no money for a wage increase,” one says; “Germany lost both WW1 and WW2 when the 3rd …,” says another. Some comments were ambiguous: “Friendship endures” or included a reference to Taiwan: “Congratulations on the reunification of the German nation (good). Hopefully the G7 will not interfere further when we are peacefully united.”
For more than 30 years, the Chinese government has worked hard to banish the state-ordered bloodshed of June 1989 from the population’s collective memory. To this end, it strictly censors direct as well as indirect references to the tragedy and punishes any form of commemoration. As a result, users are unable to leave comments under such a post that advocate a culture of remembrance. They would expose themselves to repression by the authorities.
Germany’s new ambassador to Beijing, Patricia Flor, stated in an interview with China.Table a few weeks ago, that she wanted to make greater use of social media as a communication channel. With the post, the embassy holds a mirror up to the Chinese government just days before the visit of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. grz
China is rapidly turning its space strategy into reality: The national space agency has launched the last missing module of the Tiangong space station into space. The name of the module is “Mengtian“, “Heavenly Dreams”; it is a laboratory. With Tiangong, China now operates the second human space outpost outside the Earth’s atmosphere besides the ISS. The Chinese station has been permanently manned since this summer. With Mengtian, it is considered complete, but can still be expanded.
Tiangong orbits the Earth at a distance of 400 kilometers. After docking with Mengtian, its structure resembles a cross of three tubes: the Wentian and Mengtian science modules and the Tianhe control and habitation module. The US excluded China from participating in the ISS in 2011. The leadership’s goal now is to achieve as much independence as possible in aerospace technology. fin
This week, Olaf Scholz travels to China for his first visit as German Chancellor. The chosen date is more than ill-timed. For one thing, a new China strategy of the German government is still being drafted. The same applies to the EU. And since relations with France are already under severe strain, Germany’s refusal of a joint visit by Macron and Scholz will further weigh on bilateral relations. And most importantly, China is supporting Russia in the war against Ukraine. Without China, North Korea would not be able to advance its nuclear weaponization. The visit of the German chancellor and current president of the G7 countries directly after the 20th Party Congress of the Chinese Communist Party will therefore be highly welcome in China. With the involvement of the Chinese state-owned company Cosco in a terminal in the port of Hamburg in the baggage, the visit will above all be a propaganda success for the Chinese leadership.
China is the world’s second-largest economy, the world’s largest exporter, and China’s demand for energy, raw materials, food and much else moves the world’s markets. And because Germany has the highest degree of economic openness of any OECD country and thrives on it, the conversation must be with China. Beijing has certainly read the coalition agreement signed by the CDU/CSU and will ask the chancellor what the German government’s announced China strategy will include. If he does not want to again dupe his coalition partners, above all the foreign minister, then he can only say very little about it.
However, some framework conditions for future cooperation can already be mentioned today: China is not Germany’s largest and most important trading partner. Fortunately, it is and remains the European Union. Trade with our direct neighbors in the EU alone, with the Netherlands, France, Poland, Italy, Austria and Belgium, exceeds the volume of trade with China by a factor of four! China is important, but Europe is far more important. Then comes the United States of America, followed by China.
But China is the fastest growing market in the world right now, China possesses important raw materials, and so China remains a very important trading partner for us. But China is about to further bring us into economic dependencies. Especially after the experience with Russian gas, we should be very careful now because of that. In the first half of 2022, Germany’s trade deficit with China was around €40 billion, partly due to China’s decoupling strategy. However, the openly declared goal of the Chinese state and party leadership is to replace imports from Germany with production in China. And there, the influence of Communist Party cells on the management of German companies and German subsidiaries has been growing for years. This, too, creates new dependencies and vulnerabilities.
Because China has changed fundamentally under Xi Jinping’s rule. The country’s leadership is becoming increasingly repressive domestically and more aggressive in its foreign policy, even to the point of openly threatening war on Taiwan. This is accompanied by a focused strategy of asymmetrical dependencies with global trading partners, for instance, through the so-called “Silk Road Project.” The state of China has become a geostrategic and, above all, a geoeconomic actor. Xi Jinping pursues a hard-line Leninist-Maoist course of dominance and ideological supremacy like no other Chinese ruler since Mao. Beijing’s domestic behavior, be it against the Tibetan and Uyghur minorities, against advocates of freedom of expression or against the people of Hong Kong, but also its aggressive tone toward Taiwan, are warning signs in ever-increasing numbers.
Thus, all expectations of “change through trade,” which were also associated with China’s accession to the WTO in 2001, have remained unfulfilled. On the contrary, China is using all bilateral and multilateral relations solely for its own benefit, thus systematically expanding its political, economic and military supremacy beyond its immediate neighborhood.
For this reason, the previous German government already significantly tightened controls on Chinese direct investment in Germany, for example in critical infrastructure. The Foreign Trade and Payments Act now provides far greater scope for prohibiting minority shareholdings. But in addition to purely security-related inspections, a further inspection standard should be included. With its accession to the WTO, China committed itself to far-reaching market openings, in particular to the principles of reciprocity and non-discrimination.
The sheer numbers of reciprocal direct investments obscure the fact that these principles are still not being adhered to in China, for example in the acquisition of property and shareholdings. Therefore, the rules of reciprocity should be given greater attention in the future. It must be assumed that the “economic competitor” and “systemic rival” China under Xi will initially refuse this. But then, approvals of Chinese stakes and acquisitions in German companies will have to be handled far more restrictively in the future, even below the threshold of pure security considerations.
China and Germany share long and changing relations, which in recent years have been dominated by economic interests. The real challenge to our relations, however, lies in vastly different views of the world’s future political order. So if the Chancellor already travels to China at this point in time, the talks with today’s China must be focused on global political issues “beyond supply and demand”.
Friedrich Merz is the Chairman of the CDU and Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the German parliament.
The wheel of history continues to turn inexorably, bringing with it constant change. But despite all the changes the metropolis of Hong Kong experienced in recent years, there are still things that never seem to change. Here, an elderly man practices Tai Chi near Victoria Harbour.
