Jack Ma has not been seen this close to the center of power for a long time. On Monday, Chinese state media published pictures of the 60-year-old billionaire alongside other prominent entrepreneurs applauding President and Party leader Xi Jinping after a speech. Jörn Petring explains what this means for Alibaba and the entire Chinese tech industry.
The landmark Munich Security Conference continues to occupy us. There, Angela Köckritz spoke to ex-military man Zhou Bo. He says: Trump surprises China – with friendliness. Instead of harsh confrontation, he chooses conciliatory gestures towards Beijing. But is this a genuine change of course or just the calm before the storm? In today’s interview, Zhou Bo explains why China will not be fooled by illusions and what lessons it has learned from the Ukraine war for Taiwan.
Germany approaches the last week before the federal elections. In today’s op-ed, Nicolas Zippelius from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) presents his ideas for a China competence center.
Jack Ma has not been seen this close to the center of power for a long time. On Monday, Chinese state media published images of the 60-year-old billionaire alongside other prominent entrepreneurs applauding state and party leader Xi Jinping after a speech. Xi had invited all key representatives of Chinese tech companies to a symposium in Beijing.
The meeting was significant for several reasons. By holding the first meeting of its kind since 2018, Beijing signaled its goodwill towards the tech industry and its desire to work together to drive China’s modernization. It is a fitting signal at a time when breakthroughs by Chinese AI start-up Deepseek have already given China’s tech companies a strong upwind on the stock market.
“It is the right time for the majority of private businesses and entrepreneurs to show their talent,” Xinhua quoted from Xi’s “important speech” in the Great Hall of the People. The President reaffirmed the government’s growth strategy and emphasized that the private sector’s current woes were temporary. He called on entrepreneurs to unite their “thoughts and actions” with the party’s goals in the face of “increasing external challenges.”
The fact that Xi’s guests included not only industry giants such as Tencent founder Ma Huateng, Xiaomi boss Lei Jun and Huawei boss Ren Zhengfei, but also Jack Ma, is the second important message: Ma is allowed back at the table after falling from Beijing’s favor years ago.
It is another success story for Alibaba within a short time. Since the start of the year, Alibaba shares have risen by more than 45 percent. One big reason is that the company is reinventing itself as a powerful AI player. DeepSeek may have dominated the headlines in recent weeks, but Alibaba is considered to be at least as powerful as the young start-up.
The Hangzhou-based company has achieved an important, prestigious success: A partnership with Apple. As was announced last week, Alibaba will provide the AI on iPhones delivered in China. “Apple has been very selective. They talked to a number of companies in China, and in the end they choose to do business with us,” Alibaba board member and co-founder Joe Tsai proudly reported at a summit in Dubai. Apple is able to offer its AI service Apple Intelligence directly in the US, but data security laws in China required a local partner.
Apple reportedly held talks with tech giants like Baidu, Tencent and TikTok’s parent company ByteDance. A partnership with Deepseek was also reportedly discussed. However, Apple allegedly found Deepseek too inexperienced and ultimately chose Alibaba, which now seems to have finally found a way out of the crisis.
Alibaba peaked around 2020 when its market value was in the same league as Google or Facebook. The company was on the verge of floating its financial division Ant Group on the stock market. But this plan failed spectacularly.
Ma, who had already withdrawn from day-to-day business at the time, came under fire from Beijing after miscalculating a public criticism of Chinese regulators and the financial system. Moreover, Beijing launched a regulatory crackdown on the tech industry, particularly Alibaba, which was seen as too powerful. The authorities abruptly stopped Ant Group’s planned stock market listing.
Alibaba also gained new competitors. For example, Pinduoduo also enjoyed great success in the West with its foreign subsidiary Temu. Alibaba responded with the biggest corporate restructuring in its history. The core business around the shopping platforms TMall and Taobao was stabilized. The company also began to step up its investment in AI and train its own AI model. It was not until January that Qwen 2.5 once again delivered impressive test results, outperforming even DeepSeek to some extent.
It remains to be seen whether Alibaba’s recent streak of success will continue. After all, every mistake is punished in China’s highly competitive tech sector. For example, Tencent and Deepseek have already joined forces in the AI race. The first WeChat users can now use a trial version of the app that integrates the DeepSeek R1 model to enable AI-supported searches. If this service is offered on a large scale, every Chinese user would be in direct contact with DeepSeek via their WeChat account.
The mood in Beijing also remains worth monitoring closely. The details of what the tech bosses discussed with Xi Jinping are unknown. However, the published images speak a clear language. Xi speaks, the billionaires listen obediently and take notes. The entrepreneurs are granted success as long as they act in Beijing’s interests.
It’s a warped world compared to the images emerging these days from the Oval Office, where Elon Musk is holding a press conference. Instead of a suit and tie, he is wearing a coat, a T-shirt, and a black MAGA cap. His little son is on his shoulders, bored and picking his nose. Next to him, Donald Trump, who does not appear as powerful as Xi, looks almost like an onlooker behind his desk, listening attentively to the person actually pulling the strings and jumping to his side when necessary.
What is your first impression of the new Trump administration with regard to China?
I would say that things have been relatively quiet in recent weeks. Almost too friendly.
Does that surprise you?
Yes, everyone was expecting tariffs of 60 percent. But then Trump announced tariffs of just ten percent, which are lower than those he threatened Canada and Mexico with. Perhaps he realized this strategy doesn’t work on us because we are an equal competitor. It might work with Mexico, but it won’t keep China down. Then he invited Xi to attend his inauguration. And he gave him a call saying something like: If we two countries join hands then we can solve all the major problems in the world. All these are friendly gestures. Maybe because he has some respect for President Xi, as he respects strongmen. And he certainly knows that in some high-tech areas, China has already surpassed the United States. Perhaps that’s why he bows to his rival before the duel.
The West hopes China might use its considerable influence over Russia to push for a ceasefire in Ukraine. Or it could stop exporting dual-use components to Russia.
All this is just wishful thinking. We are the largest neighbors. So, it is our interest to make this relationship amicable. China’s economy is not in a good shape. It has to sell to anyone who wants to buy something, and this kind of export does not violate international treaties. China used to sell the same things before the war. But since sanctions have been imposed on Russia, the Russians have to buy more of it and are looking to China. China criticizes Russia in its own way by talking about respecting sovereignty. It means that they do not respect sovereignty. But we wouldn’t say that directly.
What role could China play in negotiating and securing a peace agreement?
China can play a constructive role in three ways. First, we can join other major powers and provide a collective security guarantee. Putin has asked China, India and Brazil to play a mediating role. Secondly, China can send peacekeepers. If the peacekeepers were from Europe, Putin would say they are from NATO. But if they came from China or India, that would be fine.
Putin would not want to harm Chinese or Indian soldiers for fear of upsetting countries that are very important to him.
Thirdly, China could help in post-war rebuilding. I don’t know where the money would come from, but we could do an efficient job with this money. China is very good at building infrastructure.
China always wanted to play the role of peacemaker in Ukraine. Do you consider it a setback that Trump and Putin will probably have their first meeting in Saudi Arabia?
I understand that, because China is widely considered to be pro-Russia. If both sides agree, China will actually be pleased.
What conclusions does China draw from the developments surrounding Ukraine concerning its ambitions for Taiwan?
We are certainly watching. We can learn a lot of things, militarily speaking. But I don’t think there will definitely be a war in the Taiwan Strait. Peaceful reunification is still possible. Why should we launch such a heavy-cost war if we believe it is still possible? We should not do that. But can China trust the US? They always talk about the one-China policy, but then undermine it. They even send their people to train Taiwanese troops. I wonder what the point of the US sending instructors to train Taiwanese is – these soldiers are called “strawberry soldiers.”
Some in Taiwan use this term to criticize the resolve and capabilities of their own soldiers.
Firstly, we believe that peaceful reunification is still possible, and secondly, people always forget that we should offer carrots, not just sticks.
The Munich Security Conference has shown that the United States is serious about turning its attention to the Indo-Pacific.
How can the US really turn to the Indo-Pacific? I think Israel is America’s Achilles heel. They will never get out of the Middle East. But even if they had a free hand and focused on China – so what? They’re tired of being the world’s policeman. This is the sunset of Pax Americana. And the American defense industry is nothing compared to China’s military industry.
The USA still has the most powerful military in the world.
The American military is still stronger than the Chinese, that’s for sure. But I’m talking about the defense industry. The ability to produce ships. The US has lost a significant amount of industrial capability. A single Chinese shipyard could be stronger than all the American shipyards combined. Can the USA really return to strength one day? I have my doubts. Nations rise and fall, but if you’re already falling, you might be able to enter a long curve. But you cannot just bounce back immediately from declining.
You wrote a book called “Should the World Fear China?” If China does not want to be feared, why does it not act differently towards Taiwan, in the South China Sea or at the China-India border?
The answer is very simple. Thucydides talks about three reasons for war – fear, interest and honor. Now, I’m talking about honor. This kind of honor is invisible, but it matters tremendously for China. And should we blame it? China has not gone through a lesson about the damage that nationalism can bring. In China you never hear anything about nationalism. You always hear about patriotism. So, all Chinese have been educated from childhood that we should not give up an inch of our motherland. That our motherland is sacred and we should defend it. The Chinese are very serious about sovereignty. They don’t say, “it’s just a rock in the sea, who cares?” They wouldn’t think like that.
Zhou Bo is a retired Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force colonel. He served as military attaché at the Chinese embassy in Namibia and was Director of the Center for Security Cooperation at the Chinese Ministry of Defense. Today, he is a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
The question of establishing a China competence center is crucial for a more efficient and coherent shaping of German foreign policy. On the one hand, this has highlighted the inconsistent actions of the disbanded government coalition regarding the implementation of its China strategy and the resolution of China-related issues.
Secondly, after four decades of the People’s Republic’s economic rise, the government should be able to better anticipate China’s language, actions and political behavior. This requires an exchange with national and global players at the same level of analytical knowledge in order to be able to react appropriately to China’s actions and make long-term foreign policy plans. Without comprehensive China expertise, Germany’s China strategy will remain an empty shell. It needs more depth than the regularly recurring categorization of partnership, competition and systemic rivalry.
In establishing such a competence center, existing China expertise at various political levels and areas must be pooled and coordinated with available China knowledge from the academic, business and civil society sectors – at a department located directly at the Chancellor’s Office.
This competence center should also serve to strengthen interdisciplinary exchange, be a contact point for relevant players, discuss current China-related issues, monitor China for possible changes in structures and processes, carry out strategic scenario planning and maintain a database documenting ongoing cooperation between business, science and research. Consequently, it is essential to actively involve representatives from various China-relevant areas when establishing the competence center.
The interdisciplinary exchange should also be open to the German security authorities. In addition, German stakeholders should be supported with advice on acutely relevant developments, such as the growing decoupling of the Chinese standardization landscape from international standards. In a response from the German government to a question written by the author, it is confirmed that the alternative Chinese product standard, China Compulsory Certification, represents a technical trade barrier to the free movement of goods and therefore hinders the activities of German companies on the Chinese market. A China competence center, located in the Chancellor’s Office, could thus also make an important contribution to strengthening Germany’s international competitiveness and digital sovereignty.
Another important task can be derived from these goals, namely to improve the coherence of domestic China policy within the framework of the competence center. The federal states and local authorities must also be included in this process, brought into closer contact with the responsible bodies and authorities at the federal level and provided with contact points for sensitive issues relating to China.
Germany’s already established sinologies or China competence centers at various science and research locations in Germany are a particular strength when it comes to developing its own China expertise. Examples of this include the twelve “Regio-China” projects that emerged from the China strategy of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, 2015-2020), which was adopted under the then CDU/CSU-led federal government, the Association of China Centers at German Universities (VCdH) founded at the Technical University of Berlin in 2018, the China School Academy at the University of Heidelberg and the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS). The list of such China excellence to be considered goes on.
The aim of a China competence center must also be: (1) to create synergies between the existing sinology and China competence centers at universities and scientific and research institutions in Germany and a China competence center located in the Chancellor’s Office; (2) to develop suitable mechanisms to draw on the diverse China expertise in a timely manner and (3) to provide services to strengthen China expertise at all levels of government.
A China competence center can also be considered a cornerstone of Germany’s foreign policy. This means a dialogue between the China competence center and other European competence centers, such as the Dutch China Knowledge Network (CKN), and other international China competence centers must be promoted. This will enable a long-term exchange of expertise and experts, as well as a joint response to global challenges. With such a China competence center, Germany would make a key contribution to the further development and increased effectiveness of the European China strategy, which is and remains an integral part of Germany’s China policy.
Against this backdrop, it is important to reiterate the potential of a China Competence Center located at the Chancellor’s Office. For this pillar of a coherent, effective and sustainable foreign and security policy, too, it is important to set the right course and responsibly fulfill Germany’s role as a global political player. By creating a competence center at the intersection of science, research, economic, foreign and (cyber) security policy, a federal government would provide the necessary instrument.
Nicolas Zippelius is a member of the Bundestag for the Christian Democratic Union. He is a full member of the Committee on Digital Affairs, the Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development and the Committee of Inquiry into Afghanistan. Zippelius is a deputy member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Editor’s note: More than ever, discussing China means engaging in controversial debate. We aim to reflect the diversity of opinions to give you an insight into the breadth of the discussion. Articles do not reflect the opinion of the editorial team.
Primary and secondary schools in several Chinese regions opened their doors for the first day of the new school semester last Thursday. Traditionally, many started the new school year with “inspiring first lessons.” In the Pengshan district of Meishan in Sichuan province, for example, a robotic dog came into play. It was not only supposed to teach the children about technology, but also spark their interest in the core industries of robotics and artificial intelligence.
Jack Ma has not been seen this close to the center of power for a long time. On Monday, Chinese state media published pictures of the 60-year-old billionaire alongside other prominent entrepreneurs applauding President and Party leader Xi Jinping after a speech. Jörn Petring explains what this means for Alibaba and the entire Chinese tech industry.
The landmark Munich Security Conference continues to occupy us. There, Angela Köckritz spoke to ex-military man Zhou Bo. He says: Trump surprises China – with friendliness. Instead of harsh confrontation, he chooses conciliatory gestures towards Beijing. But is this a genuine change of course or just the calm before the storm? In today’s interview, Zhou Bo explains why China will not be fooled by illusions and what lessons it has learned from the Ukraine war for Taiwan.
Germany approaches the last week before the federal elections. In today’s op-ed, Nicolas Zippelius from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) presents his ideas for a China competence center.
Jack Ma has not been seen this close to the center of power for a long time. On Monday, Chinese state media published images of the 60-year-old billionaire alongside other prominent entrepreneurs applauding state and party leader Xi Jinping after a speech. Xi had invited all key representatives of Chinese tech companies to a symposium in Beijing.
The meeting was significant for several reasons. By holding the first meeting of its kind since 2018, Beijing signaled its goodwill towards the tech industry and its desire to work together to drive China’s modernization. It is a fitting signal at a time when breakthroughs by Chinese AI start-up Deepseek have already given China’s tech companies a strong upwind on the stock market.
“It is the right time for the majority of private businesses and entrepreneurs to show their talent,” Xinhua quoted from Xi’s “important speech” in the Great Hall of the People. The President reaffirmed the government’s growth strategy and emphasized that the private sector’s current woes were temporary. He called on entrepreneurs to unite their “thoughts and actions” with the party’s goals in the face of “increasing external challenges.”
The fact that Xi’s guests included not only industry giants such as Tencent founder Ma Huateng, Xiaomi boss Lei Jun and Huawei boss Ren Zhengfei, but also Jack Ma, is the second important message: Ma is allowed back at the table after falling from Beijing’s favor years ago.
It is another success story for Alibaba within a short time. Since the start of the year, Alibaba shares have risen by more than 45 percent. One big reason is that the company is reinventing itself as a powerful AI player. DeepSeek may have dominated the headlines in recent weeks, but Alibaba is considered to be at least as powerful as the young start-up.
The Hangzhou-based company has achieved an important, prestigious success: A partnership with Apple. As was announced last week, Alibaba will provide the AI on iPhones delivered in China. “Apple has been very selective. They talked to a number of companies in China, and in the end they choose to do business with us,” Alibaba board member and co-founder Joe Tsai proudly reported at a summit in Dubai. Apple is able to offer its AI service Apple Intelligence directly in the US, but data security laws in China required a local partner.
Apple reportedly held talks with tech giants like Baidu, Tencent and TikTok’s parent company ByteDance. A partnership with Deepseek was also reportedly discussed. However, Apple allegedly found Deepseek too inexperienced and ultimately chose Alibaba, which now seems to have finally found a way out of the crisis.
Alibaba peaked around 2020 when its market value was in the same league as Google or Facebook. The company was on the verge of floating its financial division Ant Group on the stock market. But this plan failed spectacularly.
Ma, who had already withdrawn from day-to-day business at the time, came under fire from Beijing after miscalculating a public criticism of Chinese regulators and the financial system. Moreover, Beijing launched a regulatory crackdown on the tech industry, particularly Alibaba, which was seen as too powerful. The authorities abruptly stopped Ant Group’s planned stock market listing.
Alibaba also gained new competitors. For example, Pinduoduo also enjoyed great success in the West with its foreign subsidiary Temu. Alibaba responded with the biggest corporate restructuring in its history. The core business around the shopping platforms TMall and Taobao was stabilized. The company also began to step up its investment in AI and train its own AI model. It was not until January that Qwen 2.5 once again delivered impressive test results, outperforming even DeepSeek to some extent.
It remains to be seen whether Alibaba’s recent streak of success will continue. After all, every mistake is punished in China’s highly competitive tech sector. For example, Tencent and Deepseek have already joined forces in the AI race. The first WeChat users can now use a trial version of the app that integrates the DeepSeek R1 model to enable AI-supported searches. If this service is offered on a large scale, every Chinese user would be in direct contact with DeepSeek via their WeChat account.
The mood in Beijing also remains worth monitoring closely. The details of what the tech bosses discussed with Xi Jinping are unknown. However, the published images speak a clear language. Xi speaks, the billionaires listen obediently and take notes. The entrepreneurs are granted success as long as they act in Beijing’s interests.
It’s a warped world compared to the images emerging these days from the Oval Office, where Elon Musk is holding a press conference. Instead of a suit and tie, he is wearing a coat, a T-shirt, and a black MAGA cap. His little son is on his shoulders, bored and picking his nose. Next to him, Donald Trump, who does not appear as powerful as Xi, looks almost like an onlooker behind his desk, listening attentively to the person actually pulling the strings and jumping to his side when necessary.
What is your first impression of the new Trump administration with regard to China?
I would say that things have been relatively quiet in recent weeks. Almost too friendly.
Does that surprise you?
Yes, everyone was expecting tariffs of 60 percent. But then Trump announced tariffs of just ten percent, which are lower than those he threatened Canada and Mexico with. Perhaps he realized this strategy doesn’t work on us because we are an equal competitor. It might work with Mexico, but it won’t keep China down. Then he invited Xi to attend his inauguration. And he gave him a call saying something like: If we two countries join hands then we can solve all the major problems in the world. All these are friendly gestures. Maybe because he has some respect for President Xi, as he respects strongmen. And he certainly knows that in some high-tech areas, China has already surpassed the United States. Perhaps that’s why he bows to his rival before the duel.
The West hopes China might use its considerable influence over Russia to push for a ceasefire in Ukraine. Or it could stop exporting dual-use components to Russia.
All this is just wishful thinking. We are the largest neighbors. So, it is our interest to make this relationship amicable. China’s economy is not in a good shape. It has to sell to anyone who wants to buy something, and this kind of export does not violate international treaties. China used to sell the same things before the war. But since sanctions have been imposed on Russia, the Russians have to buy more of it and are looking to China. China criticizes Russia in its own way by talking about respecting sovereignty. It means that they do not respect sovereignty. But we wouldn’t say that directly.
What role could China play in negotiating and securing a peace agreement?
China can play a constructive role in three ways. First, we can join other major powers and provide a collective security guarantee. Putin has asked China, India and Brazil to play a mediating role. Secondly, China can send peacekeepers. If the peacekeepers were from Europe, Putin would say they are from NATO. But if they came from China or India, that would be fine.
Putin would not want to harm Chinese or Indian soldiers for fear of upsetting countries that are very important to him.
Thirdly, China could help in post-war rebuilding. I don’t know where the money would come from, but we could do an efficient job with this money. China is very good at building infrastructure.
China always wanted to play the role of peacemaker in Ukraine. Do you consider it a setback that Trump and Putin will probably have their first meeting in Saudi Arabia?
I understand that, because China is widely considered to be pro-Russia. If both sides agree, China will actually be pleased.
What conclusions does China draw from the developments surrounding Ukraine concerning its ambitions for Taiwan?
We are certainly watching. We can learn a lot of things, militarily speaking. But I don’t think there will definitely be a war in the Taiwan Strait. Peaceful reunification is still possible. Why should we launch such a heavy-cost war if we believe it is still possible? We should not do that. But can China trust the US? They always talk about the one-China policy, but then undermine it. They even send their people to train Taiwanese troops. I wonder what the point of the US sending instructors to train Taiwanese is – these soldiers are called “strawberry soldiers.”
Some in Taiwan use this term to criticize the resolve and capabilities of their own soldiers.
Firstly, we believe that peaceful reunification is still possible, and secondly, people always forget that we should offer carrots, not just sticks.
The Munich Security Conference has shown that the United States is serious about turning its attention to the Indo-Pacific.
How can the US really turn to the Indo-Pacific? I think Israel is America’s Achilles heel. They will never get out of the Middle East. But even if they had a free hand and focused on China – so what? They’re tired of being the world’s policeman. This is the sunset of Pax Americana. And the American defense industry is nothing compared to China’s military industry.
The USA still has the most powerful military in the world.
The American military is still stronger than the Chinese, that’s for sure. But I’m talking about the defense industry. The ability to produce ships. The US has lost a significant amount of industrial capability. A single Chinese shipyard could be stronger than all the American shipyards combined. Can the USA really return to strength one day? I have my doubts. Nations rise and fall, but if you’re already falling, you might be able to enter a long curve. But you cannot just bounce back immediately from declining.
You wrote a book called “Should the World Fear China?” If China does not want to be feared, why does it not act differently towards Taiwan, in the South China Sea or at the China-India border?
The answer is very simple. Thucydides talks about three reasons for war – fear, interest and honor. Now, I’m talking about honor. This kind of honor is invisible, but it matters tremendously for China. And should we blame it? China has not gone through a lesson about the damage that nationalism can bring. In China you never hear anything about nationalism. You always hear about patriotism. So, all Chinese have been educated from childhood that we should not give up an inch of our motherland. That our motherland is sacred and we should defend it. The Chinese are very serious about sovereignty. They don’t say, “it’s just a rock in the sea, who cares?” They wouldn’t think like that.
Zhou Bo is a retired Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force colonel. He served as military attaché at the Chinese embassy in Namibia and was Director of the Center for Security Cooperation at the Chinese Ministry of Defense. Today, he is a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
The question of establishing a China competence center is crucial for a more efficient and coherent shaping of German foreign policy. On the one hand, this has highlighted the inconsistent actions of the disbanded government coalition regarding the implementation of its China strategy and the resolution of China-related issues.
Secondly, after four decades of the People’s Republic’s economic rise, the government should be able to better anticipate China’s language, actions and political behavior. This requires an exchange with national and global players at the same level of analytical knowledge in order to be able to react appropriately to China’s actions and make long-term foreign policy plans. Without comprehensive China expertise, Germany’s China strategy will remain an empty shell. It needs more depth than the regularly recurring categorization of partnership, competition and systemic rivalry.
In establishing such a competence center, existing China expertise at various political levels and areas must be pooled and coordinated with available China knowledge from the academic, business and civil society sectors – at a department located directly at the Chancellor’s Office.
This competence center should also serve to strengthen interdisciplinary exchange, be a contact point for relevant players, discuss current China-related issues, monitor China for possible changes in structures and processes, carry out strategic scenario planning and maintain a database documenting ongoing cooperation between business, science and research. Consequently, it is essential to actively involve representatives from various China-relevant areas when establishing the competence center.
The interdisciplinary exchange should also be open to the German security authorities. In addition, German stakeholders should be supported with advice on acutely relevant developments, such as the growing decoupling of the Chinese standardization landscape from international standards. In a response from the German government to a question written by the author, it is confirmed that the alternative Chinese product standard, China Compulsory Certification, represents a technical trade barrier to the free movement of goods and therefore hinders the activities of German companies on the Chinese market. A China competence center, located in the Chancellor’s Office, could thus also make an important contribution to strengthening Germany’s international competitiveness and digital sovereignty.
Another important task can be derived from these goals, namely to improve the coherence of domestic China policy within the framework of the competence center. The federal states and local authorities must also be included in this process, brought into closer contact with the responsible bodies and authorities at the federal level and provided with contact points for sensitive issues relating to China.
Germany’s already established sinologies or China competence centers at various science and research locations in Germany are a particular strength when it comes to developing its own China expertise. Examples of this include the twelve “Regio-China” projects that emerged from the China strategy of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, 2015-2020), which was adopted under the then CDU/CSU-led federal government, the Association of China Centers at German Universities (VCdH) founded at the Technical University of Berlin in 2018, the China School Academy at the University of Heidelberg and the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS). The list of such China excellence to be considered goes on.
The aim of a China competence center must also be: (1) to create synergies between the existing sinology and China competence centers at universities and scientific and research institutions in Germany and a China competence center located in the Chancellor’s Office; (2) to develop suitable mechanisms to draw on the diverse China expertise in a timely manner and (3) to provide services to strengthen China expertise at all levels of government.
A China competence center can also be considered a cornerstone of Germany’s foreign policy. This means a dialogue between the China competence center and other European competence centers, such as the Dutch China Knowledge Network (CKN), and other international China competence centers must be promoted. This will enable a long-term exchange of expertise and experts, as well as a joint response to global challenges. With such a China competence center, Germany would make a key contribution to the further development and increased effectiveness of the European China strategy, which is and remains an integral part of Germany’s China policy.
Against this backdrop, it is important to reiterate the potential of a China Competence Center located at the Chancellor’s Office. For this pillar of a coherent, effective and sustainable foreign and security policy, too, it is important to set the right course and responsibly fulfill Germany’s role as a global political player. By creating a competence center at the intersection of science, research, economic, foreign and (cyber) security policy, a federal government would provide the necessary instrument.
Nicolas Zippelius is a member of the Bundestag for the Christian Democratic Union. He is a full member of the Committee on Digital Affairs, the Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development and the Committee of Inquiry into Afghanistan. Zippelius is a deputy member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Editor’s note: More than ever, discussing China means engaging in controversial debate. We aim to reflect the diversity of opinions to give you an insight into the breadth of the discussion. Articles do not reflect the opinion of the editorial team.
Primary and secondary schools in several Chinese regions opened their doors for the first day of the new school semester last Thursday. Traditionally, many started the new school year with “inspiring first lessons.” In the Pengshan district of Meishan in Sichuan province, for example, a robotic dog came into play. It was not only supposed to teach the children about technology, but also spark their interest in the core industries of robotics and artificial intelligence.
