In view of an increasingly belligerent China, Germany is debating a stronger decoupling from the People’s Republic. Experts are divided on how painful and, above all, how expensive such a decoupling would be for the German economy. But this question may no longer be relevant. Because the isolation process has long been in full swing. And it originates in China.
Isolation efforts are taking place on many levels, writes Marcel Grzanna in his analysis, listing a number of examples: Chinese companies are leaving foreign stock exchanges, English lessons in schools are scaled back, and most Chinese citizens are virtually no longer allowed to travel outside the country. In turn, foreigners are also less and less welcome in China. What such an isolationist policy will lead to can be seen clearly in the People’s Republic: nationalism is on the rise. And that, unfortunately, only makes China more dangerous.
Although Ericsson does not have it easy in China either, the Swedish communications equipment manufacturer plans to stay. Despite all the hurdles that local authorities are throwing in the way of the Swedish company, the Chinese market is already much larger than the domestic market, analyzes Frank Sieren. Ericsson cannot afford to abandon the Chinese market. A fundamental problem for many global companies.
The Chinese Academy of Historical Research (CAHR) stirred up controversy in late August. It shared a post on social media that focused on the foreign policy of the Ming and Qing dynasties. At that time, the Chinese emperors had decreed a political, economic and cultural distance to foreign countries for centuries, which gave China the attribute of a “closed country”.
Readers immediately noticed the parallels to the year 2022 – more than 100 years after the fall of the Qing dynasty. Massive travel restrictions with no sign of change in the near future have kept China’s population effectively captive in their own country for more than two and a half years. The development of the so-called dual circulation economy is in full swing and is supposed to reduce dependencies on foreign countries to an absolute minimum in the long term.
Listed companies are returning to Chinese financial hubs from foreign stock exchanges – more or less willingly – because Chinese regulators are putting pressure on them. Beijing wants to keep its tech industry in particular away from the risk of falling into the headlock of foreign capital. The government also tightened localization quotas for state-owned enterprises last year. In public tenders, applicants must now present more components that are 100 percent made in China: “Buy Chinese” is the directive for the economy.
The CAHR authors of the article, titled “A New Inquiry into the Facts of the ‘Closed Country,’” argue that the empire’s past detachment was a necessity to maintain China’s territorial and cultural stability. Instead of “isolation,” they referred to the policy as “self-restraint.”
Some of the reactions from readers were highly critical, and prompted the censors to intervene in the debate, reports the Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao from Singapore. Some comments accused the historians of being a “propaganda organ of the government” to historically justify present developments.
In fact, the modern form of “self-restraint” feels more like isolation to many Chinese. One user responded to the post with his own essay via his private WeChat account. The gist of the criticism: The issue is not national security, as the Ming and Qing emperors also propagated, but the rulers’ fear of losing power. “Anyone with a little common sense can tell the difference,” the author wrote. Within a day, the post counted 100,000 hits before censors intervened and banished the text from the digital realm.
The ruling Communist Party categorically rejects all accusations of decoupling. The official line is that China is in a constant process of opening up to foreign countries. But in reality, Beijing’s policies contradict this claim. Regulations for business and industry are only one side of the medal. The massive interventions in the education program for children, young people and adults who wish to learn English more effectively signify a change in direction.
Last year, the authorities in Shanghai, China’s most international metropolis, of all places, decided to abolish English exams in local elementary schools. Instead, “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” was incorporated into the curriculum for the youngest students – a book containing the intellectual outpourings of the head of state, which, through its fierce international marketing, is reminiscent of the hype surrounding the Mao Bible in the 1960s and 1970s.
This was followed by the nationwide termination of thousands of private educational programs that had provided the people of China with the opportunity to learn foreign languages – above all English – outside the state education system for decades. Some people in the country cynically referred to the initiative as “China’s Great Leap Backward”. Especially since broad English skills for the population had been propagated by the state leadership at the turn of the century as one of China’s keys to economic advancement.
“What we are currently witnessing is an ideological radicalization of the country at the expense of its economic, social and cultural liberalization,” says Berlin-based journalist and author Qin Liwen, whose work focuses on China’s political development. “An intended side effect of this policy is also a steadily growing nationalism in the country,” she says.
Its manifestations are radical at times, as the recent incident at a school in Liupanshui, in the province of Guizhou, shows. As part of a school-based national defense military training, teenagers chanted, “Kill, kill, kill.” While chanting, they vowed to kill anyone who dared to challenge the Communist Party, no matter where he or she was in the world.
Another stir was caused by the arrest of a Chinese woman in Suzhou who had worn a Japanese kimono for a photo shoot and had been interrogated for hours about it. Later, authorities stated that everyone was free to wear whatever they wanted, but recommended that people be sensitive in their choice of clothing so as not to provoke others.
Foreigners experience growing hostility when they want to check into hotels outside the metropolises. Others report that in recent years they routinely are drawn into discussions about the West’s attitude toward the People’s Republic, which they do not want to start, let alone engage in. Growing nationalism coupled with the country’s strict zero-Covid policy prompts many foreigners to leave the country.
“There is nationalism in other countries, too, of course,” says publicist Qin. “But in a dictatorship, it has no social counterweight. As long as nationalism supports the Chinese leadership, it will encourage it and cut off soothing voices. In such a climate, nationalism will multiply much faster because it won’t be publicly counterbalanced.”
Ericsson holds on to the Chinese market. The Swedish communications equipment provider wants to be even more involved in the construction of Chinese 5G networks. This was announced by Fang Ying, President of Ericsson’s China division, at a press conference in mid-August. He said the growth opportunities were particularly promising in the area of private 5G networks. Ericsson aims to support Chinese companies in particular with 5G mobile solutions, the statement said. This will not be easy. After all, Sweden had joined the US boycott of Chinese network equipment and smartphone manufacturer Huawei in October 2020 for “security reasons”.
Sweden’s regulator requires all 5G participants to remove Huawei and ZTE equipment from their existing network by 2025. Huawei filed a lawsuit against this move and lost the case last June. Now, Ericsson is again struggling to obtain contracts in the world’s largest and still fastest-growing 5G market.
Over the past three years, China has been rapidly expanding the number of base stations. In November, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology presented a plan to increase the number of 5G base stations in the country to 3.64 million by the end of 2025. That would mean 26 base stations for every 10,000 citizens. In 2020, there were just five for every 10,000 people. In total, China has already installed more than 1.6 million 5G base stations, according to the ministry. But participating in this market is difficult for Ericsson.
As early as mid-2021, the company warned about the risk of “collateral damage due to difficult Sino-Swedish relations”. Although the China business accounts for only 8 percent of Ericsson’s business, that share was supposed to increase sharply, as China is the largest growth market. Instead, the slump on the Chinese market has cut Ericsson’s 2021 growth in half. Instead of 8 percent, the company grew by only 4 percent. Revenues of $27 billion do not even close to the best years of up to $35 billion (2011). Ericsson quantified the decline in revenue in China for the entire year at $1 billion.
Shortly after, the company declared plans to close one of its five research centers in Nanjing. The facility had been opened back in 2001. “As a consequence of the loss in sales in China, we have to right-size our sales and delivery organization in China, and that will start in the fourth quarter,” said Borge Eckholm, Ericsson’s President and Chief Executive, during the company’s results presentation. “In the short term, we need to adjust the cost structure to an appropriate scale as much as possible.”
Ericsson is not happy about Stockholm’s decision to exclude Huawei from the 5G rollout in Sweden. This is because the Chinese market is already significantly larger than the Swedish market. Therefore, Eckholm cannot afford to abandon the Chinese market. In May, Ericsson formed a new division called Business Area Enterprise Wireless Solutions as part of a restructuring. However, Fang did not specify a timetable for when Ericsson’s new 5G wireless solutions will be available in China. The plan was still in an “exploratory phase,” he said.
Especially in Mobile Core Networks (MCN) and Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC), China has experienced enormous demand for the past two years. The Chinese MCN market posted a double-digit percentage growth rate in Q2 2022. The top five global 5G MCN suppliers in Q2 2022 include Huawei, Ericsson, ZTE, Nokia, and NEC. However, Huawei is also the market leader in this area and the Chinese company ZTE is right on the Swedes’ heels.
At the same time, however, China Unicom and China Telecom have scaled back Ericsson’s participation in their 5G network projects. China Mobile also involved Ericsson in just 2 percent of its 5G network deployment last year, compared to an 11 percent share in 2020, with the bulk of the ¥7.5 billion ($1.16 billion) contract going to Chinese conglomerates Huawei and ZTE.
At least things are going well for Ericsson in other parts of the world. According to a study by Trendforce, Ericsson will increase its global base station market share to 24 percent in 2022, up from 23.5 percent in 2021. Just this month, Bharti Airtel, India’s leading communications solutions provider, announced that it had awarded India’s first 5G contract to Ericsson. A small comfort compared to the business lost in China. The 6G rollout in China will be particularly bitter for Ericsson. Ericsson expects that global standards in the new technology could be set as early as 2027. But without Ericsson in China.
China’s President Xi Jinping will meet Russia’s President Vladimir Putin next week for the first time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to news agency reports. Putin and Xi plan to meet at a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in the city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan, Russian Ambassador to Beijing Andrei Denissov announced Wednesday, according to RIA Novosti and Tass news agencies. Xi and Putin last met in person in early February at the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. The SCO summit is scheduled for September 15-16. According to Tass, the meeting between the two leaders is scheduled for Wednesday, but further details were not initially available.
Whether Xi will visit Kazakhstan before traveling to Samarkand remained open on Wednesday. Several media outlets had previously reported, citing the Kazakh Foreign Ministry, that Xi will meet President Qassym Shomart Toqaev there for trade talks on September 14. The destination of Xi’s first foreign trip has attracted much attention and certainly carries symbolic weight.
China’s number three, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress Li Zhanshu, already met Putin on Wednesday of this week. Li and Putin were seen talking together at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. They also both attended the main plenary session. Li’s attendance at the forum made him the highest-ranking Chinese official to leave the People’s Republic since the beginning of the Covid pandemic. Li’s stop in Vladivostok is part of a ten-day tour through Russia, South Korea, Mongolia and Nepal. ari
Spies are not supposed to betray their own power apparatus. But precisely exactly what the head of Russian foreign espionage Sergei Naryshkin has done on February 23, unintentionally and conspicuously. At a meeting of the Russian Security Council, his answers not only revealed how the pretexts of Russian imperialism change on a whim. As Vladimir Putin humiliated his top spy in front of the world, he revealed: The Russian Federation has become a Fuehrer state. The autocrat has absolute power. He is not controlled by any public, any party, any parliament, any judiciary, any cabinet, or even any officials or secret service clique – on the contrary, he controls them all. One day after Naryshkin’s embarrassing revelation, the world witnessed what Fuehrer states are capable of: Russia invaded Ukraine and has been killing thousands and terrorizing millions ever since.
Those familiar with Russia saw the metamorphosis from the dysfunctional post-Soviet Yeltsin years to Putin’s Fuehrer state coming. Of course, there is no longer a Politburo, which in the old USSR appointed or removed the General Secretary of the CPSU as a controlling body. The Duma and the Federation Council are claqueurs, and the diversity of the press has almost completely disappeared. The business community is also subservient, from the show trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2005 to the sudden deaths of business representatives who opposed the Ukraine invasion. Even Putin’s aggressive rejection of the democratic world during his historic appearance at the 2007 Munich Security Conference was not taken seriously enough in Washington, Brussels or Berlin.
Anyone who looks from the declining superpower Russia to the rising superpower China will find disturbing similarities. China’s strongman Xi Jinping has eliminated almost all opposing forces in his one-party state to ensure his election for life at the next CP congress starting on October 16. He has replaced the top intelligence officers several times and holds a firm grip on the military. He personally rules all organizations of the state, party and society. Anyone who disagrees with him ends up in the interrogation rooms of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. The economy is also kept on a short leash, from Jack Ma’s house arrest to laws that turn data collection into a state monopoly. In this, Xi far outdoes his ally Putin. With social credit points and facial recognition, Xi holds totalitarian power over everyone: Citizens, institutions, and hierarchies.
Fuehrer states are to be feared because even the country’s staunchest fundamental interests can be overruled by the personal priorities, visions, whims and sicknesses of its leader. The yes-men also create a false reality for the autocrat, allowing him to decide irrationally despite many years of political experience – and no one to stop him.
There have always been autocrats who were able to subjugate an entire society. Nuclear powers as one-Fuehrer states, however, are a new geostrategic challenge to which the world needs to adapt to. They represent a new type of risk, especially for democracies, and should therefore be categorized and treated as such.
Germany relied on “change through trade” – from the European Coal and Steel Community and Ostpolitik to its current approach to Xi Jinping’s China. Reducing political risks through mutual economic dependencies, however, has proven to be completely ineffective with Fuehrer states. Any form of dependence on a Fuehrer state is counterproductive by definition – it can even tempt the autocrat to unpredictable behavior and thus exacerbate strategic vulnerabilities. Accordingly, the G7 and the EU should classify countries according to whether they are approaching the Fuehrer state form of government, similar to credit ratings. With each step toward autocracy, measures should be taken to reduce strategic vulnerabilities and influence the autocrat’s deliberations.
We can learn from the Russian attack on Ukraine and the effect of the current sanctions against Russia, as they change the strategic behavior of the opposing side at best in the medium and long term and harm everyone.
We must rely on prevention through credible deterrence instead of punishment ex-post vis-à-vis Fuehrer states. NATO is rightly switching over to the Baltic States: Rather than thinking along the lines of a possible retaking of occupied territory, the strategy is to put itself in a military position where no one in Moscow can even think of implementing attack plans. Similar questions now arise about Taiwan – a possible test of strength for the democracies!
Democracies require independence from Fuehrer states and credible deterrence. Consequences need to be declared in advance, as was the case with rearmament in the 1980s, so that they ideally do not have to be applied at all. But they are only believable if the democracies truly stand behind them. To this end, they must be aware that they are dealing with particularly dangerous countries – the Fuehrer states.
Wolfgang Ischinger is the President of the Board of Trustees of the Munich Security Conference Foundation.
Sebastian Turner is the founder of Table.Media and publisher of China.Table.
Dino in the front garden? Almost! The picture shows a T-Rex in a park in Hong Kong. The installation is part of the celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, which happened at the beginning of July. The giant lizard has been lurking in the bushes there ever since.
In view of an increasingly belligerent China, Germany is debating a stronger decoupling from the People’s Republic. Experts are divided on how painful and, above all, how expensive such a decoupling would be for the German economy. But this question may no longer be relevant. Because the isolation process has long been in full swing. And it originates in China.
Isolation efforts are taking place on many levels, writes Marcel Grzanna in his analysis, listing a number of examples: Chinese companies are leaving foreign stock exchanges, English lessons in schools are scaled back, and most Chinese citizens are virtually no longer allowed to travel outside the country. In turn, foreigners are also less and less welcome in China. What such an isolationist policy will lead to can be seen clearly in the People’s Republic: nationalism is on the rise. And that, unfortunately, only makes China more dangerous.
Although Ericsson does not have it easy in China either, the Swedish communications equipment manufacturer plans to stay. Despite all the hurdles that local authorities are throwing in the way of the Swedish company, the Chinese market is already much larger than the domestic market, analyzes Frank Sieren. Ericsson cannot afford to abandon the Chinese market. A fundamental problem for many global companies.
The Chinese Academy of Historical Research (CAHR) stirred up controversy in late August. It shared a post on social media that focused on the foreign policy of the Ming and Qing dynasties. At that time, the Chinese emperors had decreed a political, economic and cultural distance to foreign countries for centuries, which gave China the attribute of a “closed country”.
Readers immediately noticed the parallels to the year 2022 – more than 100 years after the fall of the Qing dynasty. Massive travel restrictions with no sign of change in the near future have kept China’s population effectively captive in their own country for more than two and a half years. The development of the so-called dual circulation economy is in full swing and is supposed to reduce dependencies on foreign countries to an absolute minimum in the long term.
Listed companies are returning to Chinese financial hubs from foreign stock exchanges – more or less willingly – because Chinese regulators are putting pressure on them. Beijing wants to keep its tech industry in particular away from the risk of falling into the headlock of foreign capital. The government also tightened localization quotas for state-owned enterprises last year. In public tenders, applicants must now present more components that are 100 percent made in China: “Buy Chinese” is the directive for the economy.
The CAHR authors of the article, titled “A New Inquiry into the Facts of the ‘Closed Country,’” argue that the empire’s past detachment was a necessity to maintain China’s territorial and cultural stability. Instead of “isolation,” they referred to the policy as “self-restraint.”
Some of the reactions from readers were highly critical, and prompted the censors to intervene in the debate, reports the Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao from Singapore. Some comments accused the historians of being a “propaganda organ of the government” to historically justify present developments.
In fact, the modern form of “self-restraint” feels more like isolation to many Chinese. One user responded to the post with his own essay via his private WeChat account. The gist of the criticism: The issue is not national security, as the Ming and Qing emperors also propagated, but the rulers’ fear of losing power. “Anyone with a little common sense can tell the difference,” the author wrote. Within a day, the post counted 100,000 hits before censors intervened and banished the text from the digital realm.
The ruling Communist Party categorically rejects all accusations of decoupling. The official line is that China is in a constant process of opening up to foreign countries. But in reality, Beijing’s policies contradict this claim. Regulations for business and industry are only one side of the medal. The massive interventions in the education program for children, young people and adults who wish to learn English more effectively signify a change in direction.
Last year, the authorities in Shanghai, China’s most international metropolis, of all places, decided to abolish English exams in local elementary schools. Instead, “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” was incorporated into the curriculum for the youngest students – a book containing the intellectual outpourings of the head of state, which, through its fierce international marketing, is reminiscent of the hype surrounding the Mao Bible in the 1960s and 1970s.
This was followed by the nationwide termination of thousands of private educational programs that had provided the people of China with the opportunity to learn foreign languages – above all English – outside the state education system for decades. Some people in the country cynically referred to the initiative as “China’s Great Leap Backward”. Especially since broad English skills for the population had been propagated by the state leadership at the turn of the century as one of China’s keys to economic advancement.
“What we are currently witnessing is an ideological radicalization of the country at the expense of its economic, social and cultural liberalization,” says Berlin-based journalist and author Qin Liwen, whose work focuses on China’s political development. “An intended side effect of this policy is also a steadily growing nationalism in the country,” she says.
Its manifestations are radical at times, as the recent incident at a school in Liupanshui, in the province of Guizhou, shows. As part of a school-based national defense military training, teenagers chanted, “Kill, kill, kill.” While chanting, they vowed to kill anyone who dared to challenge the Communist Party, no matter where he or she was in the world.
Another stir was caused by the arrest of a Chinese woman in Suzhou who had worn a Japanese kimono for a photo shoot and had been interrogated for hours about it. Later, authorities stated that everyone was free to wear whatever they wanted, but recommended that people be sensitive in their choice of clothing so as not to provoke others.
Foreigners experience growing hostility when they want to check into hotels outside the metropolises. Others report that in recent years they routinely are drawn into discussions about the West’s attitude toward the People’s Republic, which they do not want to start, let alone engage in. Growing nationalism coupled with the country’s strict zero-Covid policy prompts many foreigners to leave the country.
“There is nationalism in other countries, too, of course,” says publicist Qin. “But in a dictatorship, it has no social counterweight. As long as nationalism supports the Chinese leadership, it will encourage it and cut off soothing voices. In such a climate, nationalism will multiply much faster because it won’t be publicly counterbalanced.”
Ericsson holds on to the Chinese market. The Swedish communications equipment provider wants to be even more involved in the construction of Chinese 5G networks. This was announced by Fang Ying, President of Ericsson’s China division, at a press conference in mid-August. He said the growth opportunities were particularly promising in the area of private 5G networks. Ericsson aims to support Chinese companies in particular with 5G mobile solutions, the statement said. This will not be easy. After all, Sweden had joined the US boycott of Chinese network equipment and smartphone manufacturer Huawei in October 2020 for “security reasons”.
Sweden’s regulator requires all 5G participants to remove Huawei and ZTE equipment from their existing network by 2025. Huawei filed a lawsuit against this move and lost the case last June. Now, Ericsson is again struggling to obtain contracts in the world’s largest and still fastest-growing 5G market.
Over the past three years, China has been rapidly expanding the number of base stations. In November, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology presented a plan to increase the number of 5G base stations in the country to 3.64 million by the end of 2025. That would mean 26 base stations for every 10,000 citizens. In 2020, there were just five for every 10,000 people. In total, China has already installed more than 1.6 million 5G base stations, according to the ministry. But participating in this market is difficult for Ericsson.
As early as mid-2021, the company warned about the risk of “collateral damage due to difficult Sino-Swedish relations”. Although the China business accounts for only 8 percent of Ericsson’s business, that share was supposed to increase sharply, as China is the largest growth market. Instead, the slump on the Chinese market has cut Ericsson’s 2021 growth in half. Instead of 8 percent, the company grew by only 4 percent. Revenues of $27 billion do not even close to the best years of up to $35 billion (2011). Ericsson quantified the decline in revenue in China for the entire year at $1 billion.
Shortly after, the company declared plans to close one of its five research centers in Nanjing. The facility had been opened back in 2001. “As a consequence of the loss in sales in China, we have to right-size our sales and delivery organization in China, and that will start in the fourth quarter,” said Borge Eckholm, Ericsson’s President and Chief Executive, during the company’s results presentation. “In the short term, we need to adjust the cost structure to an appropriate scale as much as possible.”
Ericsson is not happy about Stockholm’s decision to exclude Huawei from the 5G rollout in Sweden. This is because the Chinese market is already significantly larger than the Swedish market. Therefore, Eckholm cannot afford to abandon the Chinese market. In May, Ericsson formed a new division called Business Area Enterprise Wireless Solutions as part of a restructuring. However, Fang did not specify a timetable for when Ericsson’s new 5G wireless solutions will be available in China. The plan was still in an “exploratory phase,” he said.
Especially in Mobile Core Networks (MCN) and Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC), China has experienced enormous demand for the past two years. The Chinese MCN market posted a double-digit percentage growth rate in Q2 2022. The top five global 5G MCN suppliers in Q2 2022 include Huawei, Ericsson, ZTE, Nokia, and NEC. However, Huawei is also the market leader in this area and the Chinese company ZTE is right on the Swedes’ heels.
At the same time, however, China Unicom and China Telecom have scaled back Ericsson’s participation in their 5G network projects. China Mobile also involved Ericsson in just 2 percent of its 5G network deployment last year, compared to an 11 percent share in 2020, with the bulk of the ¥7.5 billion ($1.16 billion) contract going to Chinese conglomerates Huawei and ZTE.
At least things are going well for Ericsson in other parts of the world. According to a study by Trendforce, Ericsson will increase its global base station market share to 24 percent in 2022, up from 23.5 percent in 2021. Just this month, Bharti Airtel, India’s leading communications solutions provider, announced that it had awarded India’s first 5G contract to Ericsson. A small comfort compared to the business lost in China. The 6G rollout in China will be particularly bitter for Ericsson. Ericsson expects that global standards in the new technology could be set as early as 2027. But without Ericsson in China.
China’s President Xi Jinping will meet Russia’s President Vladimir Putin next week for the first time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to news agency reports. Putin and Xi plan to meet at a Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in the city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan, Russian Ambassador to Beijing Andrei Denissov announced Wednesday, according to RIA Novosti and Tass news agencies. Xi and Putin last met in person in early February at the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing. The SCO summit is scheduled for September 15-16. According to Tass, the meeting between the two leaders is scheduled for Wednesday, but further details were not initially available.
Whether Xi will visit Kazakhstan before traveling to Samarkand remained open on Wednesday. Several media outlets had previously reported, citing the Kazakh Foreign Ministry, that Xi will meet President Qassym Shomart Toqaev there for trade talks on September 14. The destination of Xi’s first foreign trip has attracted much attention and certainly carries symbolic weight.
China’s number three, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress Li Zhanshu, already met Putin on Wednesday of this week. Li and Putin were seen talking together at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok. They also both attended the main plenary session. Li’s attendance at the forum made him the highest-ranking Chinese official to leave the People’s Republic since the beginning of the Covid pandemic. Li’s stop in Vladivostok is part of a ten-day tour through Russia, South Korea, Mongolia and Nepal. ari
Spies are not supposed to betray their own power apparatus. But precisely exactly what the head of Russian foreign espionage Sergei Naryshkin has done on February 23, unintentionally and conspicuously. At a meeting of the Russian Security Council, his answers not only revealed how the pretexts of Russian imperialism change on a whim. As Vladimir Putin humiliated his top spy in front of the world, he revealed: The Russian Federation has become a Fuehrer state. The autocrat has absolute power. He is not controlled by any public, any party, any parliament, any judiciary, any cabinet, or even any officials or secret service clique – on the contrary, he controls them all. One day after Naryshkin’s embarrassing revelation, the world witnessed what Fuehrer states are capable of: Russia invaded Ukraine and has been killing thousands and terrorizing millions ever since.
Those familiar with Russia saw the metamorphosis from the dysfunctional post-Soviet Yeltsin years to Putin’s Fuehrer state coming. Of course, there is no longer a Politburo, which in the old USSR appointed or removed the General Secretary of the CPSU as a controlling body. The Duma and the Federation Council are claqueurs, and the diversity of the press has almost completely disappeared. The business community is also subservient, from the show trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 2005 to the sudden deaths of business representatives who opposed the Ukraine invasion. Even Putin’s aggressive rejection of the democratic world during his historic appearance at the 2007 Munich Security Conference was not taken seriously enough in Washington, Brussels or Berlin.
Anyone who looks from the declining superpower Russia to the rising superpower China will find disturbing similarities. China’s strongman Xi Jinping has eliminated almost all opposing forces in his one-party state to ensure his election for life at the next CP congress starting on October 16. He has replaced the top intelligence officers several times and holds a firm grip on the military. He personally rules all organizations of the state, party and society. Anyone who disagrees with him ends up in the interrogation rooms of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. The economy is also kept on a short leash, from Jack Ma’s house arrest to laws that turn data collection into a state monopoly. In this, Xi far outdoes his ally Putin. With social credit points and facial recognition, Xi holds totalitarian power over everyone: Citizens, institutions, and hierarchies.
Fuehrer states are to be feared because even the country’s staunchest fundamental interests can be overruled by the personal priorities, visions, whims and sicknesses of its leader. The yes-men also create a false reality for the autocrat, allowing him to decide irrationally despite many years of political experience – and no one to stop him.
There have always been autocrats who were able to subjugate an entire society. Nuclear powers as one-Fuehrer states, however, are a new geostrategic challenge to which the world needs to adapt to. They represent a new type of risk, especially for democracies, and should therefore be categorized and treated as such.
Germany relied on “change through trade” – from the European Coal and Steel Community and Ostpolitik to its current approach to Xi Jinping’s China. Reducing political risks through mutual economic dependencies, however, has proven to be completely ineffective with Fuehrer states. Any form of dependence on a Fuehrer state is counterproductive by definition – it can even tempt the autocrat to unpredictable behavior and thus exacerbate strategic vulnerabilities. Accordingly, the G7 and the EU should classify countries according to whether they are approaching the Fuehrer state form of government, similar to credit ratings. With each step toward autocracy, measures should be taken to reduce strategic vulnerabilities and influence the autocrat’s deliberations.
We can learn from the Russian attack on Ukraine and the effect of the current sanctions against Russia, as they change the strategic behavior of the opposing side at best in the medium and long term and harm everyone.
We must rely on prevention through credible deterrence instead of punishment ex-post vis-à-vis Fuehrer states. NATO is rightly switching over to the Baltic States: Rather than thinking along the lines of a possible retaking of occupied territory, the strategy is to put itself in a military position where no one in Moscow can even think of implementing attack plans. Similar questions now arise about Taiwan – a possible test of strength for the democracies!
Democracies require independence from Fuehrer states and credible deterrence. Consequences need to be declared in advance, as was the case with rearmament in the 1980s, so that they ideally do not have to be applied at all. But they are only believable if the democracies truly stand behind them. To this end, they must be aware that they are dealing with particularly dangerous countries – the Fuehrer states.
Wolfgang Ischinger is the President of the Board of Trustees of the Munich Security Conference Foundation.
Sebastian Turner is the founder of Table.Media and publisher of China.Table.
Dino in the front garden? Almost! The picture shows a T-Rex in a park in Hong Kong. The installation is part of the celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, which happened at the beginning of July. The giant lizard has been lurking in the bushes there ever since.
