Interview with physician Michaela Heinke + Brussels outlook

Dear reader,

Annalena Baerbock – a name that was largely unknown in China until now. But since she called for a “stricter trade policy” towards Beijing in a recent interview, the question arose whether Sino-German trade relations will tighten with a new government making such demands. Baerbock’s threat of increased protectionism certainly won’t make executives of German automakers rest any easier at night. But will higher tariffs really only hit China? The prices of goods will also increase for German consumers as a result. A plan that could backfire.

Brussels will still be on summer break for a while. But our Brussels correspondent Amelie Richter is already presenting you with an outlook on the EU’s China policy for the remainder of the year. The autumn will hold a few surprises in store in this regard, which will not leave Beijing cold either.

Cold wind, that’s one topic in Frank Sieren’s CEO talk with German doctor and clinic founder Michaela Heinke in Beijing. Heinke talks about the quality of Chinese hospitals, the differences in mentalities in the fight against Covid and good reasons to take traditional medicine seriously. You can also watch the full German interview here.

Our column “So To Speak” takes a break this week due to holidays. Our Mandarin expert and stylist Verena Menzel cannot be replaced, as every reader of her columns is surely aware of.

Have a good week!

Your
Ning Wang

“The Chinese are better at waiting and persevering”

Michaela Heinke has been in China for a quarter of a century – no German doctor has worked longer in the People’s Republic. She has treated Chinese and German expats, accompanied CEOs of large Dax companies in China and celebrities like Nicolas Cage or Victoria Beckham. The specialist in internal medicine, general medicine and psychotherapy has taken the occasional rickshaw to visit patients, and even the Chinese Minister of Health knows her. Heinke has built and rebuilt entire departments for the Beijing University Hospital, and now holds the first German hospital license in China. You can also watch the long version of our CEO talk in the video.

Disclaimer: This excerpt has been translated into English and is not considered an official translation by any party involved in the interview.

Is it advisable for foreigners to visit a Chinese hospital?

I, for one, would go to a university clinic at any time and get treated by a Chinese specialist. And, if I don’t understand what he’s telling me, I’d rather be accompanied by a translator than go to one of those English-speaking private clinics that exist in the big cities specializing in foreigners and rich Chinese. They have to speak to Chinese specialists anyway during the course of treatment because their own doctors usually only receive very basic training.

If you had the choice to be treated in Germany or in China. Where would you go?

So, at first in China, because the process is simply faster there. In Germany, I sometimes have to wait three weeks for a diagnostic appointment. They just don’t have the capacity. That’s different in China. In addition, there is more special equipment here. A normal hospital treats 4000 patients a day. That is twice as many as the Berlin Charité, the largest hospital in Germany. In China, therefore, it pays to have much more equipment for computer tomography and better-trained staff at the machines. It even pays to have a dedicated engineer for the equipment, who adjusts the devices precisely to individual body parts. In this respect, the doctor can only be as good as the images he receives.

But aren’t Western doctors still better than Chinese ones?

You can’t say that in general. In any case, Chinese doctors of a comparable age now have more practice and thus more experience, because they treat more patients per day. This makes it more likely for them to detect diseases earlier or perform operations more reliably. And they can specialize much more. There are many more cases, even for rarer operations or treatments.

You hold a very rare license to operate an entirely foreign hospital. The Adler Clinics. Does that even make sense anymore?

Yes, because we do many things differently. I’m not building a new traditional hospital, but a network of specialists who are initially linked via telemedicine – not only in China but also in Germany. There is not this one hospital where all the qualified people are working, instead, they are scattered around the city, the country, or even the world. We want to adapt to this with our innovative diagnostics. This means that we are faster, more thorough, and the patient may not even have to come to visit us in the first place. You must not forget that we also have German or Western patients, but also Chinese patients who do not live in Beijing but are one or two hours away by plane.

But you still need the medical equipment. Only remote diagnosis does not work.

When I was a kid, I used to watch science fiction movies on TV. There was a doctor who had a device that looked like a mobile phone. He used it to scan the patient and then said, “This needs to be operated on.” Unimaginable at the time. Today, there are already ultrasound heads for iPhones. I just ordered one. In the movie, this was supposed to be the year 2300. But it’s only 2021 now. Yet, the technology is this advanced. We need to keep thinking in this direction. It is also possible for the devices to be delivered to the patients and not vice versa. This is all a lot easier in China than it is in Germany. Because the openness to technological innovations is much higher here.

Is the traditional hospital coming to an end?

In any case, there are huge changes coming. The big problem of a hospital: Once you provide the machines and doctors, the hospital has to be kept at capacity, which can quickly make profits a priority over the reasonable treatment of patients.

That sounds cynical.

You said it. This then leads to the fact that one must be discharged from the hospital faster than advisable or be kept longer so that equipment and beds are used to capacity. But then the rooms are 5 stars and you can win a candlelight dinner with your husband. No kidding. I’ve seen it all here in Beijing. Or I enter the foyer and there’s a pianist sitting at the grand piano playing Schubert. You have to ask yourself: How capitalistic do I want to work as a doctor?

I’m sure your treatment isn’t cheap either. Can ordinary Chinese people afford your clinic?

Yes, we have two price lists, one for Chinese insurance and one for international. There’s no other way. The incomes and insurance benefits are too different. We also want to cater to the elderly ladies who come to us from the neighborhood for a chat and to have their blood pressure checked. This down-to-earth approach also protects us from taking off in this overcrowded private medical sector.

Are you interested in traditional Chinese medicine?

I find TCM highly interesting. And western medicine is getting more and more involved with it. There is already a computer that measures the change of magnetic fields in the body to find disorders. That’s where the acupuncture needle comes in. It affects those fields. Very exciting, but I don’t think much of doctors who only focus on one field or the other. TCM doctors and many Chinese, for example, believe that many diseases come with wind. The cold wind makes people sick. That may be true. But it is not always the cold wind. Sometimes it is also a virus or someone falls from a tree. But of course, wind may also be involved. It is also interesting to note the Chinese belief that the energy of a human being is innate and actually has to be maintained throughout life. We don’t know that in the West. Such ideas, combined with Western knowledge, can definitely bring modern medicine forward. In any case, they force us to look in a different, new direction. And that is important.

And what is your role in the clinic?

My team and I are responsible for trust. A network like this only works with trust. I have worked with some Chinese colleagues for decades. And we are responsible for dampening the foreignness when a patient has to visit a Chinese hospital because of a specialist working there or a machine is needed. In part, this is still very different from what we know in the West.

In what way?

In Germany, when I go to the hospital, I want to see a doctor first. Then I want a diagnosis. In China, I take a number and wait my turn. Then I pay for my x-ray, if I want one. Because I can’t get an X-ray unless I pay in advance. That’s where Western patients already drop out. In addition, there are completely different ideas of intimacy and pain, and we make sure that our colleagues don’t commit themselves too quickly to a diagnosis, but think in terms of differential diagnosis: So we say it could be this, but possibly also this or that.

Isn’t the high specialization of Chinese doctors a problem? I was in a Chinese hospital. There’s a senior physician who performs a heart ultrasound on a new patient every three minutes all day long.

That’s a big advantage, but it’s also a disadvantage. She probably can’t put a band-aid on her granddaughter’s knee when she’s fallen down the stairs. But when it comes to the heart, she doesn’t miss a thing. Her work has little to do with the quality of life, though. I wouldn’t want to trade places with her.

What role do robots play as doctors? In China, a robot passed the doctor’s exam a few years ago.

Well, in my lifetime, I won’t be replaced by a robot.

But a robot could be a good assistant because it can process a lot of data very quickly.

Of course, a robot can do that. But to do that, we need long-term data. We don’t have that yet. But it will come. There were first signs of this 30 years ago. There were evaluations showing that ten percent of patients should have kidney disease. However, I only had one patient in Marbach, a small town with 1000 people, where I have my doctor’s office. So I bought a urine analysis device and found the others. Now, you can do that on a large scale. That makes sense. But we must not forget the psychosocial fields. I like to think back to my mother on this subject. The doctor told her to be careful with chocolate cakes. So she would eat the cake very slowly and carefully and wonder, “Why is my blood sugar still so high anyway?”

However, data and technology played a much greater role than psychosocial factors in the successful containment of Covid in China. They were even put on the back burner to some extent. Hardly any other nation has isolated its citizens more strictly in the fight against corona. During your research work in Germany, you greatly concerned yourself with the question of how isolation results in psychological stress. Your research was about bone marrow transplants. What did you learn from this for Covid?

So firstly, there is no other sensible alternative to isolation when there is a risk of infection. The problem with that is the feeling of helplessness. We want to do something, that’s how we are trained in the West. Wait and see, that’s something very few can do. But sometimes that is the best way. Stand still. Do nothing. I think the Chinese are better at that. They have a different philosophy in this regard. They’re more patient and less aggressive. People like to say they’re not. But that is not my experience over the last 20 years or so. They ask themselves: Why should I mess with this guy or this situation? It only costs me energy and time. I’d rather smile, walk away or hang in there. In this respect, it is easier for the Chinese to endure the ordeal of Covid isolation. And it was easier for politicians to enforce it.

A very important factor when it comes to Covid is data protection. In China, it plays a lesser role. This made it possible to combat virus clusters more efficiently. In Germany, that was not possible, but privacy is much better protected. What is your angle on that?

I don’t know the first thing about data protection. But I talk about it again and again with my daughter, who has a doctorate in law. And I, as a layperson, say: It must be possible to collect data without revealing names and addresses. It must be possible to conduct scientific research without creating a transparent population. Why is that not possible? From a medical point of view, we need the data in any case. The situation is serious. Fortunately, we don’t have a nuclear war, and we don’t have a real economic war between nations. But we are in a war of all humans against microorganisms right now. And, if we are going to succeed in this fight, we have to stick together – work together internationally. But that can’t work if everyone is just protecting their data. Nations as well as individuals.

What do you think of the competition among national vaccines? Which vaccine is the best?

I think nothing of it. We still lack the necessary data to come to a reliable conclusion. What we know so far are no more than trends. The basic problem is that we do not know how well the immune system of a vaccinated person is and how many viruses people are exposed to. One person may be vaccinated, but also have a good immune system. Is it the vaccination, or is it the immune system? And then he gets a whole bucket of bad viruses and still gets sick. The next one just comes in contact with a cup full of viruses, is vaccinated, but has a weak immune system. Then what? After all, the statistics only reflect how many of the vaccinated got sick. But the reality is much more complex. All the more reason to exchange as much data as possible on an international scale. Because the virus attacks all people. Not just Germans, Russians, Americans, or the Chinese.

Summit and Toolbox: What happens after the EU summer break?

By

Amelie Richter

Admittedly, things have not been completely quiet in the EU-China bubble this summer. The diplomatic dispute between EU member Lithuania and the People’s Republic over a “Taiwan” office in the Baltic country has continued to cause turmoil (as reported by China.Table). The dispute in the triangle of Taiwan, Vilnius and Beijing over trade missions is already casting its shadow over the resumption of Brussels business in just over two weeks.

But other issues are also on the mind of China experts in EU institutions. A breakdown of key issues:

China resolution in the European Parliament: At the plenary session in September, the EU Parliament will vote on a new China policy strategy. The corresponding report had already found a large majority in the Committee on Foreign Affairs (as reported by China.Table). In the paper, MEPs propose a strategy on the foundation total of “six pillars “, including an open dialogue on global challenges, commitment to human rights through economic policy measures and the strengthening of the EU’s geopolitical relevance. It is very likely that the report will also be adopted in plenary. Overall, the proposals follow the already known approaches of the European Parliament. In the report, the MEPs are expected to stress once again – and for the first time after the summer break – that the work on the EU-China Investment Agreement (CAI) will not be continued while Chinese sanctions against several MEPs are in effect.

Expansion of the “toolbox”: Through this “toolbox”, the EU Commission plans several laws intended to better protect the European market from Chinese influence and trade advantages for the People’s Republic. From September onwards, multiple key points will be fleshed out: According to circles in the EU Parliament, the long-planned International Procurement Instrument (IPI) is back on the table at the Trade Committee in September and is then to be discussed in conjunction with the European Parliament and the EU Council. Up until now, the Council of EU Member States had blocked all efforts. Now, according to the parliamentary circles, an agreement is even expected by the end of the year under the current Slovenian EU Council Presidency. The EU Commission’s legislative proposal for the anti-coercion instrument (ACI) is also expected this winter. The EU wants to improve its defenses against economic blackmail, especially from China, in the future (as reported by China.Table). The EU Commission is also continuing its work on the initiative against competition-distorting subsidies from third countries. Among other things, the initiative is intended to prevent European companies from being taken over by highly subsidized foreign companies. However, the exact date for its vote in the EU Parliament is still unknown.

Reorientation of relations in EU Commission and Council: Since China’s massive counter-sanctions against European politicians, academics and organizations, it was clear that the situation could not continue. Since then, the EEAS, which is responsible for the EU’s foreign policy, has been brooding over a reorientation of relations, but progress has been slow. Right at the beginning of September, talks on China are now back on the table: At an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Slovenia, led by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar is also to take part in a lunch meeting and China is to be on the agenda. At the beginning of October, the EU heads of state and government – including the newly elected German Chancellor – will meet for a dinner, at which China relations will also be the point of discussion. However, it is rather unlikely that completely new approaches will result from two informal meetings.

EU-China summit? According to several sources, EU diplomats are currently considering the possibility of a proper summit meeting between EU and Chinese representatives before the end of the year. EU Commission chief von der Leyen and EU Council chief Charles Michel have not met China’s Premier Li Keqiang in person since taking office – only in video phone calls. The EU is keen to have China’s President Xi Jinping as an official co-host for a potential summit. But Xi has not left the country since the Covid pandemic began. And foreign guests are not allowed to meet the leadership in Beijing. Given the deteriorating Covid situation in the People’s Republic and in Europe due to the rise of the Delta variant, plans for a summit are likely to face difficulties.

State of the Union and the Indo-Pacific: The European Commission and the EEAS are busy preparing a detailed action plan for their Indo-Pacific Strategy. The 27 EU heads of state and government had already approved first key points in April (as reported by China.Table). Part of the strategy is the reduction of economic dependence on China, as well as the role of the EU in the digitalization of Southeast Asia. Details are now expected to be announced on September 14 – one day before EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen will deliver her annual State of the Union (“SOTU”) speech in the Strasbourg EU Parliament. She is expected to present the EU’s Indo-Pacific policy in her second EU SOTU to date.

CAI and the sanctions stalemate: The situation surrounding the CAI investment agreement, currently placed in the much-cited “freezer” of the European Parliament, remains a difficult one. According to several EU parliamentarians, the likelihood that negotiations on the trade agreement will be resumed by the end of the year under the current Slovenian EU Council presidency is slim to none. It remains to be seen what direction the new German government will take – and the course of the French government. After all, France will hold its elections in April, during the country’s current EU presidency. How the election campaign for Emmanuel Macron shapes up in his home country will also have an influence on the work on CAI, because Macron has already drawn criticism from both the right and the left for his involvement in the trade deal. So on the one hand, the incumbent French leader has an interest in keeping the CAI on ice. On the other hand, Brussels considers France a strong nation trusted with the work on the ratification of such a trade agreement and is virtually expected to make progress. But without the cancellation of sanctions by the Chinese, it will be difficult. So far, EU parliamentarians have found themselves in a deadlock. According to EU sources, there currently are no negotiations on the withdrawal of the sanctions via other diplomatic channels, for example between the EU states concerned and Beijing.

Hong Kong likely to extend quarantine on entry

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region will probably increase the duration of a mandatory quarantine on entry on Monday. Arriving travelers will then again be confined to a hotel room for 14 days instead of seven. This was decided in response to a high-profile case: a domestic helper tested positive after leaving seven days’ isolation. The individual had been successfully vaccinated. She had entered the country from the US on August 1st, left quarantine after a week, and then came into contact with other people. A routine test indicated an active infection on day 12. While the domestic worker showed no symptoms, the PCR test revealed a high viral load.

Hong Kong had reduced the quarantine period to seven days for vaccinated and recovered people in June. The current case now shows that this practice does not prevent the introduction of COVID-19 in all cases. Since Hong Kong has a strict zero Covid policy, even small gaps and residual risks are considered unacceptable. However, since the city has seen very few infections, vaccination coverage is comparatively low. Among older citizens, the rate is only 28 percent. For residents of the special administrative zone currently traveling abroad, the extension of the quarantine period would be a particular nuisance. They will have to reschedule and spend an extra week in hotel isolation. fin

Baerbock wants a harder line against China

The Green party candidate for the office of German chancellor Annalena Baerbock advocates a tougher course in dealings with China. As chancellor, she would impose higher tariffs on Chinese goods under certain circumstances, she said in an interview with German newspaper FAZ on Sunday. “We must pay attention to compliance with standards when there is dumping in other regions of the world. For example, by imposing a corresponding surcharge on companies that have been subsidized in the Chinese market or where there are no environmental standards.”

Europe is in need of more effective instruments against economic blocs in which companies benefit from high subsidies. This would ensure the competitiveness of European companies, Baerbock said in the interview. She also advocated more government control over the industry. “European nations should support consortia in sensitive areas – just as Europe’s answer to Boeing was the European aircraft consortium Airbus.” The EU should define and promote key technologies, Baerbock said. fin

Mechanical engineering: China overtakes Germany as top exporter

Germany is continuing to lose ground to Chinese mechanical engineering companies. China’s exports of machinery and equipment will increase by almost 31 percent this year to 296 billion dollars. In contrast, German machinery manufacturers’ exports will grow by only 13 percent to $249 billion, as calculations in a recent study by Germany Trade & Invest (GTAI) showed. “Chinese competitors are becoming stronger in German core industries,” the report by Katharina Viklenko of GTAI concluded.

If this trend continues, it could lead to a further decline of German machinery and plant manufacturing exports compared to the People’s Republic in the long term. China had benefited in particular from the rapid ramp-up of its industry following the strict lockdown in the first quarter of 2020. This helped its economy to recover, resulting in an increase of exports by 2.2 percent year-on-year despite Covid. In Germany, affected suppliers recorded a decline of 11 percent due to the significantly longer shutdowns in the same period.

According to the GTAI, Germany only supplied more machinery to the European Union and Eastern Europe than to China last year. Accordingly, China’s lead in Asia and Africa was particularly strong. In all the regions considered, Chinese exporters recorded high double-digit and even triple-digit growth in a ten-year comparison. German suppliers, on the other hand, lost ground between 2010 and 2020 in exports to Latin America (-32.4 percent), Africa (-13.2 percent) and Asia (-3.2 percent). niw

Brokers punished for price-fixing

China’s securities regulator (SAC) has fined 19 institutional investors as it tightens pricing mechanisms for initial public offerings. This measure was taken after the SAC uncovered a “high incidence of uniform offering prices” in IPOs on China’s tech exchange STAR market.

Due to insufficient internal controls and failure to follow mandatory procedures and other violations, the SAC has temporarily banned an insurance company from participating in IPOs and prevented eight fund houses and an asset manager from participating in stock trading for a month. The SAC announced it would strengthen supervision and increase penalties against misconduct to maintain order in IPO pricing and to protect investors. Launched in June 2019, Shanghai’s STAR Market, like U.S. exchanges, is based on a registration-based IPO system and allows for shorter review procedures than on China’s other exchanges. niw

China’s anti-foreign sanctions law

By Alexander Chipman Koty, Dezan Shira

On June 10, 2021, the National People’s Congress Standing Committee passed the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law (the “Law), just two days after the body announced that the draft was undergoing a second round of revisions.

Policymakers hastily passed the Law in the context of sanctions placed by the US, EU, UK, Canada, and others on Chinese officials and organizations over allegations of abuses in the region of Xinjiang and elsewhere. The Law gives the Chinese government a legal tool to respond to foreign sanctions with its own counter-sanctions, which could affect individuals and companies doing business in China, along with other foreign actors operating in the country. The implementation of the Law marks another potential risk for companies in China, as political tensions create a more uncertain business environment.

Why did China pass the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law?

China passed the Law after over three years of escalating political and economic disputes with foreign countries, including the US and EU.

In July 2018, the US, led by President Trump, put tariffs on US$34 billion worth of Chinese products, beginning an escalating trade dispute that still has not been resolved.

During this period, China’s leading telecom companies – Huawei and ZTE – became heavily scrutinized by foreign governments. The US sanctioned ZTE, Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada, and numerous countries restricted Huawei products. Later, several countries put sanctions on China in response to allegations with respect to Hong Kong and Xinjiang. In March, for example, the US, UK, Canada, and the EU jointly imposed sanctions on Chinese officials and organizations connected to alleged abuses in Xinjiang.

In June, the US, under President Biden, introduced more restrictions, including by banning Americans from investing in some Chinese companies involved in military, security, and surveillance sectors.

In response to political and economic tensions such as these, China passed the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law to give itself a tool to counter foreign sanctions. Although China has already responded to some of these development with its own counter-sanctions, the Law offers a stronger legal framework to develop and implement future counter-sanctions.

What is the scope of China’s Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law?

The Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law describes, in broad terms, when Chinese authorities can issue counter-sanctions, who is eligible to be sanctioned, and what the punishments entail.

According to Article 3 of the Law, individuals or organizations involved in the making or implementation of a foreign country’s “discriminatory measures against Chinese citizens” or “interference with China’s internal affairs” are eligible to be placed on a blacklist, or “counter-list”.

This includes individuals or organizations that are directly or indirectly involved in the formulation, decision, or implementation of such measures, per Article 4.

Article 5 states that the spouses and immediate family members of such individuals may also be put on the blacklist. Organizations with which the individuals are involved and senior individuals within such organizations may also be blacklisted. It is up to the discretion of “relevant departments of the State Council” to determine who to add to or remove from the blacklist.

Blacklisted individuals and organizations may be refused visas to China, denied entry into the country, or deported from the country, according to Article 6. Further, they may be banned from financial transactions with Chinese institutions, prevented from cooperating with Chinese entities, and have their assets sealed, seized, or frozen. Beyond these, blacklisted subjects may be sanctioned with “other necessary measures”.

Additionally, Article 12 states that individuals and organizations cannot implement or assist in the implementation of discriminatory measures taken by a foreign country, and such entities can be sued by Chinese citizens and organizations for damages.

Finally, Article 13 and Article 15 include broad measures stating that acts by foreign countries, organizations, and individuals that endanger China’s sovereignty, security, and developmental interests may be subject to other countermeasures not included in the Law.

Who has China sanctioned?

Before passing the Law, China had already sanctioned foreign entities over the course of the last several years. Since 2019, China has placed sanctions on a number of individuals and organizations, mostly in relation to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Xinjiang. To date, China has primarily – but not exclusively – sanctioned politicians, researchers, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), though some businesses in the defense industry have been targeted as well.

Recipients of Chinese sanctions include American politicians, such as Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Tom Cotton, Canadian politician Michael Chong, and EU politicians, such as the members of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights. Further, China has sanctioned organizations, and/or and individuals involved with them, such as Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, the National Endowment for Democracy, and MERICS.

So far, companies in the defense industry are the only private businesses to be sanctioned by China, in connection to arms sales to Taiwan. They are Lockheed Martin, Boeing Defense, and Raytheon. China has also placed trade tariffs on a number of foreign products in apparent response to political disputes, such as Australian wine. These trade tariffs, however, are separate from sanctions. It is unclear whether the Law will lead China to increase its use of sanctions, or if it will simply codify existing practices.

How should businesses respond?

For example, the US’ Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act bans companies from selling products in the US that were made with forced labor in Xinjiang. Should a foreign company that produces or sources goods in Xinjiang respond to this legislation by shifting production elsewhere, they could become more likely targets of Chinese sanctions in the event of a political dispute.

Continually escalating sanctions, counter-sanctions, and other restrictions deriving from international disagreements will make it more difficult for foreign companies to simultaneously comply with laws in China and in overseas markets. Moreover, the Law is so vague and broad that its limits and practical applicability are difficult to determine.

Accordingly, companies and other organizations operating in China are advised to create a risk map to calculate their exposure to Chinese sanctions under the Law.

This could include identifying exposure to the politically sensitive areas of Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang, and Tibet, both in terms of business operations and networks of individuals associated with the entity. Further, entities operating in China would do well to develop contingency plans and model response scenarios to prepare for how they would respond to potential sanctions.

Nevertheless, while foreign entities in China should prepare for how to respond to the Law, it does not fundamentally alter the legal landscape. In 2020, for example, China created an “unreliable entities list” as a potential retaliatory tool amid the US-China trade war, but this does not appear to have actually been used.

As such, the Law further underscores the pre-existing importance of foreign businesses in China to create risk management strategies to adapt to an increasingly uncertain environment.

This article first appeared in Asia Briefing, published by Dezan Shira Associates. The firm advises international investors in Asia and has offices in China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, Russia and Vietnam.

The Qixi festival 七夕 is linked to the romantic legend of the weaver girl (who is actually a fairy) and the poor shepherd boy who, after some entanglements, are only allowed to see each other once a year on 7/7 of the lunar calendar. It is therefore considered a festival of lovers. This wall in Taiyuan city was decorated with the beautiful phrase “I love you” in different languages on the occasion of the holiday on Saturday. The center, of course, reads “Wo ai ni 我爱你.”

CHINA.TABLE EDITORIAL OFFICE

Amelie
Richter

Marcel
Grzanna

Fabian
Peltsch

Julia
Fiedler

Angela
Köckritz

Jörn
Petring

Dear reader,

Annalena Baerbock – a name that was largely unknown in China until now. But since she called for a “stricter trade policy” towards Beijing in a recent interview, the question arose whether Sino-German trade relations will tighten with a new government making such demands. Baerbock’s threat of increased protectionism certainly won’t make executives of German automakers rest any easier at night. But will higher tariffs really only hit China? The prices of goods will also increase for German consumers as a result. A plan that could backfire.

Brussels will still be on summer break for a while. But our Brussels correspondent Amelie Richter is already presenting you with an outlook on the EU’s China policy for the remainder of the year. The autumn will hold a few surprises in store in this regard, which will not leave Beijing cold either.

Cold wind, that’s one topic in Frank Sieren’s CEO talk with German doctor and clinic founder Michaela Heinke in Beijing. Heinke talks about the quality of Chinese hospitals, the differences in mentalities in the fight against Covid and good reasons to take traditional medicine seriously. You can also watch the full German interview here.

Our column “So To Speak” takes a break this week due to holidays. Our Mandarin expert and stylist Verena Menzel cannot be replaced, as every reader of her columns is surely aware of.

Have a good week!

Your
Ning Wang

“The Chinese are better at waiting and persevering”