A values-based foreign policy – Germany is by no means the only country to have taken up this cause. Japan’s government under Fumio Kishida also never tires of emphasizing that a commitment to democracy and respect for human rights is an integral part of Japanese foreign policy.
However, the reality is complicated, as Felix Lill notes in his analysis. A closer look gives him the impression that the frequently emphasized values in Japan’s foreign policy primarily serve one purpose: to distinguish itself from China, which in turn makes no secret of pursuing its own interests in foreign policy.
It is precisely this value-free approach that some heads of state in African countries may appreciate about China. However, many voices among the population are rather skeptical about the behavior of Chinese investors on the continent. In an interview with Fabian Peltsch, Kenyan risk analyst Dismas Kizito Mokua warns that if the Chinese want to gain a long-term presence, they need to show more consideration for local interests. More integration into society could help. This is because the Chinese in Africa often keep to themselves. This leads to mistrust, Mokua says.
Have a good start to the week with lots of hope for peaceful holidays!
You work as a risk analyst in Kenya. You share your expertise on politics and economics often on national TV shows and the radio. Do you see the growing Chinese influence in Kenya in recent years as an opportunity or a risk?
The question about Chinese activities in Kenya is very broad. The Chinese find Kenya as a stepping stone to the region. They trade and invest in Kenya. In general, Chinese companies can deliver up-market products, mid-level products and low-level products. China is very competitive. China manufactures and assembles most global brands. The perception in Kenya is, however, that some Chinese traders and agencies bring products to the Kenyan market that may not find space nor room in other markets.
Today, the streets of Nairobi feature signs in Chinese. How is the everyday interaction between Chinese and Kenyans?
A good number have settled in major towns. They have customized parts of where they stay consistent with their tastes and preferences. They have tailored their stay in Kenya. They only mingle with locals when they supervise projects but not as much at a social level. Many Kenyans, on the other hand, want to establish supply-chain-facilities with Chinese companies. Many people are learning Chinese languages. Some banks in Kenya have dedicated teams to support business people who want to do business with China. There are even a number of commercial Banks that have set up special Chinese desks in their branches.
How smoothly do Kenyans and Chinese work together in the business world?
One forms the impression that China has taken full advantage of globalization of markets and production. We have Chinese companies in many sectors. A number of Chinese companies have been accused of failure to pay attention to local content and importing raw materials from China as well as all many of their workers. A number of contractors wonder why China companies almost always have competitive bids from a cost of perspective. The cost of labor raises eyebrows. There are also allegations that some Chinese companies don’t play fair game in the bidding process.
What are the working conditions like on Chinese construction sites?
In the past, some multinationals from China were repeatedly accused of failure to embrace best practices in human resource management. Newspaper reports suggested that a Chinese construction company may have mistreated casual employees, for example during the construction of the standard-gauge railway (SGR), a flagship project, mostly financed by Chinese loans. Some Chinese supervisors were accused of shouting at casual staffers and that accommodation offered was not up to expectations. Men were cramping into small rooms. These conversations reminded folks of sweatshops where companies like Nike used to make their products before the global public outcry occurred.
The 4.7 billion US dollars that were borrowed from Chinese banks for the construction of the railway line are also one reason why Kenya is in a debt crisis. Many Kenyans criticize the project for not being carried out transparently enough.
The railway was a signature project that was done in a hurry. It was a government project, that means it’s supposed to be a public project. Nevertheless, Members of the National Assembly nor the Senators have not had access to the actual contracts. People suspect the contract was inflated and that it was a vendor-driven procurement. People speculate that authorities may not have secured value for money and the public got a raw deal. Failure to make the contract public by President Kenyatta created room for speculation and propaganda. Members of the public fear that there was no value for money and that in case of disputes will be referred to Chinese jurisdiction.
How is the Chinese side reaction to these accusations?
The Chinese in Kenya are very media-shy. They are hardly visible in the public space. Instead, they work very closely with a number of journalists and public intellectuals in Kenya. A number of journalists and public intellectuals have been to China on fact-finding trips. There are many Kenyan students studying in Chinese universities. The Chinese have established language facilities at selected universities in Kenya. When they return, they have a good impression of China and speak of the country in glowing terms. The Chinese state media has also set up news agency offices in Nairobi. At some stage they invaded all the local newsrooms and hired local top talent for their channels.
What do Kenyan journalists working for Chinese media channels mainly report on?
Many Chinese media channels hardly criticize governments across the world. They hardly engage in conversations around human rights nor engage civil society. So, they mainly discuss economics. They however point out challenges facing the US, EU or UK with alacrity. You will hardly see negative stories around China, or Russia for that matter. While US, EU or UK diplomats can talk democracy, human rights or governance, Chinese diplomats will not.
What needs to change in Kenya when it comes to working with Chinese companies?
Kenyans were happy: Let’s get the Chinese here to break some monopolies and offer competitive prices. Chinese restaurants became very popular as well. Many Kenyans have established supply chain management facilities with Chinese companies. Chinese companies may however need to go the extra mile to remain sensitive to African interests and capture Africa aspirations in their global plans. China may want to support Africa in taking advantage of globalization of markets and production. Kenya is a key cog and anchor State in Africa. Kenyans are open for business. Kenya offers China a path to Africa. China can use Kenya as a stepping stone to Africa in the globalization of markets and production. Kenya has the requisite infrastructure.
Dismas Kizito Mokua is a Nairobi-based political risk analyst. He is a sought-after dialogue partner in Kenyan and international media and regularly appears at global trade and investment conferences.
When German heads of government mention bilateral relations with Japan, they always gush about a “value partnership.” This was also the case when Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited the Japanese capital in April 2022. Standing next to his counterpart Fumio Kishida, he announced: “It is no coincidence that my first trip as chancellor to this region has led today here, to Tokyo.” According to Scholz, the values that the two nations share are democracy, the separation of powers, respect for human rights and a multilateral international order.
And that’s not all: Both countries also officially swear by these ideals in their diplomacy. Both Germany and Japan have increasingly emphasized their “values-based foreign policy” in recent years. Unlike the German government, there is no mention of a feminist foreign policy in Japan’s cabinet. But various fundamental democratic criteria play an important role, at least rhetorically, in the decisions made by Japan’s government. An “arc of freedom and prosperity” is mentioned repeatedly.
The history of Japan’s “value-based foreign policy” is relatively young. It began in 2006, under Shinzo Abe’s first one-year term in office (Abe was prime minister for a second term from 2012 to 2020). Until then, Japan had focussed on the economic dimension of foreign policy under its Yoshida Doctrine, named after the prime minister who had ruled since 1946. The Yoshida Doctrine aimed to reintegrate Japan into the global economy through multilateralism and trade after its defeat in the war.
In the mid-1970s, amid the Cold War, Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda coined the maxim that Japan should secure new allies, particularly in Southeast Asia, through development cooperation. It did not matter whether these were liberal or authoritarian, capitalist or communist. Added to this was the principle of non-interference in the affairs of other countries. In other words, there was no sign of a value-based approach at the time. From the post-war period until Abe, pure pragmatism was the name of the game.
The shift towards a foreign policy that placed democracy and human rights at the heart of the country seemed like a paradigm shift. Manifestations of this are the “Quad” – a security policy exchange between the USA, Australia, India and Japan – or the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” strategy, under which Japan strives for economic, infrastructural and security policy cooperation with Pacific neighbor states and thus also aims to promote democracy and the separation of powers. The list of similar projects involving the word “democracy” goes on.
What is striking, however, is that all of Japan’s initiatives also reveal a clear differentiation from the economically and militarily rising China, which has been challenging Japan’s hegemonic position in Asia for over a decade. Accordingly, Hitoshi Kikawada, who sits in parliament for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and also served as deputy foreign minister under former Prime Minister Abe, emphasized in the summer of 2023: “We are pleased that people in Europe are now also seeing that there are potential dangers emanating from China. (…) Democracies should stand together against it.”
The emphasis on democracy has a clear political interest dimension in the Japanese context. For instance, Koji Murata, Professor of Politics at Doshisha University in Kyoto, criticized that Japan’s “value-based foreign policy” hardly really prioritizes values: “Human rights must be a basic goal rather than just a tool of diplomacy.”
Kiyoteru Tsutsui, Professor of Sociology at Stanford University, warns of a “paradox of empty promises“: Those who constantly talk about noble values risk stumbling over them.
The risk is acute for Japan. The East Asian country has still not ratified the UN Genocide Convention of 1948. Japan is also not a signatory to the International Labour Organization (ILO) treaty, which prohibits discrimination.
Conservative politicians such as Hitoshi Kikawada from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party feel misunderstood by Europe when the latter demands Japan abolish the death penalty or permit gay marriage. Prime Minister Kishida dismissed the topic of same-sex marriages this year with the admonishing sentence: “That would change society.”
Japan’s frequently emphasized values seem like lip service not only in its domestic policy but also in its diplomacy. “The case of Myanmar is a good example to show that values have played only a marginal role in Japan’s foreign policy so far,” observes Raymond Yamamoto, Professor of Politics at Aarhus University. Japan maintained relatively good ties to the junta during Myanmar’s decades-long military dictatorship, but support was rapidly expanded following the tentative democratization in 2011. During the displacement of the Rohingya, Japan looked the other way.
And after the military coup in February 2021, Japan did not sanction the junta like other G7 countries. “Japan does not even have a legal basis to impose sanctions based on human rights violations,” which is a clear indication that it does not want to abolish its principle of non-interference. “Abe has not fundamentally changed Japan’s pragmatic, economically oriented foreign policy.” To this day, Japan’s primary aim is to distinguish itself from China, Yamamoto concludes. Felix Lill
USA and China: The basic constellation remains the same, but the approach is changing fundamentally. That is a crucial development. This is how the recent meeting in San Francisco between the US and Chinese presidents can be summarized. In almost countless meetings at all levels – compared to Germany – preparations were made for what is now referred to in the USA as managed co-existence or competitive interdependence. The intention is to keep existing conflicts and fundamental differences under control, while the contribution to solving global challenges could grow again.
Nevertheless, some still believe the world is heading towards the bipolarity of a new Cold War with almost natural inexorability. Such “old concepts” don’t work for a fundamentally different reality. They are misleading.
The USSR and the USA were the leading powers of two military alliances that were highly armed and opposed each other with massive deterrence. Even “flexible responses” to the Warsaw Pact (from the late 1960s) or NATO rearmament did not overturn this fundamental constellation. Until 1990/91, the world was politically and militarily bipolar, with defined borders and spheres of interest, with contested regions and also with proxy wars. This bipolarity of two leading powers of military alliances no longer exists today. President Biden explicitly speaks of the importance of avoiding a new “Cold War.”
Today, only the US has the (albeit not unlimited) ability to project global military power. But economically and technologically, the world was and still is multipolar. Europe and Japan played their own economic and technological role; many free trade zones and economic areas have since been added. When the USSR dissolved in 1991, it contributed little more than three percent to global economic output. Today, around 19 percent of global economic output is generated in China. China and the USA are economically closely intertwined. The US Secretary of the Treasury says: “De-coupling” would be disastrous.
This also applies to the often underestimated field of civil society exchange. This was practically non-existent between the USSR and the USA. But before the pandemic, around 360,000 Chinese students were in the US, with a total of around six million since the early 1980s. Before the pandemic, around 130 million people from China traveled the world as tourists. They (and many others) absorb impressions and take them back home.
Does Europe, does Germany have influence, opportunities or even power in these developments? Power has many elements: politics, diplomacy and military; economy, technology, innovation; culture, civilization, society. Can we (how? with what?) serve our interests and represent our values? We are obliged to do so; however: “Reckon with your defects, assume what you have, not your slogans.” (Gottfried Benn). I would add: Formulate strategic goals, translate them into operational options for action, build on strengths and reduce weaknesses.
All of this is urgent. Europe (including Germany) does not carry any weight on the global security policy scale – even if we think of “security” in a comprehensive way, i.e., including non-military root causes of crises and wars all the way to ending them. Securing peace and preventing a global conflagration is a shared global interest – the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the terror of Hamas murdering people in Israel and the misery in the Gaza Strip are terrible proof of this. The fact that the US and China are setting up something like a “red telephone” because of the potential conflicts over the South China Sea and around Taiwan and are also resuming direct communication at a military level is essential for developing peace there.
China itself struggles with tremendous domestic challenges. It is aging faster than Germany. Over a fifth of its youth are unable to find good jobs. Property and stock markets are under enormous stress. Even five percent growth (as much as the Netherlands’ annual economic output) does not inspire consumer confidence, and most provinces and cities struggle with enormous financial problems. The elderly protest against cuts in what we would call the welfare state – the examples go on and on. The foundation is decisive: Since opening and reform (1978), progress has been tentative, but since 2001 (WTO accession), it has been almost explosive. The unwritten social contract is now showing its downside: confidence in the future, “desire” for innovation, investment and consumption can neither be commanded nor forced with increasing control. Whether this will lead to more market-based corrections, as the former “economic authority” Yang Weimin calls for, or as the Central Financial Work Conference suggests for the next five years, remains to be seen.
All of this is important for Germany and Europe. The big, unfortunately, unanswered question is: Does Europe have the foresight and strength for strategy, for autonomy? Will it be able to translate its experience of civilization, balance and understanding into relevant contributions in a geopolitical and geo-economic context? Will we assume what we have instead of slogans? There is reason to doubt, and sometimes even to despair. But that would be a feeling and not politics.
What is certain: Nobody is going to wait for us. What is also certain: We are less than six percent of the world’s population, but generate almost 15 percent of the global economy and represent seven of the ten most innovative economies in the world. We have an obligation. We can preserve our strengths and hopefully minimize our (sometimes glaring) weaknesses. We have many opportunities – for now.
More and more Chinese businesses adapt to the needs of pet owners. For example, urban cafés and shops provide carrier bags, snacks and photo walls for cute selfies. One chain of teahouses even attracts customers with small rucksacks to carry dogs and cats. Economists call it the “pet economy.” Generation Z, in particular, aged between 19 and 30, fuels the retail trend. More and more of these young Chinese regard their pets as equal family members and sometimes even as a surrogate for children.
A values-based foreign policy – Germany is by no means the only country to have taken up this cause. Japan’s government under Fumio Kishida also never tires of emphasizing that a commitment to democracy and respect for human rights is an integral part of Japanese foreign policy.
However, the reality is complicated, as Felix Lill notes in his analysis. A closer look gives him the impression that the frequently emphasized values in Japan’s foreign policy primarily serve one purpose: to distinguish itself from China, which in turn makes no secret of pursuing its own interests in foreign policy.
It is precisely this value-free approach that some heads of state in African countries may appreciate about China. However, many voices among the population are rather skeptical about the behavior of Chinese investors on the continent. In an interview with Fabian Peltsch, Kenyan risk analyst Dismas Kizito Mokua warns that if the Chinese want to gain a long-term presence, they need to show more consideration for local interests. More integration into society could help. This is because the Chinese in Africa often keep to themselves. This leads to mistrust, Mokua says.
Have a good start to the week with lots of hope for peaceful holidays!
You work as a risk analyst in Kenya. You share your expertise on politics and economics often on national TV shows and the radio. Do you see the growing Chinese influence in Kenya in recent years as an opportunity or a risk?
The question about Chinese activities in Kenya is very broad. The Chinese find Kenya as a stepping stone to the region. They trade and invest in Kenya. In general, Chinese companies can deliver up-market products, mid-level products and low-level products. China is very competitive. China manufactures and assembles most global brands. The perception in Kenya is, however, that some Chinese traders and agencies bring products to the Kenyan market that may not find space nor room in other markets.
Today, the streets of Nairobi feature signs in Chinese. How is the everyday interaction between Chinese and Kenyans?
A good number have settled in major towns. They have customized parts of where they stay consistent with their tastes and preferences. They have tailored their stay in Kenya. They only mingle with locals when they supervise projects but not as much at a social level. Many Kenyans, on the other hand, want to establish supply-chain-facilities with Chinese companies. Many people are learning Chinese languages. Some banks in Kenya have dedicated teams to support business people who want to do business with China. There are even a number of commercial Banks that have set up special Chinese desks in their branches.
How smoothly do Kenyans and Chinese work together in the business world?
One forms the impression that China has taken full advantage of globalization of markets and production. We have Chinese companies in many sectors. A number of Chinese companies have been accused of failure to pay attention to local content and importing raw materials from China as well as all many of their workers. A number of contractors wonder why China companies almost always have competitive bids from a cost of perspective. The cost of labor raises eyebrows. There are also allegations that some Chinese companies don’t play fair game in the bidding process.
What are the working conditions like on Chinese construction sites?
In the past, some multinationals from China were repeatedly accused of failure to embrace best practices in human resource management. Newspaper reports suggested that a Chinese construction company may have mistreated casual employees, for example during the construction of the standard-gauge railway (SGR), a flagship project, mostly financed by Chinese loans. Some Chinese supervisors were accused of shouting at casual staffers and that accommodation offered was not up to expectations. Men were cramping into small rooms. These conversations reminded folks of sweatshops where companies like Nike used to make their products before the global public outcry occurred.
The 4.7 billion US dollars that were borrowed from Chinese banks for the construction of the railway line are also one reason why Kenya is in a debt crisis. Many Kenyans criticize the project for not being carried out transparently enough.
The railway was a signature project that was done in a hurry. It was a government project, that means it’s supposed to be a public project. Nevertheless, Members of the National Assembly nor the Senators have not had access to the actual contracts. People suspect the contract was inflated and that it was a vendor-driven procurement. People speculate that authorities may not have secured value for money and the public got a raw deal. Failure to make the contract public by President Kenyatta created room for speculation and propaganda. Members of the public fear that there was no value for money and that in case of disputes will be referred to Chinese jurisdiction.
How is the Chinese side reaction to these accusations?
The Chinese in Kenya are very media-shy. They are hardly visible in the public space. Instead, they work very closely with a number of journalists and public intellectuals in Kenya. A number of journalists and public intellectuals have been to China on fact-finding trips. There are many Kenyan students studying in Chinese universities. The Chinese have established language facilities at selected universities in Kenya. When they return, they have a good impression of China and speak of the country in glowing terms. The Chinese state media has also set up news agency offices in Nairobi. At some stage they invaded all the local newsrooms and hired local top talent for their channels.
What do Kenyan journalists working for Chinese media channels mainly report on?
Many Chinese media channels hardly criticize governments across the world. They hardly engage in conversations around human rights nor engage civil society. So, they mainly discuss economics. They however point out challenges facing the US, EU or UK with alacrity. You will hardly see negative stories around China, or Russia for that matter. While US, EU or UK diplomats can talk democracy, human rights or governance, Chinese diplomats will not.
What needs to change in Kenya when it comes to working with Chinese companies?
Kenyans were happy: Let’s get the Chinese here to break some monopolies and offer competitive prices. Chinese restaurants became very popular as well. Many Kenyans have established supply chain management facilities with Chinese companies. Chinese companies may however need to go the extra mile to remain sensitive to African interests and capture Africa aspirations in their global plans. China may want to support Africa in taking advantage of globalization of markets and production. Kenya is a key cog and anchor State in Africa. Kenyans are open for business. Kenya offers China a path to Africa. China can use Kenya as a stepping stone to Africa in the globalization of markets and production. Kenya has the requisite infrastructure.
Dismas Kizito Mokua is a Nairobi-based political risk analyst. He is a sought-after dialogue partner in Kenyan and international media and regularly appears at global trade and investment conferences.
When German heads of government mention bilateral relations with Japan, they always gush about a “value partnership.” This was also the case when Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited the Japanese capital in April 2022. Standing next to his counterpart Fumio Kishida, he announced: “It is no coincidence that my first trip as chancellor to this region has led today here, to Tokyo.” According to Scholz, the values that the two nations share are democracy, the separation of powers, respect for human rights and a multilateral international order.
And that’s not all: Both countries also officially swear by these ideals in their diplomacy. Both Germany and Japan have increasingly emphasized their “values-based foreign policy” in recent years. Unlike the German government, there is no mention of a feminist foreign policy in Japan’s cabinet. But various fundamental democratic criteria play an important role, at least rhetorically, in the decisions made by Japan’s government. An “arc of freedom and prosperity” is mentioned repeatedly.
The history of Japan’s “value-based foreign policy” is relatively young. It began in 2006, under Shinzo Abe’s first one-year term in office (Abe was prime minister for a second term from 2012 to 2020). Until then, Japan had focussed on the economic dimension of foreign policy under its Yoshida Doctrine, named after the prime minister who had ruled since 1946. The Yoshida Doctrine aimed to reintegrate Japan into the global economy through multilateralism and trade after its defeat in the war.
In the mid-1970s, amid the Cold War, Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda coined the maxim that Japan should secure new allies, particularly in Southeast Asia, through development cooperation. It did not matter whether these were liberal or authoritarian, capitalist or communist. Added to this was the principle of non-interference in the affairs of other countries. In other words, there was no sign of a value-based approach at the time. From the post-war period until Abe, pure pragmatism was the name of the game.
The shift towards a foreign policy that placed democracy and human rights at the heart of the country seemed like a paradigm shift. Manifestations of this are the “Quad” – a security policy exchange between the USA, Australia, India and Japan – or the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” strategy, under which Japan strives for economic, infrastructural and security policy cooperation with Pacific neighbor states and thus also aims to promote democracy and the separation of powers. The list of similar projects involving the word “democracy” goes on.
What is striking, however, is that all of Japan’s initiatives also reveal a clear differentiation from the economically and militarily rising China, which has been challenging Japan’s hegemonic position in Asia for over a decade. Accordingly, Hitoshi Kikawada, who sits in parliament for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and also served as deputy foreign minister under former Prime Minister Abe, emphasized in the summer of 2023: “We are pleased that people in Europe are now also seeing that there are potential dangers emanating from China. (…) Democracies should stand together against it.”
The emphasis on democracy has a clear political interest dimension in the Japanese context. For instance, Koji Murata, Professor of Politics at Doshisha University in Kyoto, criticized that Japan’s “value-based foreign policy” hardly really prioritizes values: “Human rights must be a basic goal rather than just a tool of diplomacy.”
Kiyoteru Tsutsui, Professor of Sociology at Stanford University, warns of a “paradox of empty promises“: Those who constantly talk about noble values risk stumbling over them.
The risk is acute for Japan. The East Asian country has still not ratified the UN Genocide Convention of 1948. Japan is also not a signatory to the International Labour Organization (ILO) treaty, which prohibits discrimination.
Conservative politicians such as Hitoshi Kikawada from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party feel misunderstood by Europe when the latter demands Japan abolish the death penalty or permit gay marriage. Prime Minister Kishida dismissed the topic of same-sex marriages this year with the admonishing sentence: “That would change society.”
Japan’s frequently emphasized values seem like lip service not only in its domestic policy but also in its diplomacy. “The case of Myanmar is a good example to show that values have played only a marginal role in Japan’s foreign policy so far,” observes Raymond Yamamoto, Professor of Politics at Aarhus University. Japan maintained relatively good ties to the junta during Myanmar’s decades-long military dictatorship, but support was rapidly expanded following the tentative democratization in 2011. During the displacement of the Rohingya, Japan looked the other way.
And after the military coup in February 2021, Japan did not sanction the junta like other G7 countries. “Japan does not even have a legal basis to impose sanctions based on human rights violations,” which is a clear indication that it does not want to abolish its principle of non-interference. “Abe has not fundamentally changed Japan’s pragmatic, economically oriented foreign policy.” To this day, Japan’s primary aim is to distinguish itself from China, Yamamoto concludes. Felix Lill
USA and China: The basic constellation remains the same, but the approach is changing fundamentally. That is a crucial development. This is how the recent meeting in San Francisco between the US and Chinese presidents can be summarized. In almost countless meetings at all levels – compared to Germany – preparations were made for what is now referred to in the USA as managed co-existence or competitive interdependence. The intention is to keep existing conflicts and fundamental differences under control, while the contribution to solving global challenges could grow again.
Nevertheless, some still believe the world is heading towards the bipolarity of a new Cold War with almost natural inexorability. Such “old concepts” don’t work for a fundamentally different reality. They are misleading.
The USSR and the USA were the leading powers of two military alliances that were highly armed and opposed each other with massive deterrence. Even “flexible responses” to the Warsaw Pact (from the late 1960s) or NATO rearmament did not overturn this fundamental constellation. Until 1990/91, the world was politically and militarily bipolar, with defined borders and spheres of interest, with contested regions and also with proxy wars. This bipolarity of two leading powers of military alliances no longer exists today. President Biden explicitly speaks of the importance of avoiding a new “Cold War.”
Today, only the US has the (albeit not unlimited) ability to project global military power. But economically and technologically, the world was and still is multipolar. Europe and Japan played their own economic and technological role; many free trade zones and economic areas have since been added. When the USSR dissolved in 1991, it contributed little more than three percent to global economic output. Today, around 19 percent of global economic output is generated in China. China and the USA are economically closely intertwined. The US Secretary of the Treasury says: “De-coupling” would be disastrous.
This also applies to the often underestimated field of civil society exchange. This was practically non-existent between the USSR and the USA. But before the pandemic, around 360,000 Chinese students were in the US, with a total of around six million since the early 1980s. Before the pandemic, around 130 million people from China traveled the world as tourists. They (and many others) absorb impressions and take them back home.
Does Europe, does Germany have influence, opportunities or even power in these developments? Power has many elements: politics, diplomacy and military; economy, technology, innovation; culture, civilization, society. Can we (how? with what?) serve our interests and represent our values? We are obliged to do so; however: “Reckon with your defects, assume what you have, not your slogans.” (Gottfried Benn). I would add: Formulate strategic goals, translate them into operational options for action, build on strengths and reduce weaknesses.
All of this is urgent. Europe (including Germany) does not carry any weight on the global security policy scale – even if we think of “security” in a comprehensive way, i.e., including non-military root causes of crises and wars all the way to ending them. Securing peace and preventing a global conflagration is a shared global interest – the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the terror of Hamas murdering people in Israel and the misery in the Gaza Strip are terrible proof of this. The fact that the US and China are setting up something like a “red telephone” because of the potential conflicts over the South China Sea and around Taiwan and are also resuming direct communication at a military level is essential for developing peace there.
China itself struggles with tremendous domestic challenges. It is aging faster than Germany. Over a fifth of its youth are unable to find good jobs. Property and stock markets are under enormous stress. Even five percent growth (as much as the Netherlands’ annual economic output) does not inspire consumer confidence, and most provinces and cities struggle with enormous financial problems. The elderly protest against cuts in what we would call the welfare state – the examples go on and on. The foundation is decisive: Since opening and reform (1978), progress has been tentative, but since 2001 (WTO accession), it has been almost explosive. The unwritten social contract is now showing its downside: confidence in the future, “desire” for innovation, investment and consumption can neither be commanded nor forced with increasing control. Whether this will lead to more market-based corrections, as the former “economic authority” Yang Weimin calls for, or as the Central Financial Work Conference suggests for the next five years, remains to be seen.
All of this is important for Germany and Europe. The big, unfortunately, unanswered question is: Does Europe have the foresight and strength for strategy, for autonomy? Will it be able to translate its experience of civilization, balance and understanding into relevant contributions in a geopolitical and geo-economic context? Will we assume what we have instead of slogans? There is reason to doubt, and sometimes even to despair. But that would be a feeling and not politics.
What is certain: Nobody is going to wait for us. What is also certain: We are less than six percent of the world’s population, but generate almost 15 percent of the global economy and represent seven of the ten most innovative economies in the world. We have an obligation. We can preserve our strengths and hopefully minimize our (sometimes glaring) weaknesses. We have many opportunities – for now.
More and more Chinese businesses adapt to the needs of pet owners. For example, urban cafés and shops provide carrier bags, snacks and photo walls for cute selfies. One chain of teahouses even attracts customers with small rucksacks to carry dogs and cats. Economists call it the “pet economy.” Generation Z, in particular, aged between 19 and 30, fuels the retail trend. More and more of these young Chinese regard their pets as equal family members and sometimes even as a surrogate for children.
