It’s holiday time in China: Friday’s Moon Festival was followed on Sunday by the National Day celebrating the founding of the People’s Republic. However, instead of enjoying their time off, one politician and his staff traveled to Germany: Vice Premier He Lifeng met in Frankfurt with German Finance Minister Christian Lindner for the third high-level Sino-German financial dialogue, the first in four years. The signs in Frankfurt pointed to cooperation, as the joint statement following the meeting states. Both parties aim to lower market hurdles, encourage mutual investment and cooperate globally.
As is often the case with such summits, concrete details are scarce. But the fact that the meeting took place can be considered a diplomatic success. Just a few months ago, Lindner’s invitation to China was canceled. Too many party friends from his China-critical Free Democratic Party had traveled to Taipei. Now, the Greens are the ones being pilloried after Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called President Xi Jinping a dictator.
As a result, Secretary of State Jennifer Morgan was only allowed to meet her counterpart, Climate Czar Xie Zhenhua, in Beijing last week. In April, she was still allowed to meet with several high-ranking politicians. Lindner’s experience shows, however, that such annoyances in Beijing do not last forever. Therefore, the tensions with the Foreign Office should ease over time, provided no new disruptions occur.
For some weeks, German sinologists have debated whether normality might have returned to Xinjiang. This is what two of them recently wrote in a report for the newspaper NZZ, which sparked a fierce dispute among their peers. Now, a Uyghur woman speaks out in an interview with Table.Media, and she does so very critically. She says people are still afraid to speak openly, and she herself is still unable to contact her family, says German-born Shahnura Kasim, who laments the human rights situation in Xinjiang on TikTok and Instagram.
At the end, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner and China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng shake hands and smile quite relaxed into the cameras. Lindner pats He on the shoulder. Their joint statement after the 3rd high-level Sino-German financial dialogue in Frankfurt am Main talks a lot about cooperation and agreement. If there were sticking points, they are not apparent.
Germany and China want to expand market access for each other, Lindner said in general terms on Sunday. This should be done in the spirit of fair competition. “This creates opportunities for more responsible trade and investment on both sides.” Among other things, the German government sought better access for German banks in China.
Regarding banks, the joint statement states:
In his press statement, He Lifeng also spoke out in favor of opening the financial markets. According to He, cooperation between the central banks and the supervisory authorities for insurers should be strengthened.
In addition to Lindner and He, representatives of the German Bundesbank, the Chinese central bank and the financial supervisory authorities also participated in the dialogue. The largest companies from the sector were also present at times with CEOs and top executives from Deutsche Boerse, Deutsche Bank, Allianz, the state-owned KfW and Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg, among others – as were China’s four leading state-owned banks, including the Bank of China.
But big global politics were also on the agenda. According to Lindner, both countries “clearly committed themselves to an open global economy and multilateralism” within the framework of international organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) or the International Monetary Fund. According to He, the two countries plan to strengthen cooperation against money laundering and terrorist financing.
Both politicians also spoke about the debt burden of many poor developing countries, another concern of the West. China has committed itself to using the mechanism of the G20 group of countries to restructure the debt of struggling countries. Lindner expressly welcomed this. “Because without China as such an important player in world politics, solutions are inconceivable.” China is one of the biggest creditors to many developing countries and practically never writes off their debts.
It is not an easy time in German-Chinese relations, so the very fact that the meeting took place can be considered a success. Currently, there are several problematic issues: Germany is likely planning to have products from telecommunications companies Huawei and ZTE removed from parts of its mobile phone network.
In an interview with the US channel Fox News, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called President Xi Jinping a “dictator” and reiterated this term on German television. There are also concerns in several ministries about the sale of Volkswagen’s gas turbine subsidiary MAN Energy Solutions to CSIC Longjiang GH Gas Turbine Co, owned by the state-owned shipyard group China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), which is subject to approval by the German government.
The previous round of the financial dialogue took place in early 2019, before the Covid pandemic. Lindner now expressed his support to hold the dialogue annually instead of only every two years. Fiscal policy is thus apparently one of the fields that largely function normally, even in times of “de-risking” – and the joint statement indicated that the focus was more on cooperation than on decoupling. As EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said during his visit to China, the EU has also set up a working group on financial services.
Lindner’s high-level interlocutor may also have been a signal that China will no longer hold the visit of several of his FDP colleagues to Taiwan, including Minister of Education Bettina Stark-Watzinger, and criticism of the People’s Republic against the party. It appears that it is not yet the time for such forgiveness vis-à-vis the Foreign Office.
Baerbock’s climate envoy and Secretary of State Jennifer Morgan felt this last week. By meeting with her counterpart, climate czar Xie Zhenhua, Morgan met only one high-ranking politician during her three-day trip to China – albeit the most important one for her portfolio. Others reportedly had no time. At least she met Vice Minister of the Environment Zhao Yingmin on the sidelines of a dialogue forum at Tsinghua University, and thus a politician of equal rank.
Given how the German Free Democratic Party (FDP) – which, like the Greens in Germany, is one of the China hawks among German parties – is being treated at the moment, it can be expected that normality will return to the relationship with the German Foreign Office as well. The half-life of Beijing’s anger never lasts forever. In May, Lindner was uninvited at short notice just before a trip to Beijing, presumably as a reaction to the Taiwan trips of several FDP groups. And now Beijing even sent higher ranking He Lifeng to Frankfurt instead of its finance minister, who is apparently about to retire.
Other dialogue formats are also currently being revived. Hardly noticed by the public, the high-level Sino-German security dialogue took place for the fourth time last Tuesday. Head of the Federal Chancellery, Wolfgang Schmidt, from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), received Chen Wenqing, Secretary of the CCP’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission. The Federal Press Office made the announcement without providing details of the talks. The dialogue dates back to an initiative of the Chinese government in 2016 and was also interrupted by the pandemic.
In an article for the NZZ, two German sinologists declared after a trip to Xinjiang that the human rights situation in the region had returned to normal. They also wrote that the modernization initiated by the Chinese central government met with unmistakable sympathy among the Uyghur population. You have relatives there. What is your impression, has the situation really normalized?
Claiming that the situation there has normalized is an insolent, unprofessional and impossible statement. These scholars probably do not know any Uyghurs personally or have never talked to one. We have never needed help with “modernization” because we have never been uncivilized people. We Uyghurs are a people with a long history and a magnificent culture. But this is not something that is discussed. Because that requires knowledge and information and, above all, time. The statements that everything is back to normal are easy to make without research – because they are simply the statements made by the Chinese government. It is outrageous to repeat something like this as a scientist, because scientists are held in high esteem in society. Many believe them blindly, and that is also the goal of the Chinese government. I am sure there is a quid pro quo for such propaganda statements.
The researchers explained that they had traveled to Xinjiang on their own initiative and at their own expense. What is the situation like for your family and acquaintances on the ground? Can you visit Xinjiang or talk to the people directly?
You can enter the region, but whether you have privacy and freedom, that is another thing. Many journalists have traveled there, there are even short documentary films of German journalists who were monitored 24/7 and were only allowed to go where the Chinese authorities permitted. This way, you don’t see general discrimination on the ground, in deserted streets where no one talks to anyone for fear of being locked up. If all is peace, joy and happiness, why can’t we get in touch with our families? Why can’t we travel home like any normal person? Why can’t we talk on the phone or face-to-face?
Your critics say that you have never been to China yourself and cannot assess what the situation there is like. What is your response to that?
I was born and raised in Germany. I don’t even know my relatives, because I only have my parents and siblings here. My parents can’t meet their own parents, and they haven’t been able to for over 20 years. The last five years have been bad enough – and it is getting worse by the day, because there is no outcry from the world, and so the Chinese government continues on and on. I don’t need to be there to prove what is happening. We have satellite images, we have testimonies from human rights activists working in the European Parliament. We have Uyghurs who have been in these horrible camps and tell about it – people who have lived there and are now overseas. We have the leaked documents, the “Xinjiang Police Files.” We already have too much evidence for anything to be denied.
The researchers also write that between 2010 and 2016, the people of Xinjiang themselves suffered the consequences of “massive Islamist terror,” such as bombings and armed attacks. Are you aware of any Uyghurs who approve of the Chinese government’s actions?
Whenever Muslims are involved, people quickly talk about terrorism because it makes it easier to impose radical measures. Uyghurs are not terrorists and never have been. And even if they were, that would be no reason to build concentration camps, sterilize women and men, give children up for forced adoption, and brainwash people.
Of course, there are Uyghurs who talk up the situation and claim that everything is fine.
Of course, there are Uyghurs who talk up the situation and claim that everything is fine. But they cooperate closely with the Chinese authorities. My mother has a stateless passport because she refused to work for the authorities and did not want to commit “espionage.” My father was already forbidden to contact his family in 2013 for the same reason. The New Silk Road project has only succeeded because no one cares if we live or die. These people are all just chasing their economic interests and profit from us Uyghurs, forced labor, that is.
Her Instagram account is called “Freedom for East-Turkestan”. The term is closely associated with political, ethnic, and cultural controversies, even among Uyghurs. Beijing associates the name with separatism and terrorism. Is it a radical position to advocate for a free East Turkestan?
It is never a radical position to stand up for the freedom of a people. To us Uyghurs, our country is called East Turkestan and nothing else. Beijing directly associates everything related to Uyghurs with terrorism and separatism, but they do not look at their own actions. We all know genocide is happening – the first high-tech genocide in history. Therefore, being pro-China is closer to terrorism – because that means you are against human rights and everything that makes us human.
Do you see no alternative for Xinjiang under Chinese rule?
To this, I only say: We Uyghurs do not want autonomy, we are now registered as autonomy and see what happens. We want democracy, our own independent country, with our own government, our own law, and our own president. We have suffered long enough, and this is the least we can ask for: a free, independent East Turkestan.
Is the West doing enough? Who do you think should be heard more?
The West is not doing much at all. More sanctions are needed. More Chinese products must be boycotted. The term genocide needs to be recognized as a term in this context everywhere. Uyghurs need a bigger and stronger media presence. We need to be heard more, not scientists whose lies are even published.
On Instagram and TikTok, 20-year-old vlogger Shahnura Kasim draws attention to the fate of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. She was born and raised in Germany. In 2019, her family learned that her grandmother was detained in a re-education camp in Xinjiang and that her aunt was missing. Kasim lives and studies in Munich, where, in addition to making short videos for her nearly 14,000 followers, she also draws attention to the situation of the Uyghurs by demonstrating.
Vita Golod has not lost hope in China as a peace mediator. The Ukrainian sinologist is certain that Beijing is waiting for the right moment. “Both sides have to be willing to negotiate,” – that’s the main narrative of the Chinese scholars that visited Kyiv recently, says Golod. She has been the chairwoman of the Board of the Ukrainian Association of Sinologists since 2019. The association is an independent think-tank with a 20-year history and unites more than 200 members studying China and promoting knowledge on China and Ukraine-China relations. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, many events have only been possible online – but she has been used to that since the Covid pandemic, says Golod. Still, she would prefer to have more personal exchanges again.
The start of the Russian war against her home country changed not only her everyday life in Kyiv, but also the work of the association: “We have lost almost all previous contacts with Chinese academia, but we have built new ones with a young generation of scholars who see Ukraine as a European country,” Golod says. At the beginning of the war, some previous Chinese contacts and exchange partners came forward and expressed empathy for the situation. But that is no longer the case now, Golod says.
She believes contact and a trip to China would be crucial for her field research and language practice. Everything changes so quickly there. But traveling is difficult at the moment. Especially because Golod currently focuses on a sensitive topic: She is currently researching Chinese Muslims and their identity from the perspective of Chinese nationalism at the renowned A. Krymskiy Institute for Oriental Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
Golod came into contact with the Chinese language at a very early age: Her parents sent her to a special school where Mandarin is taught intensively. “There were only three such schools in the Soviet Union at the time, one of them in Kyiv.” Her parents wanted a special school for her, says Golod. It was also close to her home and a day school. For ten years, she had daily Chinese lessons with Ukrainian and Chinese teachers. However, she could never visit the People’s Republic due to travel restrictions in the Soviet Union.
Her Mandarin proficiency helped her get a spot at the Institute of International Relations at the National Taras Shevchenko University in Kyiv. There, she completed a bachelor’s and master’s degree in International economy. As part of her first degree, she was able to study for a year at the Taiwanese Mandarin Center at Normal University in Taipei. “That helped me a lot to improve my language skills. I used every opportunity to practice Mandarin.”
Taiwan later also played a role in her thesis. For her Ph.D. at the Institute of World Economy and Institute of International Relations at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, she focused on financial policy in countries in the Asia-Pacific region, specifically Taiwan.
Golod has given about 50 interviews since February 2023 as she feels her expertise as a sinologist could show the Chinese position from different angles. Golod regrets that, nowadays, politics influence the field of sinology. “It’s becoming an international affair more than ever,” she added. Golod would like to see more balanced China coverage in Ukraine. She finds the current one too populist, which is dangerous for a country at war.
For the “Ukraine-China” magazine, which the Ukrainian Association of Sinologists publishes every year, she would like to see more contributions from Chinese colleagues – but also other international contributions. “It is important that different perspectives on China are shown,” says Golod. In November 2023, she will head to the United States as a visiting scholar: She aims to continue her research at the Carolina Asia Center at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and further expand the network for the Ukrainian Association of Sinologists. Amelie Richter
In Hong Kong’s Tai Hang district, residents parade through the crowd with a red glowing kite. The custom dates back to the 19th century. At that time, a community living there is said to have been haunted by a plague, a typhoon and a python before the moon festival. Only a three-day dragon dance was able to exorcize the disaster. Today, up to 300 dancers gather for the street festival, balancing a hand-crafted dragon made of around 72,000 burning incense sticks through the narrow streets.
It’s holiday time in China: Friday’s Moon Festival was followed on Sunday by the National Day celebrating the founding of the People’s Republic. However, instead of enjoying their time off, one politician and his staff traveled to Germany: Vice Premier He Lifeng met in Frankfurt with German Finance Minister Christian Lindner for the third high-level Sino-German financial dialogue, the first in four years. The signs in Frankfurt pointed to cooperation, as the joint statement following the meeting states. Both parties aim to lower market hurdles, encourage mutual investment and cooperate globally.
As is often the case with such summits, concrete details are scarce. But the fact that the meeting took place can be considered a diplomatic success. Just a few months ago, Lindner’s invitation to China was canceled. Too many party friends from his China-critical Free Democratic Party had traveled to Taipei. Now, the Greens are the ones being pilloried after Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called President Xi Jinping a dictator.
As a result, Secretary of State Jennifer Morgan was only allowed to meet her counterpart, Climate Czar Xie Zhenhua, in Beijing last week. In April, she was still allowed to meet with several high-ranking politicians. Lindner’s experience shows, however, that such annoyances in Beijing do not last forever. Therefore, the tensions with the Foreign Office should ease over time, provided no new disruptions occur.
For some weeks, German sinologists have debated whether normality might have returned to Xinjiang. This is what two of them recently wrote in a report for the newspaper NZZ, which sparked a fierce dispute among their peers. Now, a Uyghur woman speaks out in an interview with Table.Media, and she does so very critically. She says people are still afraid to speak openly, and she herself is still unable to contact her family, says German-born Shahnura Kasim, who laments the human rights situation in Xinjiang on TikTok and Instagram.
At the end, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner and China’s Vice Premier He Lifeng shake hands and smile quite relaxed into the cameras. Lindner pats He on the shoulder. Their joint statement after the 3rd high-level Sino-German financial dialogue in Frankfurt am Main talks a lot about cooperation and agreement. If there were sticking points, they are not apparent.
Germany and China want to expand market access for each other, Lindner said in general terms on Sunday. This should be done in the spirit of fair competition. “This creates opportunities for more responsible trade and investment on both sides.” Among other things, the German government sought better access for German banks in China.
Regarding banks, the joint statement states:
In his press statement, He Lifeng also spoke out in favor of opening the financial markets. According to He, cooperation between the central banks and the supervisory authorities for insurers should be strengthened.
In addition to Lindner and He, representatives of the German Bundesbank, the Chinese central bank and the financial supervisory authorities also participated in the dialogue. The largest companies from the sector were also present at times with CEOs and top executives from Deutsche Boerse, Deutsche Bank, Allianz, the state-owned KfW and Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg, among others – as were China’s four leading state-owned banks, including the Bank of China.
But big global politics were also on the agenda. According to Lindner, both countries “clearly committed themselves to an open global economy and multilateralism” within the framework of international organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) or the International Monetary Fund. According to He, the two countries plan to strengthen cooperation against money laundering and terrorist financing.
Both politicians also spoke about the debt burden of many poor developing countries, another concern of the West. China has committed itself to using the mechanism of the G20 group of countries to restructure the debt of struggling countries. Lindner expressly welcomed this. “Because without China as such an important player in world politics, solutions are inconceivable.” China is one of the biggest creditors to many developing countries and practically never writes off their debts.
It is not an easy time in German-Chinese relations, so the very fact that the meeting took place can be considered a success. Currently, there are several problematic issues: Germany is likely planning to have products from telecommunications companies Huawei and ZTE removed from parts of its mobile phone network.
In an interview with the US channel Fox News, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called President Xi Jinping a “dictator” and reiterated this term on German television. There are also concerns in several ministries about the sale of Volkswagen’s gas turbine subsidiary MAN Energy Solutions to CSIC Longjiang GH Gas Turbine Co, owned by the state-owned shipyard group China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), which is subject to approval by the German government.
The previous round of the financial dialogue took place in early 2019, before the Covid pandemic. Lindner now expressed his support to hold the dialogue annually instead of only every two years. Fiscal policy is thus apparently one of the fields that largely function normally, even in times of “de-risking” – and the joint statement indicated that the focus was more on cooperation than on decoupling. As EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said during his visit to China, the EU has also set up a working group on financial services.
Lindner’s high-level interlocutor may also have been a signal that China will no longer hold the visit of several of his FDP colleagues to Taiwan, including Minister of Education Bettina Stark-Watzinger, and criticism of the People’s Republic against the party. It appears that it is not yet the time for such forgiveness vis-à-vis the Foreign Office.
Baerbock’s climate envoy and Secretary of State Jennifer Morgan felt this last week. By meeting with her counterpart, climate czar Xie Zhenhua, Morgan met only one high-ranking politician during her three-day trip to China – albeit the most important one for her portfolio. Others reportedly had no time. At least she met Vice Minister of the Environment Zhao Yingmin on the sidelines of a dialogue forum at Tsinghua University, and thus a politician of equal rank.
Given how the German Free Democratic Party (FDP) – which, like the Greens in Germany, is one of the China hawks among German parties – is being treated at the moment, it can be expected that normality will return to the relationship with the German Foreign Office as well. The half-life of Beijing’s anger never lasts forever. In May, Lindner was uninvited at short notice just before a trip to Beijing, presumably as a reaction to the Taiwan trips of several FDP groups. And now Beijing even sent higher ranking He Lifeng to Frankfurt instead of its finance minister, who is apparently about to retire.
Other dialogue formats are also currently being revived. Hardly noticed by the public, the high-level Sino-German security dialogue took place for the fourth time last Tuesday. Head of the Federal Chancellery, Wolfgang Schmidt, from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), received Chen Wenqing, Secretary of the CCP’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission. The Federal Press Office made the announcement without providing details of the talks. The dialogue dates back to an initiative of the Chinese government in 2016 and was also interrupted by the pandemic.
In an article for the NZZ, two German sinologists declared after a trip to Xinjiang that the human rights situation in the region had returned to normal. They also wrote that the modernization initiated by the Chinese central government met with unmistakable sympathy among the Uyghur population. You have relatives there. What is your impression, has the situation really normalized?
Claiming that the situation there has normalized is an insolent, unprofessional and impossible statement. These scholars probably do not know any Uyghurs personally or have never talked to one. We have never needed help with “modernization” because we have never been uncivilized people. We Uyghurs are a people with a long history and a magnificent culture. But this is not something that is discussed. Because that requires knowledge and information and, above all, time. The statements that everything is back to normal are easy to make without research – because they are simply the statements made by the Chinese government. It is outrageous to repeat something like this as a scientist, because scientists are held in high esteem in society. Many believe them blindly, and that is also the goal of the Chinese government. I am sure there is a quid pro quo for such propaganda statements.
The researchers explained that they had traveled to Xinjiang on their own initiative and at their own expense. What is the situation like for your family and acquaintances on the ground? Can you visit Xinjiang or talk to the people directly?
You can enter the region, but whether you have privacy and freedom, that is another thing. Many journalists have traveled there, there are even short documentary films of German journalists who were monitored 24/7 and were only allowed to go where the Chinese authorities permitted. This way, you don’t see general discrimination on the ground, in deserted streets where no one talks to anyone for fear of being locked up. If all is peace, joy and happiness, why can’t we get in touch with our families? Why can’t we travel home like any normal person? Why can’t we talk on the phone or face-to-face?
Your critics say that you have never been to China yourself and cannot assess what the situation there is like. What is your response to that?
I was born and raised in Germany. I don’t even know my relatives, because I only have my parents and siblings here. My parents can’t meet their own parents, and they haven’t been able to for over 20 years. The last five years have been bad enough – and it is getting worse by the day, because there is no outcry from the world, and so the Chinese government continues on and on. I don’t need to be there to prove what is happening. We have satellite images, we have testimonies from human rights activists working in the European Parliament. We have Uyghurs who have been in these horrible camps and tell about it – people who have lived there and are now overseas. We have the leaked documents, the “Xinjiang Police Files.” We already have too much evidence for anything to be denied.
The researchers also write that between 2010 and 2016, the people of Xinjiang themselves suffered the consequences of “massive Islamist terror,” such as bombings and armed attacks. Are you aware of any Uyghurs who approve of the Chinese government’s actions?
Whenever Muslims are involved, people quickly talk about terrorism because it makes it easier to impose radical measures. Uyghurs are not terrorists and never have been. And even if they were, that would be no reason to build concentration camps, sterilize women and men, give children up for forced adoption, and brainwash people.
Of course, there are Uyghurs who talk up the situation and claim that everything is fine.
Of course, there are Uyghurs who talk up the situation and claim that everything is fine. But they cooperate closely with the Chinese authorities. My mother has a stateless passport because she refused to work for the authorities and did not want to commit “espionage.” My father was already forbidden to contact his family in 2013 for the same reason. The New Silk Road project has only succeeded because no one cares if we live or die. These people are all just chasing their economic interests and profit from us Uyghurs, forced labor, that is.
Her Instagram account is called “Freedom for East-Turkestan”. The term is closely associated with political, ethnic, and cultural controversies, even among Uyghurs. Beijing associates the name with separatism and terrorism. Is it a radical position to advocate for a free East Turkestan?
It is never a radical position to stand up for the freedom of a people. To us Uyghurs, our country is called East Turkestan and nothing else. Beijing directly associates everything related to Uyghurs with terrorism and separatism, but they do not look at their own actions. We all know genocide is happening – the first high-tech genocide in history. Therefore, being pro-China is closer to terrorism – because that means you are against human rights and everything that makes us human.
Do you see no alternative for Xinjiang under Chinese rule?
To this, I only say: We Uyghurs do not want autonomy, we are now registered as autonomy and see what happens. We want democracy, our own independent country, with our own government, our own law, and our own president. We have suffered long enough, and this is the least we can ask for: a free, independent East Turkestan.
Is the West doing enough? Who do you think should be heard more?
The West is not doing much at all. More sanctions are needed. More Chinese products must be boycotted. The term genocide needs to be recognized as a term in this context everywhere. Uyghurs need a bigger and stronger media presence. We need to be heard more, not scientists whose lies are even published.
On Instagram and TikTok, 20-year-old vlogger Shahnura Kasim draws attention to the fate of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. She was born and raised in Germany. In 2019, her family learned that her grandmother was detained in a re-education camp in Xinjiang and that her aunt was missing. Kasim lives and studies in Munich, where, in addition to making short videos for her nearly 14,000 followers, she also draws attention to the situation of the Uyghurs by demonstrating.
Vita Golod has not lost hope in China as a peace mediator. The Ukrainian sinologist is certain that Beijing is waiting for the right moment. “Both sides have to be willing to negotiate,” – that’s the main narrative of the Chinese scholars that visited Kyiv recently, says Golod. She has been the chairwoman of the Board of the Ukrainian Association of Sinologists since 2019. The association is an independent think-tank with a 20-year history and unites more than 200 members studying China and promoting knowledge on China and Ukraine-China relations. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, many events have only been possible online – but she has been used to that since the Covid pandemic, says Golod. Still, she would prefer to have more personal exchanges again.
The start of the Russian war against her home country changed not only her everyday life in Kyiv, but also the work of the association: “We have lost almost all previous contacts with Chinese academia, but we have built new ones with a young generation of scholars who see Ukraine as a European country,” Golod says. At the beginning of the war, some previous Chinese contacts and exchange partners came forward and expressed empathy for the situation. But that is no longer the case now, Golod says.
She believes contact and a trip to China would be crucial for her field research and language practice. Everything changes so quickly there. But traveling is difficult at the moment. Especially because Golod currently focuses on a sensitive topic: She is currently researching Chinese Muslims and their identity from the perspective of Chinese nationalism at the renowned A. Krymskiy Institute for Oriental Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
Golod came into contact with the Chinese language at a very early age: Her parents sent her to a special school where Mandarin is taught intensively. “There were only three such schools in the Soviet Union at the time, one of them in Kyiv.” Her parents wanted a special school for her, says Golod. It was also close to her home and a day school. For ten years, she had daily Chinese lessons with Ukrainian and Chinese teachers. However, she could never visit the People’s Republic due to travel restrictions in the Soviet Union.
Her Mandarin proficiency helped her get a spot at the Institute of International Relations at the National Taras Shevchenko University in Kyiv. There, she completed a bachelor’s and master’s degree in International economy. As part of her first degree, she was able to study for a year at the Taiwanese Mandarin Center at Normal University in Taipei. “That helped me a lot to improve my language skills. I used every opportunity to practice Mandarin.”
Taiwan later also played a role in her thesis. For her Ph.D. at the Institute of World Economy and Institute of International Relations at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, she focused on financial policy in countries in the Asia-Pacific region, specifically Taiwan.
Golod has given about 50 interviews since February 2023 as she feels her expertise as a sinologist could show the Chinese position from different angles. Golod regrets that, nowadays, politics influence the field of sinology. “It’s becoming an international affair more than ever,” she added. Golod would like to see more balanced China coverage in Ukraine. She finds the current one too populist, which is dangerous for a country at war.
For the “Ukraine-China” magazine, which the Ukrainian Association of Sinologists publishes every year, she would like to see more contributions from Chinese colleagues – but also other international contributions. “It is important that different perspectives on China are shown,” says Golod. In November 2023, she will head to the United States as a visiting scholar: She aims to continue her research at the Carolina Asia Center at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and further expand the network for the Ukrainian Association of Sinologists. Amelie Richter
In Hong Kong’s Tai Hang district, residents parade through the crowd with a red glowing kite. The custom dates back to the 19th century. At that time, a community living there is said to have been haunted by a plague, a typhoon and a python before the moon festival. Only a three-day dragon dance was able to exorcize the disaster. Today, up to 300 dancers gather for the street festival, balancing a hand-crafted dragon made of around 72,000 burning incense sticks through the narrow streets.
