Folklore about the Chinese market tells the tale of high-priced, self-selling German products bearing a black-red-gold sticker on their package that virtually fly into the arms of customers. The reality of marketing looks much more grueling. This is what Forest Liu tells us in today’s CEO Talk with Frank Sieren. Liu markets lenses and cameras in China for German manufacturer Arri. When the market was just starting to take off, competitors’ cameras offered superior technical specs on paper. Only through “agonizingly slow convincing” of film industry customers did Arri work its way up to become the market leader.
At times, it was tempting to offer high discounts as a sales incentive. For a while, even the company’s own sales department called for this. But Liu remained persistent. Ultimately, he succeeded in anchoring Arri’s cameras in the market as a premium product. One of the main factors of Liu’s success was that he understood both German and Chinese culture. Because in the initial phase, every sale required precisely the right arguments. He leaves the low-priced products that generate more revenue to the emerging Chinese competition, which is also constantly improving.
In technical terms, China simply wants to continue learning from the best. That is the reason why there currently is a race to find a wrecked aircraft in the waters near the Philippines. The USA has lost one of its state-of-the-art F-35 fighter jets there. A stealth jet packed with weapons. Even its anti-radar plating could mean invaluable tactical insights for the People’s Liberation Army. Michael Radunski analyzes the stakes in the race to the bottom of the South China Sea. The United States is trying to find and salvage the wreckage first. However, if the Chinese navy is faster, the US military will lose critical advantages.
Today’s guest feature is by Stephen Roach. While he is first and foremost an economist, his geopolitical assessments are also worth paying attention to. As a former top Morgan Stanley executive, he’s been around. Roach considers Xi and Putin’s friendly meeting during the Olympics as a historic turning point. Admittedly, he uses the rather bulky phrase “triangulation gambit”, which refers to a triangular chess move, to describe China’s strategy. In political discourse, it simply means that one superpower plays two others off against each other. The US once did this successfully with Russia and China. Now, Xi wants to be smarter. He is using the growing risk of war in Ukraine to strengthen his own position.
Forest Liu, 39, is the head of China for an astonishing German champion that has maintained its position as a global market leader across several technology shifts. The Munich-based company was founded back in 1917 and is actually called Arnold und Richter. It is known by the acronym Arri. With Alexa, the Arri Group, as it is known today, is the world’s leading manufacturer of digital film cameras and film equipment. Annual revenue exceeds €400 million. Liu has also played a crucial role in the company’s success in the People’s Republic. The German was born and raised in China. His mother Kosima Liu is a German photographer and artist, and his father John is an American documentarian of Chinese descent. Liu originally wanted to direct films himself after studying business administration. But he then had the opportunity to set up Arri’s first representation in China. His branch has developed into a huge market where Liu can pursue his fascination for German cutting-edge technology. You can watch the full German interview here.
How does a German company manage to keep its position at the top of the Chinese market for such a long time, even in the face of strong competition from the US and China?
Because they don’t sell fancy gadgets, but tools for craftsmen who produce movies. And in the way that many German hidden champions do: The world’s best products, without allowing themselves to be beaten down by price wars, all the while focusing on major trends, without letting themselves get side-tracked by every hype. What’s important: You can’t let your principles distract you.
And what are they? Competitors like Sony and Panasonic are not asleep either, but they don’t even come close to Arri in terms of global market share.
For me, Arri’s first digital camera was the awakening experience. It came out in 2010. I was 28 years old at the time. And for me, Arri was pretty old-fashioned. But that was about to change with the Alexa. The superior quality was still there. Whether in desert heat or arctic cold, the camera never failed. But that is only one side, and that was no longer enough. Much more important for me and many others of my generation was, of course, the image quality. But also the new philosophy of open standards, which fits very well with open source thinking and, in the end, also represents a way of life. While other cameras insist on their own formats, own ports, and own optics, we use Sony memory cards and, as the first camera manufacturer, Apple ProRes, because it is stable, easy to use, and offers the best balance between high quality and low processing complexity. So why force the customer to use their own, perhaps only second-best solution, when there is something better?
But it took a while before you offered a camera with 4K image resolution, even though it was the standard. Is Arri sometimes also stubborn?
No. We said: We want to create the best images. And image resolution is just one parameter. If we can produce better images with a different standard, then we’ll stick with it. At first, many people saw this as a provocation, and some even considered it backward. But our CEO at the time, Franz Kraus, insisted on sticking to a level that was, unfortunately, only 3.4K from a sales point of view. After brief skepticism, however, the cameramen thanked him. You can’t just chase every trend, even if it’s hard.
And what’s the trick?
Knowing which new trend is important and which is not. If we hadn’t switched to digital, for example, Arri would be out of business today. There were also discussions among filmmakers about whether film stock doesn’t produce better quality after all.
Did the Chinese filmmakers understand Arri’s strategy right away? In any case, China quickly realized why they should buy the S-Class.
That was super difficult with the cameras. Especially because of the lack of a 4K standard. That was not an easy time for sales. Customers asked me: How can it be that when I buy a €55,000 camera, it can’t do 4K? That was no surprise. Anyone who lacks practical experience will tend to stick more to the standards. We had to do a lot of lengthy and tough explanatory work. But in the end, it worked. We managed to establish Arri cameras and lenses as a standard in China. However, this was also due to the fact that the Chinese industry was lagging behind at the time compared to the USA. Other brands had already established themselves in the USA. That’s where you have to push out the top dogs first. In China, we all started at the same time.
What role does the “Made in Germany” factor play in this?
It may surprise you, but that hardly matters in our industry. In fact, Made in Hollywood would probably almost be a better selling point. The Chinese industry is already very focused on the US. So saying, ‘This is the S-Class of cameras – please buy,’ wouldn’t have been enough. It took some agonizingly slow convincing on our part at times. And even our sales reps complained about the product. We then managed to convince one by one. Today, over 70 percent of motion pictures and over 80 percent of TV series are shot with Arri.
How important is it to be very familiar with both cultures?
It’s probably not impossible if you’re a Westerner who doesn’t know Chinese culture. However, it is much more difficult.
An example?
In China, they quickly say: we do this differently. Then you ought to know that this is also a way of avoiding problems, of not having to deal with another new way. Since I knew that this was the case, I was able to insist more strongly on trying something new and jumping over their own shadows. Someone who doesn’t know that probably wouldn’t have done so out of respect for Chinese culture.
Do Chinese cameramen have different requirements than Western ones?
Not really. However, one thing that Chinese camera people notice straight away, of course, is when the shades of the skin color don’t match Asian tones. This has happened to some manufacturers because they did not develop their products in China. And that can then even be a dealbreaker. We also had to develop Chinese interfaces for our products. Our technicians always asked, ‘Isn’t English enough?’ But that made a big difference. Once we were able to offer that, there was a boost in sales.
What did you notice about their Chinese distribution, as a Westerner?
Chinese like to sell over the price and not by explaining the product’s advantages. That’s why they said, if we don’t have 4K, we have to sell at a lower price. You have to realize that this is not just laziness. There is also a piece of Chinese culture in it. I then had to explain to them the Western, German culture, which focuses much more on various specifications. I always started by saying: Yes, well, but that’s not Arri culture and if you can’t deal with that, then maybe you don’t fit in with Arri. That was the learning curve: The sales strategy has to match China, but it also has to match Arri. It’s always about both if you want to be successful. German stubbornness doesn’t help. Neither does ‘China First’. And that also applies to product development. The important thing is to be very closely focused on those who use our products. That is also a central task of after-sales. Not just repairing, but also figuring out: How do customers handle the products, and what can our development department learn from this?
How important is the Chinese market for Arri now?
The US is the largest market, but China is not far behind. In 2017, for example, we actually sold more camera equipment in China than in the US. In fact, you would think China is the ultimate growth market for our products. But with the streaming services Apple TV+, Amazon Prime, and Netflix, the American market has received a huge boost. There is a lot of production at a very high level. That should not be underestimated.
And there were major changes to the Chinese market.
Yes. In 2018/19, when the state started to fight tax evasion among movie actors, and there were some spectacular cases, like that of actress Fan Bing Bing, who had to pay the equivalent of €110 million in back taxes. This, of course, slowed down the industry. All directors and actors had to declare their earnings and pay them back. Or when the film industry was subordinated to the propaganda department of the State Council. That slowed down many projects.
And then came Covid.
That didn’t play such a big role in China. China had the pandemic under control after a few weeks. For us, 2020 was a much better year in China than 2019.
Are there any Chinese competitors in the meantime? There are a couple of them in the US and Japan.
There are currently a lot of competitors emerging in China. And three of them are worth taking a closer look at, even if they are not yet at the same level.
How long will it take for them to catch up?
First, the question is not about time, but rather about philosophy. In other words, whether they really want to offer cameras or equipment at our price level, or rather offer cheaper products with more sales volume. At the moment, the Chinese are going for the latter. But that can change quickly, so you can’t just shrug them off.
How so?
Here in China, there is a far greater will to try out new things. This is how very convincing innovations are created. As a German company, we tend to lack this. We tend to be conservative and very, very slow in our product development. We have to be very careful. For example, combining a gimbal and a camera into one device. The gimbal keeps the camera image stable. These are very exciting innovations. There is also a lot happening in LED technology in China.
Isn’t that the reason for Arri to establish a low-cost entry-level line?
So far, we have always decided against it, and I think for good reason. We are a rather small company in the end. We have to focus on the most important products. And so far, this strategy has always worked for us. But we need to develop more in China to remain agile. That applies not only to us but to all Western companies. That’s easier for me since I grew up here.
What was it like to live in China in the 1980s?
Foreigners were relatively segregated at that time. They grew up in a compound for foreigners, almost like in a ghetto. It wasn’t that you couldn’t get out, there just wasn’t much to do outside, so you had a very international circle of friends. In our family, things were a little different. Because my grandfather was Chinese, we often went out. And so I was able to learn Chinese relatively well. That wasn’t really that common in the foreign community.
Didn’t they want to, or weren’t they allowed to?
You were allowed to. But it took a lot of effort to learn the language. At the same time, there was not much overlap between the interests of Westerners and foreigners. And most of the foreigners were not here out of interest, but because they were sent here by some company. Their idea was: I’ll earn a lot more money for a few years and then I’ll quickly go back to Germany. And during my time in China, it’s best not to leave my small community.
And what was it like when you first went to Germany for an extended period?
I went to Freiburg in 2002 to study economics and actually settled in quite well, perhaps also because I had been to Germany on vacation many times in the years before. What I did notice was how slow life is, how little energy there is to want to change anything. Life revolves primarily around one question: How can I make myself as comfortable as possible, with as little effort as possible? In China, the energy is completely different. Even today. That was also the reason why I quickly went back to China after graduation. I had been comfortable long enough.
Not interested in a good work-life balance?
Yes, but that’s easier to find in China. It is easier to partially withdraw from a dynamic society and relax than to fight general lethargy.
And then you found Arri. Or did Arri find you?
I wanted to make movies, and then I jumped from one odd job to the next, not only in movies but also for TV productions. I did sound, teleprompter, producer, or casting. Or installed post-production systems. Word quickly got out that I had a background in IT. It helped me a lot that I was able to get up to speed quickly. And when the first Alexa came out, I was one of the first customers in China to buy the camera, also to rent it out. And that’s how I got in touch with Arri. I had ideas on how to market their products. And that’s how I got the job. A lucky break.
And where is the road going technology-wise?
It will develop towards an IT platform that also records images, or – increasingly important – creates images virtually. It will then also be about metadata. Multiple cameras that talk to each other, so to speak, and compare their information. You can then playback effects right on the spot. Production and post-production will merge. This then goes in the direction of the interplay of light and camera and the virtual CGI elements.
If you think ahead about the digital aspect, maybe one day we won’t need cameras at all.
That’s thinking far, far ahead. Yes, but it’s heading in that direction. Here in China faster than elsewhere.
The US Navy wanted to avoid such footage at all costs: A video that has surfaced on the Internet that shows a US fighter jet crashing into the South China Sea after a failed landing attempt on a carrier. The jet hits the runway, bursts into flames, and then crashes into the sea. It is only 51 seconds – but it could have far-reaching security consequences.
In this case, the aircraft in question is an F-35C, the USA’s flagship fighter jet; the price: around $100 million. Moreover, on that day, the F-35C and the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson are on patrol in one of the world’s most disputed maritime regions: the South China Sea.
The authenticity of the footage has since been confirmed. “We are aware that there has been an unauthorized release of video footage from flight deck cameras on board USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) of the F-35C Lightning II crash that occurred Jan. 24, in the South China Sea. There is an ongoing investigation into both the crash and the unauthorized release of the shipboard video footage,” the US Navy commented.
But what’s far more important is that the US military urgently needs to solve the recovery problem. “The F-35C is probably in a location where the water depths are about 11,000-18,000 feet deep. Recovery will take time but seems practical,” says Australian defense expert Peter Layton in an interview with China.Table. Converted, that would be a depth of up to 5,400 meters. But the researcher from the Griffith Asia Institute in Queensland, Australia, remains optimistic. Not long ago, the US Navy achieved something similar: In early 2018, a C-2 Greyhound transport aircraft was successfully lifted from a depth of 5,600 meters off the coast of Japan. And so Layton is confident that the recovery of the F-35C in the South China Sea will succeed. “The US Navy will do whatever it takes and this is a fairly straightforward engineering problem.”
Layton is a former Australian Air Force officer, and during the interview, he points out another problem that puts additional pressure on US forces to succeed: China. “I am sure China would like to find the recover the aircraft for two reasons: First, the aircraft would be an intelligence goldmine and second, for the prestige of being able to achieve something the US could not,” the former Air Force pilot explains. The F-35C is packed with cutting-edge military technology.
The F-35C is one of three variants of the F-35:
All three models have stealth capabilities. But the F-35C is the newest and most advanced version, Layton explains. “Only the US Navy and Marine Corps are buying this version. In being an American – and not an export version – the crashed aircraft is undoubtedly technologically at the leading edge of the larger F-35 fleet.”
The very thought that an F-35 could end up in Chinese hands is causing significant unrest in the US Defense Department. “We’re certainly mindful of the value of an F-35 in every respect of what value means,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said at a news conference. “And as we continue to attempt recovery of the aircraft we’re going to do it obviously with safety foremost in mind, but clearly our own national security interests. And I think I will just leave it at that.”
Beijing, meanwhile, denies any interest in the crashed fighter jet. The spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that he had been aware of the reports. “This is not the first time that the US has an accident in the South China Sea,” Zhao Lijian said. “We have no interest in their aircraft. We urge the country concerned to do things that are conducive to regional peace and stability, rather than flex muscles in the region.”
Douglas Royce is not fazed by such statements. Royce is an experienced military expert and currently works for Forecast International, an American consulting firm focusing on defense and aerospace technology. He is convinced that the Chinese are most interested in the landing gear, sensors, and materials used for stealth technology. “While there is likely some technology in the plane that they already know about, getting access to a complete aircraft is bound to deliver new insight into the fighter and its capabilities.”
If the Chinese were indeed able to salvage the wreckage, they would move on to “reverse engineering,” Layton and Royce assume in unison. Experts use the term “reverse engineering” to describe the dismantling of recovered weapons systems to uncover technological secrets. China would thus achieve two goals at the same time: On the one hand, its own engineers could learn a lot; on the other, Beijing would reduce the United States’ technological lead.
It would not be the first time: The American National Security Agency has already complained several times about the theft of the design and technology of American aircraft. Spies are particularly interested in the B-2 bomber, the F-22 Raptor, and the F-35 jets. The Chinese fighter jets Chengdu J-20 and Shenyang J-31 in particular are said to have benefited greatly from American technology.
Rather by chance, China acquired American aircraft technology in 2001. On April 1, 2001, a US Lockheed P-3 spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter and was subsequently forced to make an emergency landing on Hainan. As protocol dictated, the US crew began destroying vital data and technology. But the Chinese seizure was swift – and extremely fruitful, securing cryptographic keys or names of National Security Agency personnel, among other things. Information on U.S. allies’ radar systems around the world also fell into Chinese hands. In addition, Beijing learned that the United States could track China’s submarines by signal transmission. China completely dismantled the US aircraft. It was not until three months after the collision that the last piece of the plane was returned into American hands.
But the U.S. is no stranger to reverse engineering either, explains arms expert Julian Spencer-Churchill in an interview with China.Table. “For example, the US benefited from the 1975 Soviet Belenko defection of a MiG-25 to Japan,” explains the political scientist of the Concordia University in Quebec, Canada. Soviet pilot Viktor Belenko deserted in a MiG-25P on Sept. 6, 1976, landing in Hakodate, Japan. Until then, his MiG-25P was considered a well-kept military secret of the Soviet Air Force.
Peter Layton cites a third aspect in the current case of the F-35C in the South China Sea: “The material used in the F-35 are a mix of metals and composite materials and includes radar-absorbent material. If China was able to get some of the aircraft structure, it could both reverse engineer and use on its fighters, and devise optimized countermeasures to be able to detect stealth aircraft.”
Still, Spencer-Churchill does not believe China is serious about recovering the downed F-35C: “China is unlikely to approach the site and provoke the US to react, despite their large fishing militia, because the US has ‘escalation dominance’.”
Experts like Layton and Royce, however, are convinced that a race has long since begun between the US and China to recover the stealth jet made by the US company Lockheed Martin. The access to the latest military technology is too tempting, especially since the US fighter jet is located in the South China Sea – in an area to which China has been laying claim for years, where it is continually building military bases and on which it simply ignores an international arbitration ruling.
Ironically, on Sunday, of all things, a winter onset caused new criticism of the Beijing location. Although it finally snowed, it brought typical northern Chinese conditions with ice-cold wind, and fog in some areas. Since the cross-country course also involves some relatively high altitudes, the conditions were tough for the athletes. Some events were even postponed until Monday due to the snowfall. This also includes the qualification in ski freestyle, where Eileen Gu is to compete again. First, too little snow, now suddenly too much.
History’s turning points are rarely evident with great clarity. But the February 4 joint statement of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping as the Winter Olympics opened in Beijing may be an exception – signaling a new turning point in a new Cold War.
Triangulation was America’s decisive strategic gambit in the first Cold War. Richard Nixon’s rapprochement with China, 50 years ago this month, isolated the former Soviet Union at a time when its economic foundation was starting to crumble. As Henry Kissinger put it in his opus, On China, “The Sino-US rapprochement started as a tactical aspect of the Cold War; it evolved to where it became central to the evolution of the new global order.” It took time for the strategy to succeed. But, 17 years later, the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union imploded.
Never one to ignore the lessons of history, China is opting for its own triangulation gambit in a nascent Cold War II. A China-Russia tandem could shift the global balance of power at a time when America is especially vulnerable. This points to a worrisome endgame.
Important hints can be found in the triangulation of the first Cold War. Fearful of the Soviet military threat, the United States countered by embracing China in an economic marriage of convenience. Never mind that the US-China partnership, which initially provided cheap products for hard-pressed American consumers, has now been shattered by a trade and tech war. The point is that a comparable strategy has now brought China and Russia together.
This new marriage is convenient in both economic and geostrategic terms. Russia has the natural gas that an energy-hungry, coal-dependent, polluted China needs. And China, with its surplus savings, ample foreign capital, and its Belt and Road Initiative, offers Russia added clout to buttress its thinly-veiled territorial ambitions.
The geostrategic angle is equally compelling. Rightly or wrongly, both Xi and Putin are convinced that the US seeks to contain their supposedly peaceful rise. China points not just to former US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and to sanctions on its leading technology companies, but also to an ambitious Trans-Pacific Partnership that excluded China (and which has since morphed into the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership). More recently, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the US established the so-called AUKUS trilateral security agreement, which takes dead aim on China.
Putin makes a similar case in resisting US containment of Russia. Fearful of NATO enlargement, he appears more than willing to hold Ukraine hostage and take Europe to the brink of yet another devastating conflict. Putin, who has described the demise of the Soviet Union as “a major geopolitical disaster of the [twentieth] century,” would like nothing better than to rewind history. Yet US President Joe Biden’s threats may well have cornered Putin, leaving him with no face-saving path for de-escalation. For authoritarians, face is everything.
The joint Sino-Russian statement of February 4 leaves little doubt that both leaders are united in the view that America poses an existential threat to their ambitions. Putin was successful in getting Xi to weigh in against NATO expansion – an issue well outside the Chinese leader’s wheelhouse. And Xi co-opted Putin to sign on to an agreement that fits the template of “Xi Jinping Thought,” promoting their joint statement as yet another of China’s grandiose “new era” policy pronouncements.
There can be little doubt that China and Russia have embraced triangulation as a strategic gambit. Ironically, unlike the first Cold War, the US is the one now being triangulated. And, as before, there is good reason to believe that the endgame will be determined in the economic arena.
That’s where the comparison between the two cold wars is especially worrisome. From 1947 to 1991, the US economy was balanced and strong. By contrast, over the past decade, real GDP growth (1.7%) and productivity gains (1.1%) were half their average rate over that earlier 44-year period. Recent comparisons are even worse for domestic saving, the current account, and America’s gaping trade deficit.
The US prevailed in the first Cold War not just because its economy was strong but also because its adversary’s was hollow. Starting in 1977, per capita output growth in the Soviet Union slowed dramatically, before plunging at a 4.3% average annual rate in the final two years of the Cold War. That presaged a subsequent economic collapse in the Soviet Union’s successor. From 1991 to 1999, the Russian Federation’s economy shrank by 36%.
Today, a weaker US economy is facing a rising China, in contrast to the earlier clash between a strong America and a faltering Soviet Union. Nor is China’s clout likely to be diminished by Russia, a bit player in the global economy. In 2021, Chinese GDP was six times that of Russia, and the gap is expected to widen further in the coming years.
Yet Putin gives Xi precisely what he wants: a partner who can destabilize the Western alliance and deflect America’s strategic focus away from its China containment strategy. From Xi’s perspective, that leaves the door wide open for China’s ascendancy to great-power status, realizing the promise of national rejuvenation set forth in Xi’s cherished “China Dream.”
In late 2019, Kissinger warned that the US and China were already in the “foothills of a new Cold War.” The plot has since thickened with the emergence of a new triangulation strategy. The Xi-Putin gambit reinforces the conclusion that this cold war will be very different from the last one. Sadly, America appears to be asleep at the switch.
Stephen S. Roach, a faculty member at Yale University and former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, is the author of Unbalanced: The Codependency of America and China (Yale University Press, 2014) and the forthcoming Accidental Conflict.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2022.
www.project-syndicate.org
Honey, are you driving today? This question has become obsolete in China. Gone are the days when one person would happily drink while the other could only rattle the car keys reproachfully. For some time now, Chinese metropolises enjoy equal drinking rights. The magic word is: 代驾 dàijià “substitute driving”. It is short for 代理驾驶 dàilǐ jiàshǐ, which means “to control/steer/drive on behalf of” and christens a new flourishing service industry in Chinese cities.
The concept is simple: if you’re driving your car, and you’ve had too much to drink, you’re no longer tempted to get behind the wheel (酒驾 jiǔjià). Instead, you can call a substitute driver (代驾司机 dàijià sījī) in no time via various apps (such as “e代驾”). He then drives the car and its tipsy owner home without any scratches. The spontaneous chauffeur usually arrives with a maneuverable folding e-scooter, which is quickly stowed in the trunk. At night, you can sometimes see these drivers hanging around in groups at certain restaurants, bars, or nightclubs. Exactly in those places where experience has shown alcohol to be flowing late at night.
But those who know the People’s Republic will already suspect: In the service paradise of China, driving services are not the only thing a substitute can be ordered for – provided the money is right. In any case, day-to-day language knows numerous other substitute services (代服务 dàifúwù), although some of them operate in a gray area.
Here is a small selection:
Back to the opening example: There is in fact an interesting addition to this one – “substitute drinking” (代喝 dàihē). You read correctly! Why not tackle the problem at the root instead of feeling sorry later, is the motto here. With e代喝 (e dàihē), there is actually a Chinese app that offers such proxy drinking services. Users can register on the portal as “substitute drinkers” (代喝人 dàihērén) – tiered by drinking capacity (酒量 jiǔliàng), of course – and then be booked by other users to drink together. The app by a Beijing company is available for iOS and Android. Ultimately, however, it is probably more intended as a meeting platform.
The application experienced a peak and media hype in 2018, but it can now only be downloaded via websites and no longer directly via the app store. Someone probably took the proxy idea a bit too far. When it comes to alcohol consumption, we’d probably be better off with the old-fashioned way: DIY – do it yourself.
Verena Menzel runs the language school New Chinese in Beijing.
Folklore about the Chinese market tells the tale of high-priced, self-selling German products bearing a black-red-gold sticker on their package that virtually fly into the arms of customers. The reality of marketing looks much more grueling. This is what Forest Liu tells us in today’s CEO Talk with Frank Sieren. Liu markets lenses and cameras in China for German manufacturer Arri. When the market was just starting to take off, competitors’ cameras offered superior technical specs on paper. Only through “agonizingly slow convincing” of film industry customers did Arri work its way up to become the market leader.
At times, it was tempting to offer high discounts as a sales incentive. For a while, even the company’s own sales department called for this. But Liu remained persistent. Ultimately, he succeeded in anchoring Arri’s cameras in the market as a premium product. One of the main factors of Liu’s success was that he understood both German and Chinese culture. Because in the initial phase, every sale required precisely the right arguments. He leaves the low-priced products that generate more revenue to the emerging Chinese competition, which is also constantly improving.
In technical terms, China simply wants to continue learning from the best. That is the reason why there currently is a race to find a wrecked aircraft in the waters near the Philippines. The USA has lost one of its state-of-the-art F-35 fighter jets there. A stealth jet packed with weapons. Even its anti-radar plating could mean invaluable tactical insights for the People’s Liberation Army. Michael Radunski analyzes the stakes in the race to the bottom of the South China Sea. The United States is trying to find and salvage the wreckage first. However, if the Chinese navy is faster, the US military will lose critical advantages.
Today’s guest feature is by Stephen Roach. While he is first and foremost an economist, his geopolitical assessments are also worth paying attention to. As a former top Morgan Stanley executive, he’s been around. Roach considers Xi and Putin’s friendly meeting during the Olympics as a historic turning point. Admittedly, he uses the rather bulky phrase “triangulation gambit”, which refers to a triangular chess move, to describe China’s strategy. In political discourse, it simply means that one superpower plays two others off against each other. The US once did this successfully with Russia and China. Now, Xi wants to be smarter. He is using the growing risk of war in Ukraine to strengthen his own position.
Forest Liu, 39, is the head of China for an astonishing German champion that has maintained its position as a global market leader across several technology shifts. The Munich-based company was founded back in 1917 and is actually called Arnold und Richter. It is known by the acronym Arri. With Alexa, the Arri Group, as it is known today, is the world’s leading manufacturer of digital film cameras and film equipment. Annual revenue exceeds €400 million. Liu has also played a crucial role in the company’s success in the People’s Republic. The German was born and raised in China. His mother Kosima Liu is a German photographer and artist, and his father John is an American documentarian of Chinese descent. Liu originally wanted to direct films himself after studying business administration. But he then had the opportunity to set up Arri’s first representation in China. His branch has developed into a huge market where Liu can pursue his fascination for German cutting-edge technology. You can watch the full German interview here.
How does a German company manage to keep its position at the top of the Chinese market for such a long time, even in the face of strong competition from the US and China?
Because they don’t sell fancy gadgets, but tools for craftsmen who produce movies. And in the way that many German hidden champions do: The world’s best products, without allowing themselves to be beaten down by price wars, all the while focusing on major trends, without letting themselves get side-tracked by every hype. What’s important: You can’t let your principles distract you.
And what are they? Competitors like Sony and Panasonic are not asleep either, but they don’t even come close to Arri in terms of global market share.
For me, Arri’s first digital camera was the awakening experience. It came out in 2010. I was 28 years old at the time. And for me, Arri was pretty old-fashioned. But that was about to change with the Alexa. The superior quality was still there. Whether in desert heat or arctic cold, the camera never failed. But that is only one side, and that was no longer enough. Much more important for me and many others of my generation was, of course, the image quality. But also the new philosophy of open standards, which fits very well with open source thinking and, in the end, also represents a way of life. While other cameras insist on their own formats, own ports, and own optics, we use Sony memory cards and, as the first camera manufacturer, Apple ProRes, because it is stable, easy to use, and offers the best balance between high quality and low processing complexity. So why force the customer to use their own, perhaps only second-best solution, when there is something better?
But it took a while before you offered a camera with 4K image resolution, even though it was the standard. Is Arri sometimes also stubborn?
No. We said: We want to create the best images. And image resolution is just one parameter. If we can produce better images with a different standard, then we’ll stick with it. At first, many people saw this as a provocation, and some even considered it backward. But our CEO at the time, Franz Kraus, insisted on sticking to a level that was, unfortunately, only 3.4K from a sales point of view. After brief skepticism, however, the cameramen thanked him. You can’t just chase every trend, even if it’s hard.
And what’s the trick?
Knowing which new trend is important and which is not. If we hadn’t switched to digital, for example, Arri would be out of business today. There were also discussions among filmmakers about whether film stock doesn’t produce better quality after all.
Did the Chinese filmmakers understand Arri’s strategy right away? In any case, China quickly realized why they should buy the S-Class.
That was super difficult with the cameras. Especially because of the lack of a 4K standard. That was not an easy time for sales. Customers asked me: How can it be that when I buy a €55,000 camera, it can’t do 4K? That was no surprise. Anyone who lacks practical experience will tend to stick more to the standards. We had to do a lot of lengthy and tough explanatory work. But in the end, it worked. We managed to establish Arri cameras and lenses as a standard in China. However, this was also due to the fact that the Chinese industry was lagging behind at the time compared to the USA. Other brands had already established themselves in the USA. That’s where you have to push out the top dogs first. In China, we all started at the same time.
What role does the “Made in Germany” factor play in this?
It may surprise you, but that hardly matters in our industry. In fact, Made in Hollywood would probably almost be a better selling point. The Chinese industry is already very focused on the US. So saying, ‘This is the S-Class of cameras – please buy,’ wouldn’t have been enough. It took some agonizingly slow convincing on our part at times. And even our sales reps complained about the product. We then managed to convince one by one. Today, over 70 percent of motion pictures and over 80 percent of TV series are shot with Arri.
How important is it to be very familiar with both cultures?
It’s probably not impossible if you’re a Westerner who doesn’t know Chinese culture. However, it is much more difficult.
An example?
In China, they quickly say: we do this differently. Then you ought to know that this is also a way of avoiding problems, of not having to deal with another new way. Since I knew that this was the case, I was able to insist more strongly on trying something new and jumping over their own shadows. Someone who doesn’t know that probably wouldn’t have done so out of respect for Chinese culture.
Do Chinese cameramen have different requirements than Western ones?
Not really. However, one thing that Chinese camera people notice straight away, of course, is when the shades of the skin color don’t match Asian tones. This has happened to some manufacturers because they did not develop their products in China. And that can then even be a dealbreaker. We also had to develop Chinese interfaces for our products. Our technicians always asked, ‘Isn’t English enough?’ But that made a big difference. Once we were able to offer that, there was a boost in sales.
What did you notice about their Chinese distribution, as a Westerner?
Chinese like to sell over the price and not by explaining the product’s advantages. That’s why they said, if we don’t have 4K, we have to sell at a lower price. You have to realize that this is not just laziness. There is also a piece of Chinese culture in it. I then had to explain to them the Western, German culture, which focuses much more on various specifications. I always started by saying: Yes, well, but that’s not Arri culture and if you can’t deal with that, then maybe you don’t fit in with Arri. That was the learning curve: The sales strategy has to match China, but it also has to match Arri. It’s always about both if you want to be successful. German stubbornness doesn’t help. Neither does ‘China First’. And that also applies to product development. The important thing is to be very closely focused on those who use our products. That is also a central task of after-sales. Not just repairing, but also figuring out: How do customers handle the products, and what can our development department learn from this?
How important is the Chinese market for Arri now?
The US is the largest market, but China is not far behind. In 2017, for example, we actually sold more camera equipment in China than in the US. In fact, you would think China is the ultimate growth market for our products. But with the streaming services Apple TV+, Amazon Prime, and Netflix, the American market has received a huge boost. There is a lot of production at a very high level. That should not be underestimated.
And there were major changes to the Chinese market.
Yes. In 2018/19, when the state started to fight tax evasion among movie actors, and there were some spectacular cases, like that of actress Fan Bing Bing, who had to pay the equivalent of €110 million in back taxes. This, of course, slowed down the industry. All directors and actors had to declare their earnings and pay them back. Or when the film industry was subordinated to the propaganda department of the State Council. That slowed down many projects.
And then came Covid.
That didn’t play such a big role in China. China had the pandemic under control after a few weeks. For us, 2020 was a much better year in China than 2019.
Are there any Chinese competitors in the meantime? There are a couple of them in the US and Japan.
There are currently a lot of competitors emerging in China. And three of them are worth taking a closer look at, even if they are not yet at the same level.
How long will it take for them to catch up?
First, the question is not about time, but rather about philosophy. In other words, whether they really want to offer cameras or equipment at our price level, or rather offer cheaper products with more sales volume. At the moment, the Chinese are going for the latter. But that can change quickly, so you can’t just shrug them off.
How so?
Here in China, there is a far greater will to try out new things. This is how very convincing innovations are created. As a German company, we tend to lack this. We tend to be conservative and very, very slow in our product development. We have to be very careful. For example, combining a gimbal and a camera into one device. The gimbal keeps the camera image stable. These are very exciting innovations. There is also a lot happening in LED technology in China.
Isn’t that the reason for Arri to establish a low-cost entry-level line?
So far, we have always decided against it, and I think for good reason. We are a rather small company in the end. We have to focus on the most important products. And so far, this strategy has always worked for us. But we need to develop more in China to remain agile. That applies not only to us but to all Western companies. That’s easier for me since I grew up here.
What was it like to live in China in the 1980s?
Foreigners were relatively segregated at that time. They grew up in a compound for foreigners, almost like in a ghetto. It wasn’t that you couldn’t get out, there just wasn’t much to do outside, so you had a very international circle of friends. In our family, things were a little different. Because my grandfather was Chinese, we often went out. And so I was able to learn Chinese relatively well. That wasn’t really that common in the foreign community.
Didn’t they want to, or weren’t they allowed to?
You were allowed to. But it took a lot of effort to learn the language. At the same time, there was not much overlap between the interests of Westerners and foreigners. And most of the foreigners were not here out of interest, but because they were sent here by some company. Their idea was: I’ll earn a lot more money for a few years and then I’ll quickly go back to Germany. And during my time in China, it’s best not to leave my small community.
And what was it like when you first went to Germany for an extended period?
I went to Freiburg in 2002 to study economics and actually settled in quite well, perhaps also because I had been to Germany on vacation many times in the years before. What I did notice was how slow life is, how little energy there is to want to change anything. Life revolves primarily around one question: How can I make myself as comfortable as possible, with as little effort as possible? In China, the energy is completely different. Even today. That was also the reason why I quickly went back to China after graduation. I had been comfortable long enough.
Not interested in a good work-life balance?
Yes, but that’s easier to find in China. It is easier to partially withdraw from a dynamic society and relax than to fight general lethargy.
And then you found Arri. Or did Arri find you?
I wanted to make movies, and then I jumped from one odd job to the next, not only in movies but also for TV productions. I did sound, teleprompter, producer, or casting. Or installed post-production systems. Word quickly got out that I had a background in IT. It helped me a lot that I was able to get up to speed quickly. And when the first Alexa came out, I was one of the first customers in China to buy the camera, also to rent it out. And that’s how I got in touch with Arri. I had ideas on how to market their products. And that’s how I got the job. A lucky break.
And where is the road going technology-wise?
It will develop towards an IT platform that also records images, or – increasingly important – creates images virtually. It will then also be about metadata. Multiple cameras that talk to each other, so to speak, and compare their information. You can then playback effects right on the spot. Production and post-production will merge. This then goes in the direction of the interplay of light and camera and the virtual CGI elements.
If you think ahead about the digital aspect, maybe one day we won’t need cameras at all.
That’s thinking far, far ahead. Yes, but it’s heading in that direction. Here in China faster than elsewhere.
The US Navy wanted to avoid such footage at all costs: A video that has surfaced on the Internet that shows a US fighter jet crashing into the South China Sea after a failed landing attempt on a carrier. The jet hits the runway, bursts into flames, and then crashes into the sea. It is only 51 seconds – but it could have far-reaching security consequences.
In this case, the aircraft in question is an F-35C, the USA’s flagship fighter jet; the price: around $100 million. Moreover, on that day, the F-35C and the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson are on patrol in one of the world’s most disputed maritime regions: the South China Sea.
The authenticity of the footage has since been confirmed. “We are aware that there has been an unauthorized release of video footage from flight deck cameras on board USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) of the F-35C Lightning II crash that occurred Jan. 24, in the South China Sea. There is an ongoing investigation into both the crash and the unauthorized release of the shipboard video footage,” the US Navy commented.
But what’s far more important is that the US military urgently needs to solve the recovery problem. “The F-35C is probably in a location where the water depths are about 11,000-18,000 feet deep. Recovery will take time but seems practical,” says Australian defense expert Peter Layton in an interview with China.Table. Converted, that would be a depth of up to 5,400 meters. But the researcher from the Griffith Asia Institute in Queensland, Australia, remains optimistic. Not long ago, the US Navy achieved something similar: In early 2018, a C-2 Greyhound transport aircraft was successfully lifted from a depth of 5,600 meters off the coast of Japan. And so Layton is confident that the recovery of the F-35C in the South China Sea will succeed. “The US Navy will do whatever it takes and this is a fairly straightforward engineering problem.”
Layton is a former Australian Air Force officer, and during the interview, he points out another problem that puts additional pressure on US forces to succeed: China. “I am sure China would like to find the recover the aircraft for two reasons: First, the aircraft would be an intelligence goldmine and second, for the prestige of being able to achieve something the US could not,” the former Air Force pilot explains. The F-35C is packed with cutting-edge military technology.
The F-35C is one of three variants of the F-35:
All three models have stealth capabilities. But the F-35C is the newest and most advanced version, Layton explains. “Only the US Navy and Marine Corps are buying this version. In being an American – and not an export version – the crashed aircraft is undoubtedly technologically at the leading edge of the larger F-35 fleet.”
The very thought that an F-35 could end up in Chinese hands is causing significant unrest in the US Defense Department. “We’re certainly mindful of the value of an F-35 in every respect of what value means,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said at a news conference. “And as we continue to attempt recovery of the aircraft we’re going to do it obviously with safety foremost in mind, but clearly our own national security interests. And I think I will just leave it at that.”
Beijing, meanwhile, denies any interest in the crashed fighter jet. The spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that he had been aware of the reports. “This is not the first time that the US has an accident in the South China Sea,” Zhao Lijian said. “We have no interest in their aircraft. We urge the country concerned to do things that are conducive to regional peace and stability, rather than flex muscles in the region.”
Douglas Royce is not fazed by such statements. Royce is an experienced military expert and currently works for Forecast International, an American consulting firm focusing on defense and aerospace technology. He is convinced that the Chinese are most interested in the landing gear, sensors, and materials used for stealth technology. “While there is likely some technology in the plane that they already know about, getting access to a complete aircraft is bound to deliver new insight into the fighter and its capabilities.”
If the Chinese were indeed able to salvage the wreckage, they would move on to “reverse engineering,” Layton and Royce assume in unison. Experts use the term “reverse engineering” to describe the dismantling of recovered weapons systems to uncover technological secrets. China would thus achieve two goals at the same time: On the one hand, its own engineers could learn a lot; on the other, Beijing would reduce the United States’ technological lead.
It would not be the first time: The American National Security Agency has already complained several times about the theft of the design and technology of American aircraft. Spies are particularly interested in the B-2 bomber, the F-22 Raptor, and the F-35 jets. The Chinese fighter jets Chengdu J-20 and Shenyang J-31 in particular are said to have benefited greatly from American technology.
Rather by chance, China acquired American aircraft technology in 2001. On April 1, 2001, a US Lockheed P-3 spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter and was subsequently forced to make an emergency landing on Hainan. As protocol dictated, the US crew began destroying vital data and technology. But the Chinese seizure was swift – and extremely fruitful, securing cryptographic keys or names of National Security Agency personnel, among other things. Information on U.S. allies’ radar systems around the world also fell into Chinese hands. In addition, Beijing learned that the United States could track China’s submarines by signal transmission. China completely dismantled the US aircraft. It was not until three months after the collision that the last piece of the plane was returned into American hands.
But the U.S. is no stranger to reverse engineering either, explains arms expert Julian Spencer-Churchill in an interview with China.Table. “For example, the US benefited from the 1975 Soviet Belenko defection of a MiG-25 to Japan,” explains the political scientist of the Concordia University in Quebec, Canada. Soviet pilot Viktor Belenko deserted in a MiG-25P on Sept. 6, 1976, landing in Hakodate, Japan. Until then, his MiG-25P was considered a well-kept military secret of the Soviet Air Force.
Peter Layton cites a third aspect in the current case of the F-35C in the South China Sea: “The material used in the F-35 are a mix of metals and composite materials and includes radar-absorbent material. If China was able to get some of the aircraft structure, it could both reverse engineer and use on its fighters, and devise optimized countermeasures to be able to detect stealth aircraft.”
Still, Spencer-Churchill does not believe China is serious about recovering the downed F-35C: “China is unlikely to approach the site and provoke the US to react, despite their large fishing militia, because the US has ‘escalation dominance’.”
Experts like Layton and Royce, however, are convinced that a race has long since begun between the US and China to recover the stealth jet made by the US company Lockheed Martin. The access to the latest military technology is too tempting, especially since the US fighter jet is located in the South China Sea – in an area to which China has been laying claim for years, where it is continually building military bases and on which it simply ignores an international arbitration ruling.
Ironically, on Sunday, of all things, a winter onset caused new criticism of the Beijing location. Although it finally snowed, it brought typical northern Chinese conditions with ice-cold wind, and fog in some areas. Since the cross-country course also involves some relatively high altitudes, the conditions were tough for the athletes. Some events were even postponed until Monday due to the snowfall. This also includes the qualification in ski freestyle, where Eileen Gu is to compete again. First, too little snow, now suddenly too much.
History’s turning points are rarely evident with great clarity. But the February 4 joint statement of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping as the Winter Olympics opened in Beijing may be an exception – signaling a new turning point in a new Cold War.
Triangulation was America’s decisive strategic gambit in the first Cold War. Richard Nixon’s rapprochement with China, 50 years ago this month, isolated the former Soviet Union at a time when its economic foundation was starting to crumble. As Henry Kissinger put it in his opus, On China, “The Sino-US rapprochement started as a tactical aspect of the Cold War; it evolved to where it became central to the evolution of the new global order.” It took time for the strategy to succeed. But, 17 years later, the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union imploded.
Never one to ignore the lessons of history, China is opting for its own triangulation gambit in a nascent Cold War II. A China-Russia tandem could shift the global balance of power at a time when America is especially vulnerable. This points to a worrisome endgame.
Important hints can be found in the triangulation of the first Cold War. Fearful of the Soviet military threat, the United States countered by embracing China in an economic marriage of convenience. Never mind that the US-China partnership, which initially provided cheap products for hard-pressed American consumers, has now been shattered by a trade and tech war. The point is that a comparable strategy has now brought China and Russia together.
This new marriage is convenient in both economic and geostrategic terms. Russia has the natural gas that an energy-hungry, coal-dependent, polluted China needs. And China, with its surplus savings, ample foreign capital, and its Belt and Road Initiative, offers Russia added clout to buttress its thinly-veiled territorial ambitions.
The geostrategic angle is equally compelling. Rightly or wrongly, both Xi and Putin are convinced that the US seeks to contain their supposedly peaceful rise. China points not just to former US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and to sanctions on its leading technology companies, but also to an ambitious Trans-Pacific Partnership that excluded China (and which has since morphed into the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership). More recently, Australia, the United Kingdom, and the US established the so-called AUKUS trilateral security agreement, which takes dead aim on China.
Putin makes a similar case in resisting US containment of Russia. Fearful of NATO enlargement, he appears more than willing to hold Ukraine hostage and take Europe to the brink of yet another devastating conflict. Putin, who has described the demise of the Soviet Union as “a major geopolitical disaster of the [twentieth] century,” would like nothing better than to rewind history. Yet US President Joe Biden’s threats may well have cornered Putin, leaving him with no face-saving path for de-escalation. For authoritarians, face is everything.
The joint Sino-Russian statement of February 4 leaves little doubt that both leaders are united in the view that America poses an existential threat to their ambitions. Putin was successful in getting Xi to weigh in against NATO expansion – an issue well outside the Chinese leader’s wheelhouse. And Xi co-opted Putin to sign on to an agreement that fits the template of “Xi Jinping Thought,” promoting their joint statement as yet another of China’s grandiose “new era” policy pronouncements.
There can be little doubt that China and Russia have embraced triangulation as a strategic gambit. Ironically, unlike the first Cold War, the US is the one now being triangulated. And, as before, there is good reason to believe that the endgame will be determined in the economic arena.
That’s where the comparison between the two cold wars is especially worrisome. From 1947 to 1991, the US economy was balanced and strong. By contrast, over the past decade, real GDP growth (1.7%) and productivity gains (1.1%) were half their average rate over that earlier 44-year period. Recent comparisons are even worse for domestic saving, the current account, and America’s gaping trade deficit.
The US prevailed in the first Cold War not just because its economy was strong but also because its adversary’s was hollow. Starting in 1977, per capita output growth in the Soviet Union slowed dramatically, before plunging at a 4.3% average annual rate in the final two years of the Cold War. That presaged a subsequent economic collapse in the Soviet Union’s successor. From 1991 to 1999, the Russian Federation’s economy shrank by 36%.
Today, a weaker US economy is facing a rising China, in contrast to the earlier clash between a strong America and a faltering Soviet Union. Nor is China’s clout likely to be diminished by Russia, a bit player in the global economy. In 2021, Chinese GDP was six times that of Russia, and the gap is expected to widen further in the coming years.
Yet Putin gives Xi precisely what he wants: a partner who can destabilize the Western alliance and deflect America’s strategic focus away from its China containment strategy. From Xi’s perspective, that leaves the door wide open for China’s ascendancy to great-power status, realizing the promise of national rejuvenation set forth in Xi’s cherished “China Dream.”
In late 2019, Kissinger warned that the US and China were already in the “foothills of a new Cold War.” The plot has since thickened with the emergence of a new triangulation strategy. The Xi-Putin gambit reinforces the conclusion that this cold war will be very different from the last one. Sadly, America appears to be asleep at the switch.
Stephen S. Roach, a faculty member at Yale University and former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, is the author of Unbalanced: The Codependency of America and China (Yale University Press, 2014) and the forthcoming Accidental Conflict.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2022.
www.project-syndicate.org
Honey, are you driving today? This question has become obsolete in China. Gone are the days when one person would happily drink while the other could only rattle the car keys reproachfully. For some time now, Chinese metropolises enjoy equal drinking rights. The magic word is: 代驾 dàijià “substitute driving”. It is short for 代理驾驶 dàilǐ jiàshǐ, which means “to control/steer/drive on behalf of” and christens a new flourishing service industry in Chinese cities.
The concept is simple: if you’re driving your car, and you’ve had too much to drink, you’re no longer tempted to get behind the wheel (酒驾 jiǔjià). Instead, you can call a substitute driver (代驾司机 dàijià sījī) in no time via various apps (such as “e代驾”). He then drives the car and its tipsy owner home without any scratches. The spontaneous chauffeur usually arrives with a maneuverable folding e-scooter, which is quickly stowed in the trunk. At night, you can sometimes see these drivers hanging around in groups at certain restaurants, bars, or nightclubs. Exactly in those places where experience has shown alcohol to be flowing late at night.
But those who know the People’s Republic will already suspect: In the service paradise of China, driving services are not the only thing a substitute can be ordered for – provided the money is right. In any case, day-to-day language knows numerous other substitute services (代服务 dàifúwù), although some of them operate in a gray area.
Here is a small selection:
Back to the opening example: There is in fact an interesting addition to this one – “substitute drinking” (代喝 dàihē). You read correctly! Why not tackle the problem at the root instead of feeling sorry later, is the motto here. With e代喝 (e dàihē), there is actually a Chinese app that offers such proxy drinking services. Users can register on the portal as “substitute drinkers” (代喝人 dàihērén) – tiered by drinking capacity (酒量 jiǔliàng), of course – and then be booked by other users to drink together. The app by a Beijing company is available for iOS and Android. Ultimately, however, it is probably more intended as a meeting platform.
The application experienced a peak and media hype in 2018, but it can now only be downloaded via websites and no longer directly via the app store. Someone probably took the proxy idea a bit too far. When it comes to alcohol consumption, we’d probably be better off with the old-fashioned way: DIY – do it yourself.
Verena Menzel runs the language school New Chinese in Beijing.
