It was an ominous promise that Deng Xiaoping once made in the name of the People’s Republic: 一国两制 (yì guó liǎng zhì) – “one country, two systems“. There is only one China, Deng said. But within that China, different systems might well remain – in Hong Kong, for example. The United Kingdom agreed to it: On the one hand, it was a way to respond to Beijing’s pressure to end the colonial era and return Hong Kong to its motherland after decades of foreign rule. On the other hand, it was a way of assuring Hong Kong’s Western-oriented citizens that authoritarian Beijing would not abolish all the freedoms of the financial metropolis. This was supposed to last for 50 years.
But “one country, two systems” already seems to be a thing of the past. In his analysis, Marcel Grzanna reveals how the resignation of two British judges from the highest court in Hong Kong is tied to this and how the role of such foreign judges has changed in recent years. At least since the introduction of the National Security Law, they have basically served as a mere fig leaf for the leadership in Beijing. Grzanna’s verdict: These most recent resignations highlight how deep the independence of Hong Kong’s judiciary has eroded.
In the meantime, Shenzhen is about to become the first city ever to open up its main roads to autonomous cars. Some 4,000 companies in China are involved in the automated driving sector, 20 percent of which are based in Shenzhen. Frank Sieren shows how the high-tech metropolis in southern China manages to introduce driverless traffic into everyday life.
Be it AutoX, DeepRoute or Baidu – the test runs by Chinese companies are already far along. And the administration is also working at full speed. While drunk driving may now be a thing of the past, the rules for cybersecurity and data protection will have to be amended. Sieren is convinced: Shenzhen’s plans could serve as a model for the entire country.
Lord Robert Reed’s change of heart took seven months. Only last August, the judge of the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court had deemed Hong Kong’s judiciary to be “largely independently of government” and its decisions to be “consistent with the rule of law.” Based on this assessment, Reed and his counterpart Lord Patrick Hodge continued as non-permanent members of the Court of Final Appeal (CFA), the highest body in the Hong Kong legal system, until further notice.
Then, a few days ago, this changed radically. Reed and Hodge resigned from their posts on the CFA with a bang (China.Table reported). The two representatives of the British Supreme Court announced that they could not continue their work “without appearing to endorse an administration which has departed from values of political freedom, and freedom of expression.” The introduction of the National Security Act in Hong Kong in July 2020 had been a critical factor in this development. It is the first time that foreign judges have specifically blamed the Security Law for the erosion of Hong Kong’s democracy.
Several legal experts, like Eva Pils, who taught law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong until 2014, told China.Table that the British duo’s move was “overdue“. On Twitter, others commented, such as Eric Lai of the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington: “The UK Supreme Court’s statement appears to imply the resignations are votes of no confidence to the city’s administration.”
For far too long, many experts say, the foreign non-permanent members from the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia had watched more or less silently as the influence of politics on Hong Kong jurisdiction grew. “Presumably there had been a hope that the CFA might resist the aggressive curtailment of civil liberties,” jurist Michael Davis told China.Table. He is the author of Making Hong Kong China: The Rollback of Human Rights and the Rule of Law.
But with the eruption of mass protests in the metropolis against China’s growing authoritarian influence over the city, and especially with the introduction of the Security Law, “courts have come under enormous official pressure,” Davis says. “Judges who don’t comply with government prosecutions are pilloried by Beijing’s supporters and pro-Beijing media.”
Another important factor is that the law’s design effectively empowers the government to handpick the judges who sit on the jury when security law violations are brought before the CFA. This was the case with pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai, who lost an appeal. (China.Table reported) No foreigners were members of the court during the trial.
“This effectively keeps foreign judges from containing the government’s abuses, even though that is the very reason for their participation in the CFA,” Davis explains. Judges Reed and Hodge “have decided that their role is no longer viable because they don’t see full judicial independence. They fear becoming complicit in suppressing political action and free speech.”
The CFA is the highest court in the city of Hong Kong. It has final jurisdiction over civil law, but also constitutional law. Hong Kong itself does not nominally have its own constitution. However, the so-called Basic Law, which was introduced when the city was returned from the United Kingdom to the People’s Republic of China in 1997, is referred to as a mini-constitution. The CFA was also established at that time. It has three permanent and 30 non-permanent members.
In 1984, Beijing and London had agreed that foreign judges from the Commonwealth could also be appointed to the CFA as non-permanent members. This was intended, on the one hand, to compensate for the lack of suitable Hong Kong judges for such a demanding position. On the other hand, the overseas jurists were to represent the functionality of the “one country, two systems” principle. However, even foreign judges have failed to prevent Hong Kong’s de-democratization by politicians, which has been creeping for years and greatly accelerated since 2019. Instead, their presence offers the local government a welcome form of legitimacy, especially to its own people.
Hong Kong’s departing Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, reacted with corresponding anger. She tried to portray the fact that Reed and Hodge’s resignation was due to the Security Act as contrived. “We must vehemently refute any unfounded allegations that the judges’ resignations have anything to do with the introduction of the Hong Kong national security law or the exercise of freedom of speech and political freedom,” Lam said. Instead, the British government was seeking to politicize the CFA, she lamented. In fact, Reed and Hodge had regularly consulted with British politicians about the situation in Hong Kong. However, the Foreign Office in London does not have the authority to pass orders to the judges.
Alvin Cheung of New York University, believes Lam is “panicking” behind the scenes. “Over the past several years, they’ve made a point of referring to the continued presence of overseas non-permanent judges as showing that the entire HK legal system is sound. There is now clearly a question mark that has to be appended to that sort of assertion,” said Cheung, who practiced law in Hong Kong until 2013.
The jurist finds it outrageous that the remaining ten foreign CFA judges, including six from the UK, have so far not made the same decision as Reed and Hodge. “The reputational benefit to the HK government of these judges continuing to sit is much, much greater than the degree of restraint they can actually exercise [with respect to the HK courts system as a whole],” Cheung says.
Last year, Baroness Brenda Hale, the first woman to head the Supreme Court in the United Kingdom, announced that she would not serve another term as a CFA judge. She avoided direct criticism, but made a statement between the lines. At the time, she stressed that “commercial law” in Hong Kong continued to comply with the rule of law. But she did not say a word about civil or human rights proceedings.
The vision of a city of the future with self-driving cars at every intersection is taking shape in Shenzhen. The tech metropolis on the border to Hong Kong is set to become the world’s first major urban area where all major roadways, including highways, are open to autonomous vehicles without any restrictions. Two out of three draft reviews have already been conducted on the new set of regulations for managing smart, connected vehicles, according to city officials. The third and final review will take place in August.
The project has political support from the highest levels. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic had published implementation directives at the end of January, thus underlining the national interest in the pilot project in the megacity. Last year, the Ministry of State Security had already paved the way for the wide-scale authorization of autonomous vehicles on all roads by making amendments to traffic safety laws.
It is not surprising that Shenzhen, a special economic zone with a population of around 17 million, will become a pioneer of new mobility. Other technological developments developed in the city, such as electric cars, 5G data transmission and commercial drones, have already set a trend in the rest of the country and spread across the world from there.
Since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms at the end of the 1970s, Shenzhen has evolved into one of China’s most prosperous cities. Its average age is 29, making it the metropolis with the world’s youngest population, along with Mumbai in India. This is another reason why the government considers the tech metropolis to be the perfect proving ground for autonomous driving.
China now has around 4,000 companies involved in the automated driving sector, 20 percent of which are based in Shenzhen. Among them is AutoX, which is at the forefront of global autonomous vehicle development (China.Table reported). In December 2020, the startup had carried out one of the largest unmanned vehicle test runs to date in a Shenzhen suburb. The Alibaba-backed company sent a fleet of 25 robot cabs into traffic without a backup driver.
Other companies, such as the only two-year old start-up DeepRoute.ai, have also already received approval from Shenzhen authorities to test their vehicles on a small scale. Last September, DeepRoute raised $300 million in Series B funding from investors including Alibaba and Chinese automaker Geely. DeepRoute’s robotaxi fleets were developed in partnership with state-owned Dongfeng Motor.
Chinese tech company Baidu has also tested a self-driving cab service in downtown Shenzhen. To this end, the tech giant, which began as a search engine company, has set up 50 pick-up and drop-off stations from where self-driving cabs can be hailed via the smartphone app Apollo Go, according to a report in state media. Backup drivers, however, are still on board.
Companies that successfully complete enough test runs and are registered with the Transport Bureau of Shenzhen Municipality will officially be able to put them on the road. Currently, autonomous vehicles must be included on a list of manufacturers and products issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and meet certain national standards before they are given the green light. A national standard for smart connected autonomous vehicles does not yet exist.
Last summer, the municipal government had already announced plans to issue special license plates for autonomous vehicles. According to the Shenzhen Transport Bureau, 145 kilometers of roads have already been opened for automated driving tests and 93 licenses have been issued, including 23 for driverless tests with passengers for levels 4 and 5, which do not require a driver.
Last March, the city government issued a draft on the administration and commercial use of smart and connected vehicles that could become a template for the entire country. According to the draft, Shenzhen’s planned regulations also recognize the results of road tests carried out in other provinces and cities in China. This will greatly accelerate the implementation of commercial autonomous driving.
Among other things, the draft regulations for Shenzhen also outline proposals for handling accidents and legal liability. They state, among other things, that in the event of traffic violations or accidents involving autonomous vehicles, the responsibility would lie with the developer of the automated driving system. One question that remains unclear is the exact definition of the term “developer” – does this refer to the supplier of the automated driving system? If so, this means that car manufacturers who have not developed automated driving systems themselves cannot be held liable.
The draft regulations also contain a section that specifically addresses cybersecurity and data protection for autonomous vehicles. In a connected world, cyberattacks and disruptions to the traffic system present an enormous risk. In addition, the use of autonomous vehicles will massively increase the collection and storage of personal data.
Companies involved in autonomous vehicles must therefore set up a cybersecurity assessment and management system to safeguard Internet data from leaks and theft. The illegal collection, processing and use of personal data should be strictly punished. This also applies to the illegal collection of data relating to national security, the draft states.
Hong Kong is facing a change of leadership. Incumbent Chief Executive Carrie Lam has announced that she will not run for a second term in the May 8 election. This means the 64-year-old will retire after 42 years of government service at the end of June. The Chinese government had already been informed in advance of her decision, which Lam stated was due to family reasons. Beijing reacted with understanding and respected her decision.
Lam’s five-year term was marked by enormous political tensions in the metropolis, which saw civil rights severely curtailed. With the introduction of the National Security Law in 2020, Lam is responsible for a turning point in the city’s recent history. The law gave the government the legal basis for a political purge that victimized dozens of leaders of the parliamentary and civic opposition (China.Table reported).
In 2019, Hong Kong’s police had already reacted with full force to mass protests against the introduction of an extradition law under Lam’s leadership. Their actions at the time had provoked outrage and protests around the world. Reporters Without Borders later placed Lam on its list of the greatest enemies of freedom of the press. Lam had always emphasized the high degree of independence of Hong Kong’s government from Beijing’s central government. A few months ago, however, this narrative began to crack publicly when China’s head of state, Xi Jinping, personally intervened in the city’s Covid crisis management.
Exiled pro-democracy Hong Kong ex-parliamentarian Nathan Law called on the British government to deny Carrie Lam a permit of residence. Lam had announced in the past that she might retire in the UK. grz
A meadow in the park, sweaters as goalposts – then followed an hour and a half of soccer. During his four years working in Shanghai, Stefan Pantekoek regularly played soccer. Expats from different countries met with Chinese to play sports together in a park. “It was pure multiculturalism,” Pantekoek recalls. Only smog could stop these hobby soccer players. ” Of course, we were careful when the levels were too high.”
From 2015 to 2019, Pantekoek headed the Shanghai office of the German Social Democratic Party affiliated Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES). The goal in Shanghai: Provide impetus for the socio-ecological transition, digitalization and the development of trade unions. An important vehicle for this is the party dialogue between the SPD and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) – established after a meeting between former German Chancellor Willy Brandt and China’s leader Deng Xiaoping in Beijing in 1984. “It’s very important not just to talk about China – but to talk with China,” says Pantekoek.
Pantekoek remains convinced that it is possible to contribute to social improvements even in an authoritarian nation. When it comes to social security systems, for example, the Party and the government “look very closely to Germany” – and hope that an actor like the FES will provide some impetus. At the same time, however, critical issues such as human rights and digital surveillance of Chinese citizens need to be addressed. “It is important to take a consistent position here”.
In addition to its activities in and about China, the FES provides extensive advice to its political backbone, explains Pantekoek. It also provides SPD politicians with information and assessments of the situation in China – the party leadership at Willy Brandt House or the parliamentary group in the German Bundestag. In the meantime, Pantekoek has moved closer to domestic decision-makers. In the fall of 2019, he moved back to the Berlin headquarters of the FES, where he is now also responsible for coordinating work between the two offices in Beijing and Shanghai as Desk Officer China. In addition, he is considered in Brussels as a “contact person and point of reference.”
Other countries and cultures fascinated him when he was still at school, says Pantekoek – “even though it wasn’t inherent in the family”. Born in Oldenburg in 1983, he grew up in a “classic social democratic working-class household”. At 16, he went to Argentina for a year and attended an agricultural school. His interest in South America had been awakened. After graduating from school, Pantekoek pursued a degree in regional studies with a focus on Latin America in Buenos Aires and Cologne. When he started his career, he hoped that the FES would send him there. But that did not happen. “The staff was expected to have a broader focus,” Pantekoek recalls. He started in the Middle East.
Once back at headquarters, Pantekoek worked in the “Global Policy and Development” unit – with a focus on international trade issues as well. “That’s when the field of China began to open up.” On the ground in Shanghai, Pantekoek then experienced how his work was complicated. In 2017, the Chinese government passed a law for foreign NGOs. “Our work changed fundamentally from one day to the next.” Non-governmental organizations, which include foundations, were subordinated to new security authorities. Greater supervision and elaborate approval processes were the results.
Allowing himself to become discouraged – that is out of the question for Pantekoek. It is far too important to always present a differentiated picture of China, he says. For example, despite all the legitimate criticism, China’s involvement in Africa is portrayed in a way that is both “temporally abbreviated and one-sided”. Too often, the only criticism is that the People’s Republic is leading African countries into a debt trap. An unfair assessment, believes Pantekoek. “China’s positive impact on developing economies in Africa cannot be ignored. Various independent studies show substantial welfare gains for local populations in a wide range of projects,” he says. Thomas Mersch
Spring lets its blue ribbon…or instead colorful and intense? In any case, the Botanical Garden in Beijing sparkled in an impressive splendor of colors this weekend. All thanks to the spring.
It was an ominous promise that Deng Xiaoping once made in the name of the People’s Republic: 一国两制 (yì guó liǎng zhì) – “one country, two systems“. There is only one China, Deng said. But within that China, different systems might well remain – in Hong Kong, for example. The United Kingdom agreed to it: On the one hand, it was a way to respond to Beijing’s pressure to end the colonial era and return Hong Kong to its motherland after decades of foreign rule. On the other hand, it was a way of assuring Hong Kong’s Western-oriented citizens that authoritarian Beijing would not abolish all the freedoms of the financial metropolis. This was supposed to last for 50 years.
But “one country, two systems” already seems to be a thing of the past. In his analysis, Marcel Grzanna reveals how the resignation of two British judges from the highest court in Hong Kong is tied to this and how the role of such foreign judges has changed in recent years. At least since the introduction of the National Security Law, they have basically served as a mere fig leaf for the leadership in Beijing. Grzanna’s verdict: These most recent resignations highlight how deep the independence of Hong Kong’s judiciary has eroded.
In the meantime, Shenzhen is about to become the first city ever to open up its main roads to autonomous cars. Some 4,000 companies in China are involved in the automated driving sector, 20 percent of which are based in Shenzhen. Frank Sieren shows how the high-tech metropolis in southern China manages to introduce driverless traffic into everyday life.
Be it AutoX, DeepRoute or Baidu – the test runs by Chinese companies are already far along. And the administration is also working at full speed. While drunk driving may now be a thing of the past, the rules for cybersecurity and data protection will have to be amended. Sieren is convinced: Shenzhen’s plans could serve as a model for the entire country.
Lord Robert Reed’s change of heart took seven months. Only last August, the judge of the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court had deemed Hong Kong’s judiciary to be “largely independently of government” and its decisions to be “consistent with the rule of law.” Based on this assessment, Reed and his counterpart Lord Patrick Hodge continued as non-permanent members of the Court of Final Appeal (CFA), the highest body in the Hong Kong legal system, until further notice.
Then, a few days ago, this changed radically. Reed and Hodge resigned from their posts on the CFA with a bang (China.Table reported). The two representatives of the British Supreme Court announced that they could not continue their work “without appearing to endorse an administration which has departed from values of political freedom, and freedom of expression.” The introduction of the National Security Act in Hong Kong in July 2020 had been a critical factor in this development. It is the first time that foreign judges have specifically blamed the Security Law for the erosion of Hong Kong’s democracy.
Several legal experts, like Eva Pils, who taught law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong until 2014, told China.Table that the British duo’s move was “overdue“. On Twitter, others commented, such as Eric Lai of the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington: “The UK Supreme Court’s statement appears to imply the resignations are votes of no confidence to the city’s administration.”
For far too long, many experts say, the foreign non-permanent members from the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia had watched more or less silently as the influence of politics on Hong Kong jurisdiction grew. “Presumably there had been a hope that the CFA might resist the aggressive curtailment of civil liberties,” jurist Michael Davis told China.Table. He is the author of Making Hong Kong China: The Rollback of Human Rights and the Rule of Law.
But with the eruption of mass protests in the metropolis against China’s growing authoritarian influence over the city, and especially with the introduction of the Security Law, “courts have come under enormous official pressure,” Davis says. “Judges who don’t comply with government prosecutions are pilloried by Beijing’s supporters and pro-Beijing media.”
Another important factor is that the law’s design effectively empowers the government to handpick the judges who sit on the jury when security law violations are brought before the CFA. This was the case with pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai, who lost an appeal. (China.Table reported) No foreigners were members of the court during the trial.
“This effectively keeps foreign judges from containing the government’s abuses, even though that is the very reason for their participation in the CFA,” Davis explains. Judges Reed and Hodge “have decided that their role is no longer viable because they don’t see full judicial independence. They fear becoming complicit in suppressing political action and free speech.”
The CFA is the highest court in the city of Hong Kong. It has final jurisdiction over civil law, but also constitutional law. Hong Kong itself does not nominally have its own constitution. However, the so-called Basic Law, which was introduced when the city was returned from the United Kingdom to the People’s Republic of China in 1997, is referred to as a mini-constitution. The CFA was also established at that time. It has three permanent and 30 non-permanent members.
In 1984, Beijing and London had agreed that foreign judges from the Commonwealth could also be appointed to the CFA as non-permanent members. This was intended, on the one hand, to compensate for the lack of suitable Hong Kong judges for such a demanding position. On the other hand, the overseas jurists were to represent the functionality of the “one country, two systems” principle. However, even foreign judges have failed to prevent Hong Kong’s de-democratization by politicians, which has been creeping for years and greatly accelerated since 2019. Instead, their presence offers the local government a welcome form of legitimacy, especially to its own people.
Hong Kong’s departing Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, reacted with corresponding anger. She tried to portray the fact that Reed and Hodge’s resignation was due to the Security Act as contrived. “We must vehemently refute any unfounded allegations that the judges’ resignations have anything to do with the introduction of the Hong Kong national security law or the exercise of freedom of speech and political freedom,” Lam said. Instead, the British government was seeking to politicize the CFA, she lamented. In fact, Reed and Hodge had regularly consulted with British politicians about the situation in Hong Kong. However, the Foreign Office in London does not have the authority to pass orders to the judges.
Alvin Cheung of New York University, believes Lam is “panicking” behind the scenes. “Over the past several years, they’ve made a point of referring to the continued presence of overseas non-permanent judges as showing that the entire HK legal system is sound. There is now clearly a question mark that has to be appended to that sort of assertion,” said Cheung, who practiced law in Hong Kong until 2013.
The jurist finds it outrageous that the remaining ten foreign CFA judges, including six from the UK, have so far not made the same decision as Reed and Hodge. “The reputational benefit to the HK government of these judges continuing to sit is much, much greater than the degree of restraint they can actually exercise [with respect to the HK courts system as a whole],” Cheung says.
Last year, Baroness Brenda Hale, the first woman to head the Supreme Court in the United Kingdom, announced that she would not serve another term as a CFA judge. She avoided direct criticism, but made a statement between the lines. At the time, she stressed that “commercial law” in Hong Kong continued to comply with the rule of law. But she did not say a word about civil or human rights proceedings.
The vision of a city of the future with self-driving cars at every intersection is taking shape in Shenzhen. The tech metropolis on the border to Hong Kong is set to become the world’s first major urban area where all major roadways, including highways, are open to autonomous vehicles without any restrictions. Two out of three draft reviews have already been conducted on the new set of regulations for managing smart, connected vehicles, according to city officials. The third and final review will take place in August.
The project has political support from the highest levels. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic had published implementation directives at the end of January, thus underlining the national interest in the pilot project in the megacity. Last year, the Ministry of State Security had already paved the way for the wide-scale authorization of autonomous vehicles on all roads by making amendments to traffic safety laws.
It is not surprising that Shenzhen, a special economic zone with a population of around 17 million, will become a pioneer of new mobility. Other technological developments developed in the city, such as electric cars, 5G data transmission and commercial drones, have already set a trend in the rest of the country and spread across the world from there.
Since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms at the end of the 1970s, Shenzhen has evolved into one of China’s most prosperous cities. Its average age is 29, making it the metropolis with the world’s youngest population, along with Mumbai in India. This is another reason why the government considers the tech metropolis to be the perfect proving ground for autonomous driving.
China now has around 4,000 companies involved in the automated driving sector, 20 percent of which are based in Shenzhen. Among them is AutoX, which is at the forefront of global autonomous vehicle development (China.Table reported). In December 2020, the startup had carried out one of the largest unmanned vehicle test runs to date in a Shenzhen suburb. The Alibaba-backed company sent a fleet of 25 robot cabs into traffic without a backup driver.
Other companies, such as the only two-year old start-up DeepRoute.ai, have also already received approval from Shenzhen authorities to test their vehicles on a small scale. Last September, DeepRoute raised $300 million in Series B funding from investors including Alibaba and Chinese automaker Geely. DeepRoute’s robotaxi fleets were developed in partnership with state-owned Dongfeng Motor.
Chinese tech company Baidu has also tested a self-driving cab service in downtown Shenzhen. To this end, the tech giant, which began as a search engine company, has set up 50 pick-up and drop-off stations from where self-driving cabs can be hailed via the smartphone app Apollo Go, according to a report in state media. Backup drivers, however, are still on board.
Companies that successfully complete enough test runs and are registered with the Transport Bureau of Shenzhen Municipality will officially be able to put them on the road. Currently, autonomous vehicles must be included on a list of manufacturers and products issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and meet certain national standards before they are given the green light. A national standard for smart connected autonomous vehicles does not yet exist.
Last summer, the municipal government had already announced plans to issue special license plates for autonomous vehicles. According to the Shenzhen Transport Bureau, 145 kilometers of roads have already been opened for automated driving tests and 93 licenses have been issued, including 23 for driverless tests with passengers for levels 4 and 5, which do not require a driver.
Last March, the city government issued a draft on the administration and commercial use of smart and connected vehicles that could become a template for the entire country. According to the draft, Shenzhen’s planned regulations also recognize the results of road tests carried out in other provinces and cities in China. This will greatly accelerate the implementation of commercial autonomous driving.
Among other things, the draft regulations for Shenzhen also outline proposals for handling accidents and legal liability. They state, among other things, that in the event of traffic violations or accidents involving autonomous vehicles, the responsibility would lie with the developer of the automated driving system. One question that remains unclear is the exact definition of the term “developer” – does this refer to the supplier of the automated driving system? If so, this means that car manufacturers who have not developed automated driving systems themselves cannot be held liable.
The draft regulations also contain a section that specifically addresses cybersecurity and data protection for autonomous vehicles. In a connected world, cyberattacks and disruptions to the traffic system present an enormous risk. In addition, the use of autonomous vehicles will massively increase the collection and storage of personal data.
Companies involved in autonomous vehicles must therefore set up a cybersecurity assessment and management system to safeguard Internet data from leaks and theft. The illegal collection, processing and use of personal data should be strictly punished. This also applies to the illegal collection of data relating to national security, the draft states.
Hong Kong is facing a change of leadership. Incumbent Chief Executive Carrie Lam has announced that she will not run for a second term in the May 8 election. This means the 64-year-old will retire after 42 years of government service at the end of June. The Chinese government had already been informed in advance of her decision, which Lam stated was due to family reasons. Beijing reacted with understanding and respected her decision.
Lam’s five-year term was marked by enormous political tensions in the metropolis, which saw civil rights severely curtailed. With the introduction of the National Security Law in 2020, Lam is responsible for a turning point in the city’s recent history. The law gave the government the legal basis for a political purge that victimized dozens of leaders of the parliamentary and civic opposition (China.Table reported).
In 2019, Hong Kong’s police had already reacted with full force to mass protests against the introduction of an extradition law under Lam’s leadership. Their actions at the time had provoked outrage and protests around the world. Reporters Without Borders later placed Lam on its list of the greatest enemies of freedom of the press. Lam had always emphasized the high degree of independence of Hong Kong’s government from Beijing’s central government. A few months ago, however, this narrative began to crack publicly when China’s head of state, Xi Jinping, personally intervened in the city’s Covid crisis management.
Exiled pro-democracy Hong Kong ex-parliamentarian Nathan Law called on the British government to deny Carrie Lam a permit of residence. Lam had announced in the past that she might retire in the UK. grz
A meadow in the park, sweaters as goalposts – then followed an hour and a half of soccer. During his four years working in Shanghai, Stefan Pantekoek regularly played soccer. Expats from different countries met with Chinese to play sports together in a park. “It was pure multiculturalism,” Pantekoek recalls. Only smog could stop these hobby soccer players. ” Of course, we were careful when the levels were too high.”
From 2015 to 2019, Pantekoek headed the Shanghai office of the German Social Democratic Party affiliated Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES). The goal in Shanghai: Provide impetus for the socio-ecological transition, digitalization and the development of trade unions. An important vehicle for this is the party dialogue between the SPD and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) – established after a meeting between former German Chancellor Willy Brandt and China’s leader Deng Xiaoping in Beijing in 1984. “It’s very important not just to talk about China – but to talk with China,” says Pantekoek.
Pantekoek remains convinced that it is possible to contribute to social improvements even in an authoritarian nation. When it comes to social security systems, for example, the Party and the government “look very closely to Germany” – and hope that an actor like the FES will provide some impetus. At the same time, however, critical issues such as human rights and digital surveillance of Chinese citizens need to be addressed. “It is important to take a consistent position here”.
In addition to its activities in and about China, the FES provides extensive advice to its political backbone, explains Pantekoek. It also provides SPD politicians with information and assessments of the situation in China – the party leadership at Willy Brandt House or the parliamentary group in the German Bundestag. In the meantime, Pantekoek has moved closer to domestic decision-makers. In the fall of 2019, he moved back to the Berlin headquarters of the FES, where he is now also responsible for coordinating work between the two offices in Beijing and Shanghai as Desk Officer China. In addition, he is considered in Brussels as a “contact person and point of reference.”
Other countries and cultures fascinated him when he was still at school, says Pantekoek – “even though it wasn’t inherent in the family”. Born in Oldenburg in 1983, he grew up in a “classic social democratic working-class household”. At 16, he went to Argentina for a year and attended an agricultural school. His interest in South America had been awakened. After graduating from school, Pantekoek pursued a degree in regional studies with a focus on Latin America in Buenos Aires and Cologne. When he started his career, he hoped that the FES would send him there. But that did not happen. “The staff was expected to have a broader focus,” Pantekoek recalls. He started in the Middle East.
Once back at headquarters, Pantekoek worked in the “Global Policy and Development” unit – with a focus on international trade issues as well. “That’s when the field of China began to open up.” On the ground in Shanghai, Pantekoek then experienced how his work was complicated. In 2017, the Chinese government passed a law for foreign NGOs. “Our work changed fundamentally from one day to the next.” Non-governmental organizations, which include foundations, were subordinated to new security authorities. Greater supervision and elaborate approval processes were the results.
Allowing himself to become discouraged – that is out of the question for Pantekoek. It is far too important to always present a differentiated picture of China, he says. For example, despite all the legitimate criticism, China’s involvement in Africa is portrayed in a way that is both “temporally abbreviated and one-sided”. Too often, the only criticism is that the People’s Republic is leading African countries into a debt trap. An unfair assessment, believes Pantekoek. “China’s positive impact on developing economies in Africa cannot be ignored. Various independent studies show substantial welfare gains for local populations in a wide range of projects,” he says. Thomas Mersch
Spring lets its blue ribbon…or instead colorful and intense? In any case, the Botanical Garden in Beijing sparkled in an impressive splendor of colors this weekend. All thanks to the spring.
