The Head of the Europe Department in the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has warned Germany not to play with fire. This threat is an arrogant statement of a wolf warrior that should not impress us. This is not my statement but that of Reinhard Buetikofer, a Green EU parliamentarian and co-chair of a new German-Taiwanese dialogue platform.
The establishment of this platform was reason enough for the Chinese diplomat to clench his fists towards Berlin. History repeating. Again and again, the People’s Republic threatens other countries with consequences if they do not do what Beijing wants. In an interview with Michael Radunski and Felix Lee, Buetikofer advises not to be intimidated – especially not by arrogant wolf warrior statements. Nevertheless, Buetikofer emphasizes the future importance of diplomacy in dealing with Beijing’s claim to Taiwan.
Chinese threats are irritating because, given China’s demographic development and other economic hurdles, collaboration with the West is the only perspective. Li Qiang’s appearance in Davos cannot be understood differently – the West also needs China. In any case, the birth rate has continued to shrink despite the end of the one-child policy. China’s challenges are getting bigger every year.
Taiwan has held elections, and with Lai Ching-te, a China-critical democrat, becomes the new president – and China has not attacked. Is the situation not as dire as it seems?
Only hysterical individuals who do not delve deeper into the issue could speculate that there would now be a military attack. On another level, China is aggressively attacking, such as with information manipulation. China’s aggressive intent should be taken seriously. However, spreading clichés only aids Beijing’s fear propaganda. War is avoidable.
Is Lai Ching-te’s election not a setback for Beijing, considering the communist leadership tried so hard to influence the election?
It is a severe setback for Beijing. The people in Taiwan were not influenced by misinformation, economic coercion or military threats from China. This shows that Beijing simply does not understand how democratic societies function. This was also the case with us when China imposed sanctions against members of the EU Parliament and other individuals. Beijing thought it would intimidate us, but it only derailed the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI).
How will China react to Taiwan now?
China will maintain the pressure and repeatedly conduct military maneuvers to show Taiwan that it is hopelessly inferior. China will uphold the propaganda that there is no future other than under the boot of the Communist Party. And China will continue to try to exert influence through misinformation, rumors and economic bribery. They have a broad range of measures.
Will Beijing succeed?
Much will depend on whether Taiwan finds a stable path internally. If the three parties do not collaborate constructively and block each other, Beijing will exploit that. Additionally, the international community must not leave Taiwan hanging after the election.
After the election, Germany congratulated “the elected” and not the president. Out of fear of China?
Oh yes. I believe it is the first time that Berlin has positively commented on such an election result in Taiwan. In this case, however, they apparently wanted to be particularly clever in consultation with Paris and Brussels: congratulate on one side but on the other side not pay the price by being vague. More clarity would be better.
Many experts are also cautious. Taiwan expert Guenter Schubert from the University of Tübingen warned: Those who question the One-China policy contribute to increasing the risk of war around Taiwan. Is he right?
You have to look closely. The One-China policy is correct, and we will stick to it. But it is different from the One-China principle from Beijing.
How so?
The One-China principle from Beijing claims that Taiwan unquestionably belongs under the rule of Beijing, and the People’s Republic has the right to enforce it violently.
And Germany’s One-China policy?
Our One-China policy states that there is only one government representing China. That is the government in Beijing. But no claims on Taiwan can be derived from it. Our policy does not diplomatically recognize Taiwan. Still, it does not rule out recognizing the reality of Taiwanese democracy, quite the opposite.
So let’s put aside the exact diplomatic wording: In fact, Taiwan has long been an independent, democratic republic. Shouldn’t we treat Taiwan accordingly?
Completely abandoning diplomacy would not be good. But otherwise, yes.
So, what is Taiwan to us?
Well, I remember the time when Taiwan was somehow just in the way: a hunchbacked democratic relative on a distant island that somehow threatened to obstruct the promising, unconditional approach to the People’s Republic. Today, Taiwan is an important partner for us, not only because of its leading chip industry.
If Taiwan is so important, don’t we need a Taiwan strategy alongside the China strategy?
We need an active Taiwan policy. Germany and the EU’s policies are already more active than during Chancellor Merkel’s time. But we need more.
Like what?
We should work to enable Taiwan to participate meaningfully in international organizations such as UNFCCC, ICAO, WHO, or Interpol. These would be substantial contributions to stabilizing the status quo and calming the situation in the Taiwan Strait.
That would be on an international level. What can Germany do?
We should give a stronger format to economic relations with Taiwan. Europe is the main investor in Taiwan. Taiwan’s investments in Europe are still relatively manageable. This will change a bit with TSMC’s chip factory in Dresden, but we can do more – to mutual benefit.
Speaking of practical implementation: You are now co-chair of a new German-Taiwanese dialogue platform. What do you hope to achieve with this forum?
We want to promote civil society dialogue. This ranges from dealing with the dictatorial past to scientific cooperation, cultural policy and recycling.
Dialog means exchange. What can we learn from Taiwan?
We can learn, for example, how to successfully deal with foreign influence and information manipulation from civil society. Taiwan shows robustness against China in this regard.
But your dialogue forum with Taiwan will surely cause trouble with Beijing.
A bit. The head of the Europe Department at the Chinese Foreign Ministry puffed up and said Germany should not play with fire. That’s just an arrogant, boastful wolf warrior statement. Anyone impressed by such a thing would be to blame themselves.
Reinhard Buetikofer is a former co-chair of the Green Party and has been a member of the EU Parliament since 2009. He shapes European China policy in the Committees on Foreign Affairs and Trade. He is also the co-chair of the German-Taiwanese Dialogue Forum.
China’s statistical authority has released concerning figures on population development alongside questionable economic data. According to the statistics bureau, the declining birth rate in China has further accelerated since last year. According to the statistics bureau, approximately 1.409 billion people lived in the People’s Republic at the end of December, 2.08 million fewer than a year earlier. China’s population had already shrunk for the first time in six decades in 2022, although the decline was significantly smaller at around 850,000 people than in the past year.
In China, 9.02 million babies were born, compared to 9.56 million in 2022. On the other hand, the number of deaths increased significantly from 10.41 million to 11.1 million. The Beijing statisticians did not provide information on the causes of death, but a significant proportion is likely attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The hasty end of COVID restrictions at the end of 2021 led to many deaths – a situation that could have been prevented if the older population had been better vaccinated. President Xi Jinping has not yet approved effective vaccines like those from Biontech or Moderna due to nationalist reasons, instead relying on domestically produced vaccines, which are less effective.
The alarming news about demographic development overshadowed the announcement of economic data on Wednesday – especially since Prime Minister Li Qiang had already spilled the growth rate at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday. According to this, China’s economy is said to have grown by 5.2 percent last year. This would slightly exceed the second-largest economy’s official growth target.
How realistic this number actually is remains speculative. Already at the end of last year, Chinese media openly complained that economic data reported from some provinces appeared to be manipulated. The Rhodium think tank, for example, believes that the actual growth was only 1.5 percent.
Economic sinologist Doris Fischer also has doubts. “Even if we assume that correct data reporting was desired at the central level, the question remains of how the apparently problematic provincial data have been corrected from the end of the year until now.” Fischer therefore concludes, “not to have much trust in the official GDP data“.
Juergen Matthes from the German Economic Institute (IW), however, sees a special effect in the growth at work. “It is a unique rebound after the weak year 2022, in which growth was only just under three percent due to the coronavirus crisis lockdowns.” However, the IW economist warns, “We should not overestimate the inner strength of the Chinese economy, given the ongoing real estate crisis.”
While Chinese exports have recently developed positively, weak imports, a lack of willingness to invest, youth unemployment, low domestic consumption and a high savings rate suggest that 5.2 percent is simply overstated. “Regardless of how much trickery was necessary to meet this target, China’s economic development last year was sobering,” says Markus Taube, East Asia economics expert at the University of Duisburg. In view of the weak global economy, industry cannot develop a healthy growth dynamic without revitalized consumption.
The statistics bureau also raised eyebrows with a new statistic on youth unemployment. A record rate of 21.3 percent had been reported just in the summer. Beijing subsequently suspended the statistic. The now presented rate for the age group of 16 to 24 was significantly lower at 14.9 percent.
Kang Yi, director of the statistics bureau, explained that the new rate better reflected the employment and unemployment status of young people. Students or students who are still attending school or university but are already looking for a job or part-time employment are no longer included in the statistics.
The evaluation for 25 to 29-year-olds is new. Their unemployment rate, according to official figures, is around 6.1 percent. If these numbers are correct, it would paint a significantly more relaxed picture of the labor market situation. However, analysts criticized that a comparison with the old statistics would only be possible after the presentation of more historical data. Zhang Zhiwei, chief economist at asset manager Pinpoint, told Bloomberg: “It’s better to have data than not to have them because at least we can see how the situation will change from month to month in the future.”
The growth target for 2024 still needs to be determined. However, the Chinese Academy of Sciences made a surprisingly positive forecast last week: China’s economy could grow stronger in 2024 with 5.3 percent than in 2023. The Academy is closely connected to the Chinese government. Therefore, its forecast very likely reflects the government’s economic policy goals and expectations.
“The Chinese government will probably keep its growth target for 2024 at five percent,” says Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief economist for the Asia-Pacific region at Natixis. “But I don’t think it will be easy without further fiscal and monetary incentives. Real interest rates in China are at a record level, much higher than in the US, Europe or Japan, and China is suffering from deflationary pressure due to overcapacity.”
A more optimistic growth forecast could be interpreted as a signal that the government is ready to take additional measures to support economic growth. A final clarification of this issue will only come in early March when the government presents its official growth target at the National People’s Congress.
As a boy, Benjamin Creutzfeldt observed the Chinese and Japanese colleagues of his father. Although their languages were fundamentally different, they could communicate through characters. For a student who had struggled through years of Latin lessons, this radiated immense fascination. “When I then discovered a Chinese club at school, I seized the opportunity,” says Benjamin Creutzfeldt. Today, he is the director of the Confucius Institute Leipzig.
On his journey, Creutzfeldt studied Chinese studies at Durham University and Asian art and architecture at SOAS University in London. He earned his Ph.D. at the Universidad Externado de Colombia in Bogotá on China’s relations with Latin America and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. In addition to his academic career, he also worked for the auction house Christie’s as an art expert and auctioneer for Chinese porcelain. His interest in Chinese art later led him to establish a porcelain workshop in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province.
In his role in Leipzig, Benjamin Creutzfeldt brings together all these experiences. He organizes language courses, concerts, exhibitions, magazines, academic lecture series and cultural events with the institute. “I have rarely engaged in so many varied activities at once; the day is never long enough,” he says. Like all Confucius Institutes in Germany, the one in Leipzig is affiliated with the city’s university and collaborates with a Chinese partner university.
Due to this connection to China, the 19 German Confucius Institutes are under scrutiny this summer. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution had previously classified these institutions as instruments of political influence in its current annual report. The debate has worried and angered Creutzfeldt. He accuses the critics of being uninformed and conducting a politically cheap debate. “All German Confucius Institutes are independent of each other and have different partners both in Germany and China, so we cannot be lumped together,” he argues.
The cooperation with Renmin University is described by the director as “hands-off”. “The selection of teachers, speakers, musicians, books, artists, topics and films is up to us. We have never received a direct instruction from China,” says Creutzfeldt. “Even the Chinese director assigned to us by Renmin University has no influence on content beyond organizational matters and as a registered association, we are subject solely to German law.”
Benjamin Creutzfeldt sees the debate as an example of how Germany’s perspective on China has changed since the COVID-19 pandemic. “There is growing mistrust on the German side,” he observes. To counteract this, Germany needs more knowledge about China, believes Creutzfeldt. “And the Confucius Institutes contribute to this, among other things,” he says. Svenja Schlicht
Poetry in a picture – in front of the old town wall of the former imperial residence in Xi’an. The structure was built at the end of the 14th century during the Ming Dynasty and encloses an area of twelve square kilometers. Since 1961, it has been a protected monument. Over the centuries, it has been severely affected by wars or decay multiple times and has been rebuilt time and again. Today, it acts as a captivating lens into China’s past – and is accordingly popular.
The Head of the Europe Department in the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has warned Germany not to play with fire. This threat is an arrogant statement of a wolf warrior that should not impress us. This is not my statement but that of Reinhard Buetikofer, a Green EU parliamentarian and co-chair of a new German-Taiwanese dialogue platform.
The establishment of this platform was reason enough for the Chinese diplomat to clench his fists towards Berlin. History repeating. Again and again, the People’s Republic threatens other countries with consequences if they do not do what Beijing wants. In an interview with Michael Radunski and Felix Lee, Buetikofer advises not to be intimidated – especially not by arrogant wolf warrior statements. Nevertheless, Buetikofer emphasizes the future importance of diplomacy in dealing with Beijing’s claim to Taiwan.
Chinese threats are irritating because, given China’s demographic development and other economic hurdles, collaboration with the West is the only perspective. Li Qiang’s appearance in Davos cannot be understood differently – the West also needs China. In any case, the birth rate has continued to shrink despite the end of the one-child policy. China’s challenges are getting bigger every year.
Taiwan has held elections, and with Lai Ching-te, a China-critical democrat, becomes the new president – and China has not attacked. Is the situation not as dire as it seems?
Only hysterical individuals who do not delve deeper into the issue could speculate that there would now be a military attack. On another level, China is aggressively attacking, such as with information manipulation. China’s aggressive intent should be taken seriously. However, spreading clichés only aids Beijing’s fear propaganda. War is avoidable.
Is Lai Ching-te’s election not a setback for Beijing, considering the communist leadership tried so hard to influence the election?
It is a severe setback for Beijing. The people in Taiwan were not influenced by misinformation, economic coercion or military threats from China. This shows that Beijing simply does not understand how democratic societies function. This was also the case with us when China imposed sanctions against members of the EU Parliament and other individuals. Beijing thought it would intimidate us, but it only derailed the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI).
How will China react to Taiwan now?
China will maintain the pressure and repeatedly conduct military maneuvers to show Taiwan that it is hopelessly inferior. China will uphold the propaganda that there is no future other than under the boot of the Communist Party. And China will continue to try to exert influence through misinformation, rumors and economic bribery. They have a broad range of measures.
Will Beijing succeed?
Much will depend on whether Taiwan finds a stable path internally. If the three parties do not collaborate constructively and block each other, Beijing will exploit that. Additionally, the international community must not leave Taiwan hanging after the election.
After the election, Germany congratulated “the elected” and not the president. Out of fear of China?
Oh yes. I believe it is the first time that Berlin has positively commented on such an election result in Taiwan. In this case, however, they apparently wanted to be particularly clever in consultation with Paris and Brussels: congratulate on one side but on the other side not pay the price by being vague. More clarity would be better.
Many experts are also cautious. Taiwan expert Guenter Schubert from the University of Tübingen warned: Those who question the One-China policy contribute to increasing the risk of war around Taiwan. Is he right?
You have to look closely. The One-China policy is correct, and we will stick to it. But it is different from the One-China principle from Beijing.
How so?
The One-China principle from Beijing claims that Taiwan unquestionably belongs under the rule of Beijing, and the People’s Republic has the right to enforce it violently.
And Germany’s One-China policy?
Our One-China policy states that there is only one government representing China. That is the government in Beijing. But no claims on Taiwan can be derived from it. Our policy does not diplomatically recognize Taiwan. Still, it does not rule out recognizing the reality of Taiwanese democracy, quite the opposite.
So let’s put aside the exact diplomatic wording: In fact, Taiwan has long been an independent, democratic republic. Shouldn’t we treat Taiwan accordingly?
Completely abandoning diplomacy would not be good. But otherwise, yes.
So, what is Taiwan to us?
Well, I remember the time when Taiwan was somehow just in the way: a hunchbacked democratic relative on a distant island that somehow threatened to obstruct the promising, unconditional approach to the People’s Republic. Today, Taiwan is an important partner for us, not only because of its leading chip industry.
If Taiwan is so important, don’t we need a Taiwan strategy alongside the China strategy?
We need an active Taiwan policy. Germany and the EU’s policies are already more active than during Chancellor Merkel’s time. But we need more.
Like what?
We should work to enable Taiwan to participate meaningfully in international organizations such as UNFCCC, ICAO, WHO, or Interpol. These would be substantial contributions to stabilizing the status quo and calming the situation in the Taiwan Strait.
That would be on an international level. What can Germany do?
We should give a stronger format to economic relations with Taiwan. Europe is the main investor in Taiwan. Taiwan’s investments in Europe are still relatively manageable. This will change a bit with TSMC’s chip factory in Dresden, but we can do more – to mutual benefit.
Speaking of practical implementation: You are now co-chair of a new German-Taiwanese dialogue platform. What do you hope to achieve with this forum?
We want to promote civil society dialogue. This ranges from dealing with the dictatorial past to scientific cooperation, cultural policy and recycling.
Dialog means exchange. What can we learn from Taiwan?
We can learn, for example, how to successfully deal with foreign influence and information manipulation from civil society. Taiwan shows robustness against China in this regard.
But your dialogue forum with Taiwan will surely cause trouble with Beijing.
A bit. The head of the Europe Department at the Chinese Foreign Ministry puffed up and said Germany should not play with fire. That’s just an arrogant, boastful wolf warrior statement. Anyone impressed by such a thing would be to blame themselves.
Reinhard Buetikofer is a former co-chair of the Green Party and has been a member of the EU Parliament since 2009. He shapes European China policy in the Committees on Foreign Affairs and Trade. He is also the co-chair of the German-Taiwanese Dialogue Forum.
China’s statistical authority has released concerning figures on population development alongside questionable economic data. According to the statistics bureau, the declining birth rate in China has further accelerated since last year. According to the statistics bureau, approximately 1.409 billion people lived in the People’s Republic at the end of December, 2.08 million fewer than a year earlier. China’s population had already shrunk for the first time in six decades in 2022, although the decline was significantly smaller at around 850,000 people than in the past year.
In China, 9.02 million babies were born, compared to 9.56 million in 2022. On the other hand, the number of deaths increased significantly from 10.41 million to 11.1 million. The Beijing statisticians did not provide information on the causes of death, but a significant proportion is likely attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The hasty end of COVID restrictions at the end of 2021 led to many deaths – a situation that could have been prevented if the older population had been better vaccinated. President Xi Jinping has not yet approved effective vaccines like those from Biontech or Moderna due to nationalist reasons, instead relying on domestically produced vaccines, which are less effective.
The alarming news about demographic development overshadowed the announcement of economic data on Wednesday – especially since Prime Minister Li Qiang had already spilled the growth rate at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday. According to this, China’s economy is said to have grown by 5.2 percent last year. This would slightly exceed the second-largest economy’s official growth target.
How realistic this number actually is remains speculative. Already at the end of last year, Chinese media openly complained that economic data reported from some provinces appeared to be manipulated. The Rhodium think tank, for example, believes that the actual growth was only 1.5 percent.
Economic sinologist Doris Fischer also has doubts. “Even if we assume that correct data reporting was desired at the central level, the question remains of how the apparently problematic provincial data have been corrected from the end of the year until now.” Fischer therefore concludes, “not to have much trust in the official GDP data“.
Juergen Matthes from the German Economic Institute (IW), however, sees a special effect in the growth at work. “It is a unique rebound after the weak year 2022, in which growth was only just under three percent due to the coronavirus crisis lockdowns.” However, the IW economist warns, “We should not overestimate the inner strength of the Chinese economy, given the ongoing real estate crisis.”
While Chinese exports have recently developed positively, weak imports, a lack of willingness to invest, youth unemployment, low domestic consumption and a high savings rate suggest that 5.2 percent is simply overstated. “Regardless of how much trickery was necessary to meet this target, China’s economic development last year was sobering,” says Markus Taube, East Asia economics expert at the University of Duisburg. In view of the weak global economy, industry cannot develop a healthy growth dynamic without revitalized consumption.
The statistics bureau also raised eyebrows with a new statistic on youth unemployment. A record rate of 21.3 percent had been reported just in the summer. Beijing subsequently suspended the statistic. The now presented rate for the age group of 16 to 24 was significantly lower at 14.9 percent.
Kang Yi, director of the statistics bureau, explained that the new rate better reflected the employment and unemployment status of young people. Students or students who are still attending school or university but are already looking for a job or part-time employment are no longer included in the statistics.
The evaluation for 25 to 29-year-olds is new. Their unemployment rate, according to official figures, is around 6.1 percent. If these numbers are correct, it would paint a significantly more relaxed picture of the labor market situation. However, analysts criticized that a comparison with the old statistics would only be possible after the presentation of more historical data. Zhang Zhiwei, chief economist at asset manager Pinpoint, told Bloomberg: “It’s better to have data than not to have them because at least we can see how the situation will change from month to month in the future.”
The growth target for 2024 still needs to be determined. However, the Chinese Academy of Sciences made a surprisingly positive forecast last week: China’s economy could grow stronger in 2024 with 5.3 percent than in 2023. The Academy is closely connected to the Chinese government. Therefore, its forecast very likely reflects the government’s economic policy goals and expectations.
“The Chinese government will probably keep its growth target for 2024 at five percent,” says Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief economist for the Asia-Pacific region at Natixis. “But I don’t think it will be easy without further fiscal and monetary incentives. Real interest rates in China are at a record level, much higher than in the US, Europe or Japan, and China is suffering from deflationary pressure due to overcapacity.”
A more optimistic growth forecast could be interpreted as a signal that the government is ready to take additional measures to support economic growth. A final clarification of this issue will only come in early March when the government presents its official growth target at the National People’s Congress.
As a boy, Benjamin Creutzfeldt observed the Chinese and Japanese colleagues of his father. Although their languages were fundamentally different, they could communicate through characters. For a student who had struggled through years of Latin lessons, this radiated immense fascination. “When I then discovered a Chinese club at school, I seized the opportunity,” says Benjamin Creutzfeldt. Today, he is the director of the Confucius Institute Leipzig.
On his journey, Creutzfeldt studied Chinese studies at Durham University and Asian art and architecture at SOAS University in London. He earned his Ph.D. at the Universidad Externado de Colombia in Bogotá on China’s relations with Latin America and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. In addition to his academic career, he also worked for the auction house Christie’s as an art expert and auctioneer for Chinese porcelain. His interest in Chinese art later led him to establish a porcelain workshop in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province.
In his role in Leipzig, Benjamin Creutzfeldt brings together all these experiences. He organizes language courses, concerts, exhibitions, magazines, academic lecture series and cultural events with the institute. “I have rarely engaged in so many varied activities at once; the day is never long enough,” he says. Like all Confucius Institutes in Germany, the one in Leipzig is affiliated with the city’s university and collaborates with a Chinese partner university.
Due to this connection to China, the 19 German Confucius Institutes are under scrutiny this summer. The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution had previously classified these institutions as instruments of political influence in its current annual report. The debate has worried and angered Creutzfeldt. He accuses the critics of being uninformed and conducting a politically cheap debate. “All German Confucius Institutes are independent of each other and have different partners both in Germany and China, so we cannot be lumped together,” he argues.
The cooperation with Renmin University is described by the director as “hands-off”. “The selection of teachers, speakers, musicians, books, artists, topics and films is up to us. We have never received a direct instruction from China,” says Creutzfeldt. “Even the Chinese director assigned to us by Renmin University has no influence on content beyond organizational matters and as a registered association, we are subject solely to German law.”
Benjamin Creutzfeldt sees the debate as an example of how Germany’s perspective on China has changed since the COVID-19 pandemic. “There is growing mistrust on the German side,” he observes. To counteract this, Germany needs more knowledge about China, believes Creutzfeldt. “And the Confucius Institutes contribute to this, among other things,” he says. Svenja Schlicht
Poetry in a picture – in front of the old town wall of the former imperial residence in Xi’an. The structure was built at the end of the 14th century during the Ming Dynasty and encloses an area of twelve square kilometers. Since 1961, it has been a protected monument. Over the centuries, it has been severely affected by wars or decay multiple times and has been rebuilt time and again. Today, it acts as a captivating lens into China’s past – and is accordingly popular.
