As far as participation in important international gatherings such as the G20 summit is concerned, representatives of participating countries probably don’t have a “yes,” “no,” or “maybe” selection option as they do with a Teams meeting. Nevertheless, Xi Jinping has canceled his attendance at next week’s summit in India. As to why, speculation is running wild. Apart from his possible reasons, it is also interesting to see what his absence means for the summit. Western countries attach great symbolism to his absence, writes Christiane Kuehl. For the host, India’s Prime Minister Modi, reaching a joint final declaration will not be easy as it is. If it fails, the meeting risks losing relevance.
Likewise, decisions of the WTO lose relevance if the settlements have no consequences, writes Amelie Richter. The World Trade Organization may have ruled that the reciprocal tariffs between the United States and China are illegal. The next step would be to call on the WTO’s Appellate Body. But it hasn’t had a quorum since 2019. Ultimately, it’s a sideshow anyway. The focus in the trade war now lies, for instance, on export and investment restrictions as well as restrictions on technology transfer. And there is no international regulatory framework for this.
“No entry for dogs and Chinese” – this sign allegedly used to hang at the entrance to a Shanghai park in the late 19th century. A myth that has persisted for more than 100 years. The story is not true, but Beijing doesn’t want to hear it – because this myth does benefit nationalism. This is what Johnny Erling reports and reveals another persistent myth.
Shortly before the opening of one of the most important summits, the world still speculates about the recent cancelation of China’s President Xi Jinping. Is the 70-year-old exhausted from all his traveling? Does Xi want to avoid meeting US President Joe Biden at the G20 summit in New Delhi? Or is he showing solidarity with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who will also stay home? Japan’s Nikkei Asia newspaper speculates about domestic political reasons. Xi could have come under criticism from party veterans for the weak economy.
We will probably never know for sure. But what is known is that Xi likes to be the center of attention and dictate events. At the recent BRICS summit in Johannesburg, Xi prevailed over India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi by expanding the group by six new members. In New Delhi, however, India is in the spotlight – not China. Xi now has a kind of “emperor mindset” and expects dignitaries to come to him, Bloomberg quoted Alfred Wu, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, as saying. “He also received special treatment at the BRICS summit. But he’s unlikely to get that at the G-20.”
It is not yet clear how much Xi’s absence will impact the summit. At least Premier Li Qiang, the head of government responsible for the economic issues primarily discussed at G20, will attend – and act per his boss’s instructions anyway. “We are ready to work with all parties to make the G20 Summit a success,” said Foreign Office spokeswoman Mao Ning.
Xi’s absence was not unusual and had nothing to do with India, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Wednesday. It would not affect negotiations on a joint communiqué. Reuters quoted a French diplomat as saying India is making “very serious efforts” to maintain the consensus on Ukraine reached at the last G20 summit in Bali.
Whether Narendra Modi regards his rival Xi’s cancelation as an insult is not known. Western countries, in particular, attach a high symbolism to Xi’s absence. “President Xi’s decision to stay away from the G20 summit in New Delhi without a valid reason is another wake-up call for the West,” says Michael Roth, chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the German Bundestag, for instance. “The Chinese leadership is sending two clear signals with this: first, it is obviously intended to prevent China’s rival India from organizing a successful summit. Second, the Chinese leadership is thus undermining the credibility of the G20 as a central format for managing the global order,” the SPD politician told Table.Media.
The foreign policy spokesman of the German Free Democratic Party (FDP), Ulrich Lechte, believes that Xi’s absence “can be seen as a clear sign to the G20 countries that China’s priorities have shifted and that Xi apparently wants to turn more to alternative international forums such as the BRICS format”. Moreover, Xi is avoiding unpleasant discussion topics this way, “such as his own political and economic maneuvering between Russia and the West,” Lechte told Table.Media.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and German Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) will travel to New Delhi, as will all the important heads of state and government of the West. Despite the absence of Russia and the Chinese leader, the G20 summit remains important, Scholz said in an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio at the end of last week.
The expectations for a joint final document are generally very low. According to Reuters, new disputes on climate action have emerged in the preliminary talks over the past few days, further complicating efforts to reach a final declaration. And like in Bali, Russia wants to exclude any criticism of its Ukraine invasion from debates and documents. Even at previous ministerial-level meetings, China and Russia each rejected passages on Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, preventing joint communiqués. The messy situation will likely require all of Modi’s negotiating skills. It remains to be seen how well he will be able to cope with this role. And so is the outcome of the summit.
Should a substantial final communiqué be reached, India and the G20 will emerge strengthened from the summit. If a communiqué fails because of a dispute between the West and the rest or between individual major powers, the format will probably lose relevance. It would be the first time in G20 history. “This would be a major blow for Modi, who hoped to use the summit to not only cement India’s place at the world’s top table,” writes Tristen Naylor, a G20 expert at Cambridge University, in a guest editorial for Nikkei Asia. It would also “send a strong signal that geopolitical divisions are here to stay for the foreseeable future.”
In any case, Modi is likely to do everything in his power to achieve a respectable result, not least out of self-interest. After all, this includes not only the communiqué, but also other issues set by the host himself. For Indian foreign policy expert and journalist Shashank Mattoo, the final communiqué will not be the only benchmark for the summit’s success from India’s perspective. Modi aims to expand the G20 to include the African Union (AU) – based on the model of EU membership – as well as faster debt relief for poor countries and reform of the World Bank. Mattoo believes that success on these issues would strengthen India’s reputation as a voice for the developing world.
The G20 is currently relevant precisely because of the many global crises – pandemic, war, high grain and energy prices: “One word defines the G20: crisis,” Mattoo wrote on X (formerly Twitter). After all, the G20 group was founded in 1999 in response to the Asian crisis; regular summits have been held since the 2008 global financial crisis. The G20’s goal is to stabilize the global economy. “Since the G20 is all about crisis, it matters again.” As for India, Mattoo believes, “The image of major global leaders in Delhi will be a big PR win.” Even if that means Li is in the picture instead of Xi.
The tariff battle between the United States and China, which began in 2018, officially violated World Trade Organization (WTO) trade rules on both sides last month. In August, the WTO Dispute Settlement Body ruled that China’s “additional tariff measures” were inconsistent with several articles of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). In all likelihood, however, the tariff ruling will not have any concrete consequences – just as it did for the US. Not least because of the dysfunctional WTO, the trade war between the two economic powers is now being pushed into completely different areas.
Recap: In 2018, then-US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum imports, 25 percent on steel, and 10 percent on aluminum. Corresponding products from the European Union, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey also fell under Trump’s tariff increase. The reason given was a threat to national security because the USA was too dependent on imports. Consequently, Beijing initiated dispute settlement proceedings at the WTO, which did not really make any progress at first due to the COVID-19 pandemic and other reasons.
During the ongoing proceedings, China decided to also impose further tariffs in retaliation for the US tariffs. This affected imports worth around three billion US dollars – a total of 128 US products, including fruit and pork.
Then, last year, the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body ruled that Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum violated several provisions of the GATT. The panel also found that the tariffs were not justified by the security exceptions provided for in the agreement because they were not imposed in times of war or serious international tension. Washington appealed the decision.
In August, the WTO panel now ruled that the Chinese tariffs were not legal either, citing two reasons, as Rolf Langhammer, Senior Researcher at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, explains: Firstly, the additional tariffs were higher than levies specified in the regular tariff lists for bound tariffs, and secondly, they violated the WTO’s most-favored-nation clause. Bound tariffs cannot simply be deviated from. The fact that the additional tariffs are higher constitutes a violation of the rules.
In addition, “If I now impose retaliatory tariffs against the USA, then I indirectly favor imports from other countries for the same products,” explains Langhammer. The fact that the US does not get this advantage contradicts the WTO rules of the most favored nation principle. According to this principle, trade advantages granted to one contracting party must be granted to all WTO contracting parties. Beijing now intends to review the WTO ruling.
Economist Langhammer calls it a lot of noise with no result – because the WTO’s Appellate Body, which would now have to be involved in both cases, has not had a quorum since 2019. “To that extent, you’re hanging out there in a legal no man’s land,” the expert says. Thus, the US additional tariffs on steel and aluminum from China remain in force. Despite the WTO’s reprimand, the US continues to invoke national security.
An agreement was reached with the EU in October 2021 and the WTO legal dispute over the tariffs was suspended: The two sides temporarily settled their trade dispute over Trump-era steel and aluminum tariffs by signing a joint declaration on a “Global Arrangement on Sustainable Steel and Aluminium.” This eliminated reciprocal tariffs and agreed to work together toward a decarbonized steel sector. An agreement must be signed by the end of October here, otherwise, the tariffs will come back into force.
Without the Appellate Body’s decision-making ability, the disputes before the WTO are only about saving face anyway, says economist Langhammer. A side battle. The main theater is already in a completely different area: “The decisive conflicts are shifting from the trade level to capital flows.” This includes, for example, export and investment restrictions, as well as restrictions on technology transfer, Langhammer explains. “And we don’t have an international regulatory framework for that. That’s the problem.”
The Joe Biden administration issued new restrictions on the sale of sensitive semiconductor technology and aims to limit US investment in China in critical areas such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing. Brussels also considers outbound investment screening as part of its economic security strategy. This week, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck stressed the need to talk about how outbound controls in strategic areas can become part of Europe’s policy and prevent the outflow of knowledge.
This means that the next chapter in the trade war between the US and China is already open – the tariff dispute at the WTO is actually virtually “old school” in comparison, says Langhammer. However, the stalemate will not be resolved because of the upcoming US presidential election in 2024. Getting the WTO functioning again is currently not one of Biden’s priorities. And rolling back tariffs would be politically too risky.
Also because a well-known face is using the tariff issue for the election campaign: In late August, Donald Trump announced that, if re-elected, he would consider tariffs on products imported into the United States. “I think, when companies come in and they dump their products in the United States, they should pay automatically, let’s say, a 10 percent tax,” Trump said in an interview. He argued that the ten percent tariff on imports would not stop business, but would “really make a lot of money.”
A spokesperson for the White House commented that such a “universal base tariff” would slow economic growth and fuel inflation. If the US were to implement such an automatic tariff, “it would in effect be seceding from the international order it did so much to create,” wrote Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman.
Hong Kong kungfu superstar Bruce Lee (Li Xiaolong) also made a name for himself as a Chinese patriot. In the action flick “Fist of Fury” (精武門), Lee played a karate fighter in 1920s Shanghai. When strolling through the park in the British settlement on the Bund, an Indian guard denies him entry, pointing to the no-entry sign mounted high on the wall: “No dogs and Chinese allowed.” Meanwhile, a foreigner walks her dog freely into the park, as do some Japanese thugs. They provoke Lee, saying that if he behaves like a dog, he will be allowed in. He then beats them up, jumps into the air, and smashes the wooden sign with a kick. The slow-motion sequence makes the move even more effective.
This kung fu kick went down in cinematic history. The audience in Hong Kong applauded when they saw the film in 1972. After the Cultural Revolution, it was also screened in the People’s Republic and earned Bruce Lee a place of honor in the Olympus of Chinese nationalists.
The story was made up, and the shooting location was fake, as was the entry ban for “Chinese and dogs.” For cost reasons, Hong Kong decided to shoot the scene not on the Shanghai Bund, but in front of Macao’s oldest park, Jardin Luís de Camões. “Close reading of the historical record shows that an officially-sanctioned sign explicitly linking “dogs and Chinese” never existed,” wrote sinologists Robert Bickers and Jeffrey Wasserstrom, who wrote a paper on it for “China Quarterly” in 1995 after extensive research. “Virtually every textbook, popular history, academic work and guidebook dealing with Shanghai published in the PRC between the early 1950s and the early 1980s contained at least a few lines about the sign.”
Beijing politically instrumentalized the humiliating equation of the Chinese with dogs. This myth has been retold as fact for over 100 years, even outside the country. It serves as a vivid example of how inhumanly the former colonial powers treated China and underscores the narrative of the party that liberated its oppressed people.
Historically, it is true that the people of Shanghai were discriminated against. Access to the park, which was planted by the British in August 1868 under the name “Public Garden” in their concession territory, remained reserved for foreigners for more than 60 years. It was not until 1928 that the park was opened to the general public as “The Bund Garden” (外滩公园).
Meanwhile, Japanese researchers, as well as Chinese and foreign historians searched local archives, municipal records and contemporary newspapers. They found that the English park regulations underwent several revisions between 1881 and 1917. The 1903 version still explicitly mentions the word “Chinese,” who were only allowed to enter the park if they accompanied foreigners as servants. After that, the term “Chinese” was no longer used. In the most well-known version of the 1917 park regulations, item one states that the park is “reserved for the foreign community.” Item four prohibits dogs and bicycles. But the insulting connotation that entry for “Chinese and dogs is forbidden” is nowhere to be found.
The people of Shanghai did not simply accept such bans. Researchers discovered petitions and letters of protest in English dating from 1881 and 1885. Wealthy citizens accused the municipal council in the International Settlement of discrimination and demanded equal access to the park: “We pay taxes – what law forbids us to enter?” The British administrators claimed the park was too small for everyone or demanded “civilized attire.” The administration offered tickets to locals between 1886 and 1889 to appease growing resentment. In 1889, 183 tickets were sold. The criticism did not abate. After all, foreigners did not have to buy tickets.
The controversy surrounding the park had long since become a political issue both in and outside China, especially after a claim, presumably made up by young patriots, spread that the signs said, “No access for Chinese and dogs.” Prominent contemporary witnesses, from bourgeois revolutionary Sun Yat-sen (孙中山) to China’s polymath Guo Moruo (郭沫若), were outraged by this disgraceful insult to all Chinese. In 1923, Guo wrote that he was advised to wear Western clothes in order to visit the park. This was like pretending to be an “oriental foreigner” with “the status of a dog” (穿洋服去是假充东洋人，生就了的狗命). Foreigners also expressed solidarity; the German China scholar Richard Wilhelm condemned the special rights of the settlements in his book “Ostasien” (Potsdam, p.123), published in 1928.
The British Labor Party MP C. Malone photographed the sign with the park regulations of 1917 in Shanghai in May 1926 and included the photograph in his book “New China.” He called it a “document of foreign rule” with the words “Chinese, dogs and bicycles are not admitted.” Unfortunately, that was not what the sign said.
Chinese scholars who investigated the myth in the liberal atmosphere of the 1990s had to find out that their discoveries about the park rules were not welcome. Under Xi Jinping’s re-ideologization of China, they made themselves suspect of historical nihilism by questioning revolutionary legends. The party did not tolerate any doubts, be it about the alleged heroic deeds of the paragon soldier Lei Feng or the People’s Liberation Army in the Korean War. But Beijing clung to hardly any other myth as stubbornly as the story of Shanghai Park and its sign “No access for dogs and Chinese.”
Eventually, the sign became part of the stage scenery of China’s most famous epic song-and-dance play, “The East is Red” (东方红). The gigantic theatrical play, staged in 1964 to glorify the victory of the Chinese Revolution and its leader, Mao Zedong, left its mark on an entire generation. The propaganda spectacle spanning several hours was so important to the Beijing leadership that Premier Zhou Enlai directed it.
As reporters from the China News Agency (中新网) revealed, Mao also had his hand in it. After attending the premiere on Oct. 2, 1964, he demanded changes to the stage design and that the Shanghai Park ban sign should appear in the first act “to more realistically depict how imperialist powers bullied ancient China.” No wonder Beijing clings to this narrative to this day.
The party is clinging even harder to another political myth, which many people in the West also believe today, namely that the Chinese are a particularly peaceful people and pacifists, both inside and outside the country. A hundred years ago, the German Marxist and renowned China expert Karl August Wittfogel already called such statements “good-for-nothing fairy tales.” In his book “Das erwachende China” (“Awakening China”), published in 1925, he criticized: “The Chinese are fondly described as an idyllic, peaceful, ‘pacifist’ people … As far as the lamblike, ‘tame’ character of the Chinese people is concerned, this is a good-for-nothing fairy tale. … China is a classic country of internal turmoil, outrages and civil wars. … Hardly a decade has passed without an internal uprising … But this makes it easier for us to understand the national-revolutionary energy that is being mustered over there today than the theory of the Chinese ‘idyll.’”
For China’s party leader Xi, it is a deliberate strategy when he praises China’s peacefulness as his nation’s distinguishing feature. He literally said in a recent speech on China’s cultural heritage, published in the September issue of the CC journal Qiushi: “Chinese civilization is characterized by exceptional peacefulness. Peace, peaceful relations and harmony are the concepts that Chinese civilization has passed down for more than 5,000 years. The peacefulness of Chinese civilization essentially dictates that China has been the builder of world peace from the beginning to the present.” (中华文明具有突出的和平性。和平、和睦、和谐是中华文明五千多年来一直传承的理念，….。中华文明的和平性，从根本上决定了中国始终是世界和平的建设者)
Even Beijing’s party newspapers go so far as to speak about a Chinese “peace gene” (和平基因). In today’s China, the existence of such a thing is even less doubted than the legend of the Shanghai park. The party legitimizes itself through its political myths.
Leaping from the highest bridge in the world? No way! If you put a 200-story building next to the Beipanjiang Bridge, you could see the roof from the roadway – that’s how insanely high the roadway spans across a valley in Liupanshui, Guizhou. Extreme sports enthusiasts famously crave the adrenaline rush, so some took the terrifying 565-meter plunge at the 2023 Int’l High Bridge Extreme Sports Invitational Tournament. Have a good flight!
As far as participation in important international gatherings such as the G20 summit is concerned, representatives of participating countries probably don’t have a “yes,” “no,” or “maybe” selection option as they do with a Teams meeting. Nevertheless, Xi Jinping has canceled his attendance at next week’s summit in India. As to why, speculation is running wild. Apart from his possible reasons, it is also interesting to see what his absence means for the summit. Western countries attach great symbolism to his absence, writes Christiane Kuehl. For the host, India’s Prime Minister Modi, reaching a joint final declaration will not be easy as it is. If it fails, the meeting risks losing relevance.
Likewise, decisions of the WTO lose relevance if the settlements have no consequences, writes Amelie Richter. The World Trade Organization may have ruled that the reciprocal tariffs between the United States and China are illegal. The next step would be to call on the WTO’s Appellate Body. But it hasn’t had a quorum since 2019. Ultimately, it’s a sideshow anyway. The focus in the trade war now lies, for instance, on export and investment restrictions as well as restrictions on technology transfer. And there is no international regulatory framework for this.
“No entry for dogs and Chinese” – this sign allegedly used to hang at the entrance to a Shanghai park in the late 19th century. A myth that has persisted for more than 100 years. The story is not true, but Beijing doesn’t want to hear it – because this myth does benefit nationalism. This is what Johnny Erling reports and reveals another persistent myth.
Shortly before the opening of one of the most important summits, the world still speculates about the recent cancelation of China’s President Xi Jinping. Is the 70-year-old exhausted from all his traveling? Does Xi want to avoid meeting US President Joe Biden at the G20 summit in New Delhi? Or is he showing solidarity with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who will also stay home? Japan’s Nikkei Asia newspaper speculates about domestic political reasons. Xi could have come under criticism from party veterans for the weak economy.
We will probably never know for sure. But what is known is that Xi likes to be the center of attention and dictate events. At the recent BRICS summit in Johannesburg, Xi prevailed over India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi by expanding the group by six new members. In New Delhi, however, India is in the spotlight – not China. Xi now has a kind of “emperor mindset” and expects dignitaries to come to him, Bloomberg quoted Alfred Wu, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, as saying. “He also received special treatment at the BRICS summit. But he’s unlikely to get that at the G-20.”
It is not yet clear how much Xi’s absence will impact the summit. At least Premier Li Qiang, the head of government responsible for the economic issues primarily discussed at G20, will attend – and act per his boss’s instructions anyway. “We are ready to work with all parties to make the G20 Summit a success,” said Foreign Office spokeswoman Mao Ning.
Xi’s absence was not unusual and had nothing to do with India, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Wednesday. It would not affect negotiations on a joint communiqué. Reuters quoted a French diplomat as saying India is making “very serious efforts” to maintain the consensus on Ukraine reached at the last G20 summit in Bali.
Whether Narendra Modi regards his rival Xi’s cancelation as an insult is not known. Western countries, in particular, attach a high symbolism to Xi’s absence. “President Xi’s decision to stay away from the G20 summit in New Delhi without a valid reason is another wake-up call for the West,” says Michael Roth, chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the German Bundestag, for instance. “The Chinese leadership is sending two clear signals with this: first, it is obviously intended to prevent China’s rival India from organizing a successful summit. Second, the Chinese leadership is thus undermining the credibility of the G20 as a central format for managing the global order,” the SPD politician told Table.Media.
The foreign policy spokesman of the German Free Democratic Party (FDP), Ulrich Lechte, believes that Xi’s absence “can be seen as a clear sign to the G20 countries that China’s priorities have shifted and that Xi apparently wants to turn more to alternative international forums such as the BRICS format”. Moreover, Xi is avoiding unpleasant discussion topics this way, “such as his own political and economic maneuvering between Russia and the West,” Lechte told Table.Media.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and German Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) will travel to New Delhi, as will all the important heads of state and government of the West. Despite the absence of Russia and the Chinese leader, the G20 summit remains important, Scholz said in an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio at the end of last week.
The expectations for a joint final document are generally very low. According to Reuters, new disputes on climate action have emerged in the preliminary talks over the past few days, further complicating efforts to reach a final declaration. And like in Bali, Russia wants to exclude any criticism of its Ukraine invasion from debates and documents. Even at previous ministerial-level meetings, China and Russia each rejected passages on Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, preventing joint communiqués. The messy situation will likely require all of Modi’s negotiating skills. It remains to be seen how well he will be able to cope with this role. And so is the outcome of the summit.
Should a substantial final communiqué be reached, India and the G20 will emerge strengthened from the summit. If a communiqué fails because of a dispute between the West and the rest or between individual major powers, the format will probably lose relevance. It would be the first time in G20 history. “This would be a major blow for Modi, who hoped to use the summit to not only cement India’s place at the world’s top table,” writes Tristen Naylor, a G20 expert at Cambridge University, in a guest editorial for Nikkei Asia. It would also “send a strong signal that geopolitical divisions are here to stay for the foreseeable future.”
In any case, Modi is likely to do everything in his power to achieve a respectable result, not least out of self-interest. After all, this includes not only the communiqué, but also other issues set by the host himself. For Indian foreign policy expert and journalist Shashank Mattoo, the final communiqué will not be the only benchmark for the summit’s success from India’s perspective. Modi aims to expand the G20 to include the African Union (AU) – based on the model of EU membership – as well as faster debt relief for poor countries and reform of the World Bank. Mattoo believes that success on these issues would strengthen India’s reputation as a voice for the developing world.
The G20 is currently relevant precisely because of the many global crises – pandemic, war, high grain and energy prices: “One word defines the G20: crisis,” Mattoo wrote on X (formerly Twitter). After all, the G20 group was founded in 1999 in response to the Asian crisis; regular summits have been held since the 2008 global financial crisis. The G20’s goal is to stabilize the global economy. “Since the G20 is all about crisis, it matters again.” As for India, Mattoo believes, “The image of major global leaders in Delhi will be a big PR win.” Even if that means Li is in the picture instead of Xi.
The tariff battle between the United States and China, which began in 2018, officially violated World Trade Organization (WTO) trade rules on both sides last month. In August, the WTO Dispute Settlement Body ruled that China’s “additional tariff measures” were inconsistent with several articles of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). In all likelihood, however, the tariff ruling will not have any concrete consequences – just as it did for the US. Not least because of the dysfunctional WTO, the trade war between the two economic powers is now being pushed into completely different areas.
Recap: In 2018, then-US President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum imports, 25 percent on steel, and 10 percent on aluminum. Corresponding products from the European Union, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey also fell under Trump’s tariff increase. The reason given was a threat to national security because the USA was too dependent on imports. Consequently, Beijing initiated dispute settlement proceedings at the WTO, which did not really make any progress at first due to the COVID-19 pandemic and other reasons.
During the ongoing proceedings, China decided to also impose further tariffs in retaliation for the US tariffs. This affected imports worth around three billion US dollars – a total of 128 US products, including fruit and pork.
Then, last year, the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body ruled that Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum violated several provisions of the GATT. The panel also found that the tariffs were not justified by the security exceptions provided for in the agreement because they were not imposed in times of war or serious international tension. Washington appealed the decision.
In August, the WTO panel now ruled that the Chinese tariffs were not legal either, citing two reasons, as Rolf Langhammer, Senior Researcher at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, explains: Firstly, the additional tariffs were higher than levies specified in the regular tariff lists for bound tariffs, and secondly, they violated the WTO’s most-favored-nation clause. Bound tariffs cannot simply be deviated from. The fact that the additional tariffs are higher constitutes a violation of the rules.
In addition, “If I now impose retaliatory tariffs against the USA, then I indirectly favor imports from other countries for the same products,” explains Langhammer. The fact that the US does not get this advantage contradicts the WTO rules of the most favored nation principle. According to this principle, trade advantages granted to one contracting party must be granted to all WTO contracting parties. Beijing now intends to review the WTO ruling.
Economist Langhammer calls it a lot of noise with no result – because the WTO’s Appellate Body, which would now have to be involved in both cases, has not had a quorum since 2019. “To that extent, you’re hanging out there in a legal no man’s land,” the expert says. Thus, the US additional tariffs on steel and aluminum from China remain in force. Despite the WTO’s reprimand, the US continues to invoke national security.
An agreement was reached with the EU in October 2021 and the WTO legal dispute over the tariffs was suspended: The two sides temporarily settled their trade dispute over Trump-era steel and aluminum tariffs by signing a joint declaration on a “Global Arrangement on Sustainable Steel and Aluminium.” This eliminated reciprocal tariffs and agreed to work together toward a decarbonized steel sector. An agreement must be signed by the end of October here, otherwise, the tariffs will come back into force.
Without the Appellate Body’s decision-making ability, the disputes before the WTO are only about saving face anyway, says economist Langhammer. A side battle. The main theater is already in a completely different area: “The decisive conflicts are shifting from the trade level to capital flows.” This includes, for example, export and investment restrictions, as well as restrictions on technology transfer, Langhammer explains. “And we don’t have an international regulatory framework for that. That’s the problem.”
The Joe Biden administration issued new restrictions on the sale of sensitive semiconductor technology and aims to limit US investment in China in critical areas such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing. Brussels also considers outbound investment screening as part of its economic security strategy. This week, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck stressed the need to talk about how outbound controls in strategic areas can become part of Europe’s policy and prevent the outflow of knowledge.
This means that the next chapter in the trade war between the US and China is already open – the tariff dispute at the WTO is actually virtually “old school” in comparison, says Langhammer. However, the stalemate will not be resolved because of the upcoming US presidential election in 2024. Getting the WTO functioning again is currently not one of Biden’s priorities. And rolling back tariffs would be politically too risky.
Also because a well-known face is using the tariff issue for the election campaign: In late August, Donald Trump announced that, if re-elected, he would consider tariffs on products imported into the United States. “I think, when companies come in and they dump their products in the United States, they should pay automatically, let’s say, a 10 percent tax,” Trump said in an interview. He argued that the ten percent tariff on imports would not stop business, but would “really make a lot of money.”
A spokesperson for the White House commented that such a “universal base tariff” would slow economic growth and fuel inflation. If the US were to implement such an automatic tariff, “it would in effect be seceding from the international order it did so much to create,” wrote Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman.
Hong Kong kungfu superstar Bruce Lee (Li Xiaolong) also made a name for himself as a Chinese patriot. In the action flick “Fist of Fury” (精武門), Lee played a karate fighter in 1920s Shanghai. When strolling through the park in the British settlement on the Bund, an Indian guard denies him entry, pointing to the no-entry sign mounted high on the wall: “No dogs and Chinese allowed.” Meanwhile, a foreigner walks her dog freely into the park, as do some Japanese thugs. They provoke Lee, saying that if he behaves like a dog, he will be allowed in. He then beats them up, jumps into the air, and smashes the wooden sign with a kick. The slow-motion sequence makes the move even more effective.
This kung fu kick went down in cinematic history. The audience in Hong Kong applauded when they saw the film in 1972. After the Cultural Revolution, it was also screened in the People’s Republic and earned Bruce Lee a place of honor in the Olympus of Chinese nationalists.
The story was made up, and the shooting location was fake, as was the entry ban for “Chinese and dogs.” For cost reasons, Hong Kong decided to shoot the scene not on the Shanghai Bund, but in front of Macao’s oldest park, Jardin Luís de Camões. “Close reading of the historical record shows that an officially-sanctioned sign explicitly linking “dogs and Chinese” never existed,” wrote sinologists Robert Bickers and Jeffrey Wasserstrom, who wrote a paper on it for “China Quarterly” in 1995 after extensive research. “Virtually every textbook, popular history, academic work and guidebook dealing with Shanghai published in the PRC between the early 1950s and the early 1980s contained at least a few lines about the sign.”
Beijing politically instrumentalized the humiliating equation of the Chinese with dogs. This myth has been retold as fact for over 100 years, even outside the country. It serves as a vivid example of how inhumanly the former colonial powers treated China and underscores the narrative of the party that liberated its oppressed people.
Historically, it is true that the people of Shanghai were discriminated against. Access to the park, which was planted by the British in August 1868 under the name “Public Garden” in their concession territory, remained reserved for foreigners for more than 60 years. It was not until 1928 that the park was opened to the general public as “The Bund Garden” (外滩公园).
Meanwhile, Japanese researchers, as well as Chinese and foreign historians searched local archives, municipal records and contemporary newspapers. They found that the English park regulations underwent several revisions between 1881 and 1917. The 1903 version still explicitly mentions the word “Chinese,” who were only allowed to enter the park if they accompanied foreigners as servants. After that, the term “Chinese” was no longer used. In the most well-known version of the 1917 park regulations, item one states that the park is “reserved for the foreign community.” Item four prohibits dogs and bicycles. But the insulting connotation that entry for “Chinese and dogs is forbidden” is nowhere to be found.
The people of Shanghai did not simply accept such bans. Researchers discovered petitions and letters of protest in English dating from 1881 and 1885. Wealthy citizens accused the municipal council in the International Settlement of discrimination and demanded equal access to the park: “We pay taxes – what law forbids us to enter?” The British administrators claimed the park was too small for everyone or demanded “civilized attire.” The administration offered tickets to locals between 1886 and 1889 to appease growing resentment. In 1889, 183 tickets were sold. The criticism did not abate. After all, foreigners did not have to buy tickets.
The controversy surrounding the park had long since become a political issue both in and outside China, especially after a claim, presumably made up by young patriots, spread that the signs said, “No access for Chinese and dogs.” Prominent contemporary witnesses, from bourgeois revolutionary Sun Yat-sen (孙中山) to China’s polymath Guo Moruo (郭沫若), were outraged by this disgraceful insult to all Chinese. In 1923, Guo wrote that he was advised to wear Western clothes in order to visit the park. This was like pretending to be an “oriental foreigner” with “the status of a dog” (穿洋服去是假充东洋人，生就了的狗命). Foreigners also expressed solidarity; the German China scholar Richard Wilhelm condemned the special rights of the settlements in his book “Ostasien” (Potsdam, p.123), published in 1928.
The British Labor Party MP C. Malone photographed the sign with the park regulations of 1917 in Shanghai in May 1926 and included the photograph in his book “New China.” He called it a “document of foreign rule” with the words “Chinese, dogs and bicycles are not admitted.” Unfortunately, that was not what the sign said.
Chinese scholars who investigated the myth in the liberal atmosphere of the 1990s had to find out that their discoveries about the park rules were not welcome. Under Xi Jinping’s re-ideologization of China, they made themselves suspect of historical nihilism by questioning revolutionary legends. The party did not tolerate any doubts, be it about the alleged heroic deeds of the paragon soldier Lei Feng or the People’s Liberation Army in the Korean War. But Beijing clung to hardly any other myth as stubbornly as the story of Shanghai Park and its sign “No access for dogs and Chinese.”
Eventually, the sign became part of the stage scenery of China’s most famous epic song-and-dance play, “The East is Red” (东方红). The gigantic theatrical play, staged in 1964 to glorify the victory of the Chinese Revolution and its leader, Mao Zedong, left its mark on an entire generation. The propaganda spectacle spanning several hours was so important to the Beijing leadership that Premier Zhou Enlai directed it.
As reporters from the China News Agency (中新网) revealed, Mao also had his hand in it. After attending the premiere on Oct. 2, 1964, he demanded changes to the stage design and that the Shanghai Park ban sign should appear in the first act “to more realistically depict how imperialist powers bullied ancient China.” No wonder Beijing clings to this narrative to this day.
The party is clinging even harder to another political myth, which many people in the West also believe today, namely that the Chinese are a particularly peaceful people and pacifists, both inside and outside the country. A hundred years ago, the German Marxist and renowned China expert Karl August Wittfogel already called such statements “good-for-nothing fairy tales.” In his book “Das erwachende China” (“Awakening China”), published in 1925, he criticized: “The Chinese are fondly described as an idyllic, peaceful, ‘pacifist’ people … As far as the lamblike, ‘tame’ character of the Chinese people is concerned, this is a good-for-nothing fairy tale. … China is a classic country of internal turmoil, outrages and civil wars. … Hardly a decade has passed without an internal uprising … But this makes it easier for us to understand the national-revolutionary energy that is being mustered over there today than the theory of the Chinese ‘idyll.’”
For China’s party leader Xi, it is a deliberate strategy when he praises China’s peacefulness as his nation’s distinguishing feature. He literally said in a recent speech on China’s cultural heritage, published in the September issue of the CC journal Qiushi: “Chinese civilization is characterized by exceptional peacefulness. Peace, peaceful relations and harmony are the concepts that Chinese civilization has passed down for more than 5,000 years. The peacefulness of Chinese civilization essentially dictates that China has been the builder of world peace from the beginning to the present.” (中华文明具有突出的和平性。和平、和睦、和谐是中华文明五千多年来一直传承的理念，….。中华文明的和平性，从根本上决定了中国始终是世界和平的建设者)
Even Beijing’s party newspapers go so far as to speak about a Chinese “peace gene” (和平基因). In today’s China, the existence of such a thing is even less doubted than the legend of the Shanghai park. The party legitimizes itself through its political myths.
Leaping from the highest bridge in the world? No way! If you put a 200-story building next to the Beipanjiang Bridge, you could see the roof from the roadway – that’s how insanely high the roadway spans across a valley in Liupanshui, Guizhou. Extreme sports enthusiasts famously crave the adrenaline rush, so some took the terrifying 565-meter plunge at the 2023 Int’l High Bridge Extreme Sports Invitational Tournament. Have a good flight!
