Whether a foreign dignitary is in Beijing’s good graces is often shown by the way the official media present his welcome by the people. In early April, French President Macron was allowed to high-five the hands of excited university students in front of the cameras like a top athlete. Brazil’s President Lula da Silva was welcomed by cheering children waving Brazilian and Chinese flags in front of the Great Hall of the People on Friday. The subsequent talks were correspondingly friendly and harmonic, writes Joern Petring in his analysis of the meeting.
Unlike Germany’s Foreign Minister Baerbock, who visited China at the same time, Lula brought practically no critical messages with him. On the contrary, the former beacon of hope for the West made it clear that he will not support the course of demarcation and de-risking toward China and Russia. He even called on the USA and the EU to stop supplying Ukraine with weapons. Words like “invasion” or “war” did not cross his lips. Another propaganda success for both Xi and Putin.
Claudia Barkowsky, Managing Director of the Representative Office of the German Engineering Federation (VDMA) in China, is alarmed. The Chinese are snatching market share from the Germans even faster than expected, the sinologist told Frank Sieren in an interview. She urges Germany not only to become more innovative, but, above all, to be faster. “Our export strength depends on it.”
Despite growing geopolitical risks, she believes that decoupling from China is the wrong approach. Surviving in a highly competitive environment would make companies strong in the first place. “We have to change and find ways to deal with China and the competition from China,” Barkowsky demands. But she, too, is certain: The times of naive behavior towards the People’s Republic are over.
While China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang and his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock exchanged a few blows in Beijing on Friday, another visit was much more harmonious: Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva visited the Chinese capital on the same day as Baerbock.
From Beijing’s perspective, it was clearly the more important political event. The evening news first showed the Presidents Xi Jinping and Lula, Baerbock and Qin only played a minor role.
Lula was warmly received in China. Cheering children welcomed him. Xi then called him his “good old friend”. The two sides signed more than a dozen deals worth around 10 billion US dollars. Among them were infrastructure investment agreements, the construction of satellites and general trade facilitation.
The meeting with Lula was similarly positive for Xi as the visit of French President Macron a week ago. Unlike Baerbock, Lula had practically no critical messages in his luggage. Rather, it became apparent that he and his Chinese counterpart share similar views on many issues. For example, Lula announced his intention to work with Beijing to improve the “geopolitical balance”.
Lula’s focus on multilateralism is very different from the strategy of his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, who had positioned Brazil more toward the United States, especially when Donald Trump was still in the White House. Bolsonaro was more critical of China. Lula is now seeking closer ties with Beijing and wants to simultaneously strengthen the cooperation of the BRICS countries Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – as a counterpoint to the West.
Before his visit to Beijing, he specially traveled to Shanghai to give a speech at the New Development Bank of the BRICS countries. Lula criticized the dominant role of the US dollar in international trade. “Why can’t we trade in our own currency?” he asked. “Who decided it was the dollar? We need a currency that puts countries in a little calmer situation because today a country has to chase the dollar to export.” His party colleague and former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has taken over as head of the BRICS development bank.
China and Brazil had just recently agreed at the end of March to increase trade directly in their own national currencies. In this way, they want to reduce their dependence on the US dollar. That makes sense. Since 2009, China has been Brazil’s biggest trading partner and is one of the most important investors in Latin America’s largest country.
And Lula made another statement that earned him much approval from his hosts: He called for respect for China’s territorial integrity regarding Taiwan. “The Chinese side expressed great appreciation in this regard,” the joint final statement said.
It also addressed the war in Ukraine. However, Lula made it perfectly clear that he has no intention of following the West’s course of isolation and risk minimization towards authoritarian states like China and Russia. In the statement, however, both sides avoided using words like “invasion” or “war”.
Neither Brazil nor China seems willing to exert even mild pressure on their partner Russia. On the contrary: In his closing remarks, Lula urged the US to end its military support for Ukraine. “The United States must stop promoting war and start talking about peace, the European Union must start talking about peace,” Lula noted.
“Lula’s visit should be a wake-up call for the West,” said Johann Wadephul, Vice Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, who is accompanying Baerbock on her Asia trip. Baerbock’s demand in South Korea that democracies with the same values should cooperate more in the world pales against Lula’s remarks in Beijing.
Last year, 23 percent more Chinese machinery was exported to Germany than in the previous year. What does that mean for the German mechanical engineering sector?
China has caught up in terms of quality in recent years and is now also competitive in Germany in some sectors, but also in our export markets. This is a remarkable development, considering Germany’s tradition in mechanical engineering. I recently visited a company that dates back to 1880. In contrast, many Chinese companies are not even 30 years old.
What now?
We have to deal with completely new questions: Why have the Chinese become so strong so quickly? What advantages do they have in their own market? Such questions not only concern innovation, but also securing supply chains and cheaper production costs. What are the energy costs in China? What subsidies and grants are their business based on?
So is it unfair competition?
These are all advantages that exist in China, in any case. Advantages like lower electricity and labor costs, in addition to the huge sales market, have led many German machine builders to produce in China. At the time, that was an advantage for us. Today, it is an advantage for Chinese manufacturers, who are increasingly exporting as well. China has been the world’s largest machinery exporter since 2019. China can map complete supply chains, another enormous advantage. To speak only of unfair competition is far too easy.
Are you calling on politicians to close the EU market to Chinese machines?
No. That does not reflect our demands. 80 percent of German machinery is exported. If we close our markets now, we should not be surprised if others do the same, too.
Does this mean that Germany’s mechanical engineering industry needs to become more innovative?
Innovations are a very important factor, but they alone will not be enough. It is also the costs, which are too high in international competition, that have an impact. This has become clear in the past crisis year. The air is getting thinner. When customers have to save money, they are more likely to buy a Chinese machine, even if the quality is not as high yet. However, the gap is getting smaller and smaller.
In which areas are there still restrictions for the German mechanical engineering industry?
An important growth area with constraints is the aircraft industry, where German companies are only able to operate in joint ventures and often compete with state-owned enterprises. Otherwise, mechanical engineering is not actually affected by joint venture constraints. Another issue is public tenders, which are not accidentally structured in such a way that German mechanical engineering companies can hardly compete. Since 2007, negotiations have been underway with China to join the WTO Government Procurement Agreement. So far without result. We need to address these issues even more clearly than we did 15 or 20 years ago.
In which areas is German mechanical engineering still performing well?
We are good at special machinery, in automation, in transformation technologies, in offering solutions rather than just products, and also when efficiency or accuracy is required.
And where are the problem areas?
They are in the mid-price range, the actual bread-and-butter business. The Chinese are grabbing market share faster than we expected. Our companies have a technological edge, but Chinese companies outweigh that with speed. We not only have to remain innovative, but also become faster. And Berlin should urgently address the issue of energy costs and the shortage of qualified workers. Germany’s export strength depends on it. And exports account for almost 50 percent of the German economy.
What worries you about the geopolitical conflict between China and the USA?
We are already telling our members to think about what will happen if the world splits into three blocs: USA, China and Europe. That would be the worst-case scenario. If you want to be on the safe side, you should produce in all three regions with independent supply chains.
Is that not more sensible anyway?
No. The vast majority of mechanical engineering companies are too small to be able to operate production sites in all parts of the triad. And: The more globally branched our supply chains can be, the lower our costs are. This is especially true in Germany and Europe. In China, on the other hand, localization can still be a cost advantage.
What role does the RCEP free trade zone, the world’s largest, which unites China and large parts of Asia, play in this?
That is, of course, an advantage. German companies can export from China to this region or they can outsource parts of their production to neighboring countries and benefit from the labor cost advantages there without them melting away again due to customs tariffs.
Germany’s mechanical engineering industry depends on the liquidity of Chinese customers. Is it coming back now after a bad year in 2022?
This is one of the biggest questions this year: Are local governments in Chinese provinces receiving enough money after they had to finance the Covid measures to be able to invest again? And: Most cities and municipalities finance themselves from land sales. However, the central government has now introduced legal regulations that make that more difficult in an attempt to prevent a real estate bubble. So that will be tricky. In the infrastructure sector, we are not seeing a big upswing at the moment. It’s better than last year, but it is not quite where the Chinese government in Beijing would like it to be. Quite a few local governments are running on fumes.
How are your companies responding?
We hardly have any companies that are withdrawing from China. Most will continue to expand in China. But we also have many cautious companies, especially because of the geopolitical situation. That is definitely a risk that companies have to take into account here. This core faith in the Chinese market, which companies had before Covid, has been tarnished and must first regenerate. Beijing needs to deliver now. We are currently conducting our business climate survey. We will know more in May.
With these strong political interventions, is China still an attractive market at all?
By its size and dynamism alone, China will remain an important market. In any case, we will not remain competitive if we close ourselves off from China. On the contrary, surviving in the strong competition in China makes companies strong. We have to adapt and find ways to work with China and the competition from China. That will not be easy.
So diversify into other countries?
It always makes sense to look at where precisely the dependencies are. However, it also should be noted that companies were already looking for new markets long before politicians became aware of the issue. But they have realized that China is a very special growth market in terms of its size, growth and efficiency, which cannot be compensated for in the short and medium term. China is the largest market when it comes to the production and sales of machinery. China produces as many machines as the next four countries in the ranking combined – the USA, Japan, Germany and Italy. And many of the machines are also used there. That is also part of it when we now say: we cannot be naive.
Claudia Barkowskyhas lived in Beijing since 2005. She took over the management of the Representative Office of the German Engineering Federation (VDMA) in 2016. Before joining the VDMA, she worked first at the German Chamber of Commerce and then at Daimler Greater China in Global Assignment Management.
If Holger Goerg were allowed to ask Chinese President Xi Jinping a question, he would ask what grand plan he was actually pursuing in the coming years. “Xi would certainly not tell me,” says Goerg. “But his answer would be intriguing.”
In order to nevertheless gain insights into China’s economic future, Goerg prefers to do his own research. Since 2008, he has been a Professor of Foreign Economics at Kiel Christian Albrecht University and Head of the ‘International Trade and Investment’ research area at the Kiel Institute for Economics (IfW Kiel). He is a widely published economist, and his name is associated with globalization in academia.
As part of the intensive examination of the People’s Republic, Goerg also identifies weaknesses in the German government’s planned China strategy. He believes there is currently no need for an economic strategy specifically for one country, but rather a general strategy on how to deal with autocratically run trading partners, such as China, Vietnam or even Qatar. “Companies need clear guidelines to weigh up risks in these countries,” says Goerg. A China strategy will only succeed if it is pursued across the EU, he adds. “Germany alone is not taken seriously by China,” says the professor. “Both economically, but also politically, Europe can only really have leverage as an EU in this China-US-Europe triangle.”
As part of the intensive examination of the People’s Republic, Goerg also identifies weaknesses in the German government’s planned China strategy. He believes there is currently no need for an economic strategy specifically for one country, but rather a general strategy on how to deal with autocratically run trading partners, such as China, Vietnam or even Qatar. “Companies need clear guidelines to weigh up risks in these countries,” says Goerg. A China strategy will only succeed if it is pursued across the EU, he adds. “Germany alone is not taken seriously by China,” says the professor. “Both economically, but also politically, Europe can only really have leverage as an EU in this China-US-Europe triangle.”
Today, foreign economic analyses dominate much of Goerg’s day-to-day work. That was not always the case: After completing a banking apprenticeship, Goerg studied business administration at the University of Worms in the early 1990s. He then moved to Ireland, first for postgraduate studies in economics in Galway, then for his master’s degree and Ph.D. at the University of Dublin.
“In statistics you can really go wild and work with exciting data,” Goerg says about his decision to pursue a career in science. His Ph.D. was followed by positions as a junior lecturer at the universities of Cork, Belfast and Nottingham. He spent eight years in England and worked his way up to associate professor before finally receiving an offer from Kiel.
Apart from spreadsheets and economic analyses, Goerg finds his balance in sailing. When the economist sets sail from Kiel, he can clear his head – then numbers no longer play a role, only wind and waves. “It’s the concentration when sailing that allows me to relax.” Dayan Djajadisastra
A natal cleft, a tramp stamp, or a muffin top – sometimes our eyes have to put up with a lot from the people around us. Whenever your visual pain limits are tested again in day-to-day life and are leaving you speechless, simply resort to Chinese. As is often the case, Mandarin has delightfully vivid linguistic metaphors at the ready to parry such tasteful assaults on the retina.
A metaphor that works well even across cultural boundaries. Just think of the onion-cutting massacre in your home kitchen resulting in infernal eye-watering. Or the classic of grabbing your eye after cutting chili peppers. Or maybe you’re one of the folks who lose their sense of proportion every time they go to hip sushi restaurants and mix way too much wasabi into their soy sauce. What do all these scenarios have in common? Exactly: They burn like hell, right in the eyes. 辣眼睛 Là yǎnjing is the Chinese word for it, from 辣 là “spicy” and 眼睛 yǎnjing “eyes”. So something burns like chili in the eyes. And it’s precisely this feeling that China’s online community has chosen as a meme to rant about visual gaffes that make you wish you’d never seen
So let’s sharpen our focus and take a closer look at the word 辣 là. It quickly shows that the word has a lot of lexical tricks up its sleeve in everyday speech. Like hot can not only mean “spicy” but is also an expression for “sexy” or “attractive”, the Chinese character 辣 là is not only used for spicy things. The hanzi appears, for example, in火辣 huǒlà (or 火辣辣 huǒlàlà), which can mean not only “fiery spicy” but also “super hot” in the sexy context. And a hot chick is consequently called 辣妹 làmèi or 辣妹子 làmèizi in Mandarin, literally “hot sister”. The Chinese originally used this term to describe female eye candy from the provinces of Sichuan and Hunan, where chili flavor is known to be imbibed with mother’s milk. 辣妹子 Làmèizi, however, is not just an allusion to the devilishly spicy cuisine of this region. Women from Sichuan and Hunan also have a reputation in China for being particularly “spicy” themselves, that is, a real feast for the eyes.
On the one hand, due to their elegant physique, and on the other hand, due to their supposedly immaculate complexion, which in turn is attributed to the warm, humid climate. Incidentally, five “spicy ladies” from Europe also made a name for themselves in China, back in the nineties. “Hot sisters” (辣妹 làmèi) was actually the official Chinese name for the British band Spice Girls in the People’s Republic. Given their advanced age, however, their members can now only pass as 辣妈 làmā “hot mums” at best.
Meanwhile, you should refrain from bold literal translations of spicy Western terms. If, for example, you refer to a “hot chick” in China as 辣鸡 lājī (“hot chicken”), you are getting yourself into trouble, at least in online jargon. Because contrary to expectations, the hot chicken here does not refer to hot ladies, but is a synonym for social “scum”. It’s a play on words based on the identical-sounding term 垃圾 lājī – “garbage, refuse, trash”.
That spiciness can have many twisted linguistic facets is also shown by spicy vocabulary such as 毒辣 dúlà, literally “toxically sharp”, which is translated in the dictionary as “insidious, diabolical”, or also手辣 shǒulà “with a sharp hand” as a term for “merciless, ruthless”. So it is not surprising that the little word 辣 là also partly appears in the Chinese translation for “Sodom and Gomorrah” (索多玛与哈摩辣 Suǒduōmǎ yǔ Hāmólà), which, mind you, is a phonetic translation.
“Sodom and Gomorrah!” might also shriek from the hot throat of those tender-footed Central Europeans who have dared to step into a restaurant serving authentic Sichuan or Hunan cuisine without the necessary vocabulary preparations. After all, if you forget to give tell the chef to not make the food so spicy with words like 不辣 bú là (“not spicy”), 微微辣 wēiwēi là (“just a touch spicy”) or 微辣 wēilà (“slightly spicy”), you will be sending your palate and intestines on a chili hell trip par excellence. Life is a roller coaster ride with ups and downs, with good times and bad, as the Chinese know. In Chinese, of course, they also like to summarize this wisdom in gustatory terms, as 酸甜苦辣 suān-tián-kǔ-là “joys and sorrows in life”, literally “sour – sweet – bitter – hot”.
Some menu masochists, on the other hand, are hot for the next chili kick. If you are one of them, simply order the hardcore 变态辣 biàntài là (literally “perversely hot”), which is also on the menu in certain hip restaurants. Your funeral. But maybe one day you’ll learn to trust the wisdom of those Chinese veterans around you. Because it is certainly not a good idea to flood your guts with chili juices in the long run. Listen to this hard-learned advice. For with age comes wisdom, as we say. Or as the Chinese put it: 姜还是老的辣 jiāng háishi lǎo de là – “Ginger only gets hotter with age”.
Verena Menzel runs the online language school New Chinese in Beijing.
Whether a foreign dignitary is in Beijing’s good graces is often shown by the way the official media present his welcome by the people. In early April, French President Macron was allowed to high-five the hands of excited university students in front of the cameras like a top athlete. Brazil’s President Lula da Silva was welcomed by cheering children waving Brazilian and Chinese flags in front of the Great Hall of the People on Friday. The subsequent talks were correspondingly friendly and harmonic, writes Joern Petring in his analysis of the meeting.
Unlike Germany’s Foreign Minister Baerbock, who visited China at the same time, Lula brought practically no critical messages with him. On the contrary, the former beacon of hope for the West made it clear that he will not support the course of demarcation and de-risking toward China and Russia. He even called on the USA and the EU to stop supplying Ukraine with weapons. Words like “invasion” or “war” did not cross his lips. Another propaganda success for both Xi and Putin.
Claudia Barkowsky, Managing Director of the Representative Office of the German Engineering Federation (VDMA) in China, is alarmed. The Chinese are snatching market share from the Germans even faster than expected, the sinologist told Frank Sieren in an interview. She urges Germany not only to become more innovative, but, above all, to be faster. “Our export strength depends on it.”
Despite growing geopolitical risks, she believes that decoupling from China is the wrong approach. Surviving in a highly competitive environment would make companies strong in the first place. “We have to change and find ways to deal with China and the competition from China,” Barkowsky demands. But she, too, is certain: The times of naive behavior towards the People’s Republic are over.
While China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang and his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock exchanged a few blows in Beijing on Friday, another visit was much more harmonious: Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva visited the Chinese capital on the same day as Baerbock.
From Beijing’s perspective, it was clearly the more important political event. The evening news first showed the Presidents Xi Jinping and Lula, Baerbock and Qin only played a minor role.
Lula was warmly received in China. Cheering children welcomed him. Xi then called him his “good old friend”. The two sides signed more than a dozen deals worth around 10 billion US dollars. Among them were infrastructure investment agreements, the construction of satellites and general trade facilitation.
The meeting with Lula was similarly positive for Xi as the visit of French President Macron a week ago. Unlike Baerbock, Lula had practically no critical messages in his luggage. Rather, it became apparent that he and his Chinese counterpart share similar views on many issues. For example, Lula announced his intention to work with Beijing to improve the “geopolitical balance”.
Lula’s focus on multilateralism is very different from the strategy of his predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, who had positioned Brazil more toward the United States, especially when Donald Trump was still in the White House. Bolsonaro was more critical of China. Lula is now seeking closer ties with Beijing and wants to simultaneously strengthen the cooperation of the BRICS countries Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – as a counterpoint to the West.
Before his visit to Beijing, he specially traveled to Shanghai to give a speech at the New Development Bank of the BRICS countries. Lula criticized the dominant role of the US dollar in international trade. “Why can’t we trade in our own currency?” he asked. “Who decided it was the dollar? We need a currency that puts countries in a little calmer situation because today a country has to chase the dollar to export.” His party colleague and former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has taken over as head of the BRICS development bank.
China and Brazil had just recently agreed at the end of March to increase trade directly in their own national currencies. In this way, they want to reduce their dependence on the US dollar. That makes sense. Since 2009, China has been Brazil’s biggest trading partner and is one of the most important investors in Latin America’s largest country.
And Lula made another statement that earned him much approval from his hosts: He called for respect for China’s territorial integrity regarding Taiwan. “The Chinese side expressed great appreciation in this regard,” the joint final statement said.
It also addressed the war in Ukraine. However, Lula made it perfectly clear that he has no intention of following the West’s course of isolation and risk minimization towards authoritarian states like China and Russia. In the statement, however, both sides avoided using words like “invasion” or “war”.
Neither Brazil nor China seems willing to exert even mild pressure on their partner Russia. On the contrary: In his closing remarks, Lula urged the US to end its military support for Ukraine. “The United States must stop promoting war and start talking about peace, the European Union must start talking about peace,” Lula noted.
“Lula’s visit should be a wake-up call for the West,” said Johann Wadephul, Vice Chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, who is accompanying Baerbock on her Asia trip. Baerbock’s demand in South Korea that democracies with the same values should cooperate more in the world pales against Lula’s remarks in Beijing.
Last year, 23 percent more Chinese machinery was exported to Germany than in the previous year. What does that mean for the German mechanical engineering sector?
China has caught up in terms of quality in recent years and is now also competitive in Germany in some sectors, but also in our export markets. This is a remarkable development, considering Germany’s tradition in mechanical engineering. I recently visited a company that dates back to 1880. In contrast, many Chinese companies are not even 30 years old.
What now?
We have to deal with completely new questions: Why have the Chinese become so strong so quickly? What advantages do they have in their own market? Such questions not only concern innovation, but also securing supply chains and cheaper production costs. What are the energy costs in China? What subsidies and grants are their business based on?
So is it unfair competition?
These are all advantages that exist in China, in any case. Advantages like lower electricity and labor costs, in addition to the huge sales market, have led many German machine builders to produce in China. At the time, that was an advantage for us. Today, it is an advantage for Chinese manufacturers, who are increasingly exporting as well. China has been the world’s largest machinery exporter since 2019. China can map complete supply chains, another enormous advantage. To speak only of unfair competition is far too easy.
Are you calling on politicians to close the EU market to Chinese machines?
No. That does not reflect our demands. 80 percent of German machinery is exported. If we close our markets now, we should not be surprised if others do the same, too.
Does this mean that Germany’s mechanical engineering industry needs to become more innovative?
Innovations are a very important factor, but they alone will not be enough. It is also the costs, which are too high in international competition, that have an impact. This has become clear in the past crisis year. The air is getting thinner. When customers have to save money, they are more likely to buy a Chinese machine, even if the quality is not as high yet. However, the gap is getting smaller and smaller.
In which areas are there still restrictions for the German mechanical engineering industry?
An important growth area with constraints is the aircraft industry, where German companies are only able to operate in joint ventures and often compete with state-owned enterprises. Otherwise, mechanical engineering is not actually affected by joint venture constraints. Another issue is public tenders, which are not accidentally structured in such a way that German mechanical engineering companies can hardly compete. Since 2007, negotiations have been underway with China to join the WTO Government Procurement Agreement. So far without result. We need to address these issues even more clearly than we did 15 or 20 years ago.
In which areas is German mechanical engineering still performing well?
We are good at special machinery, in automation, in transformation technologies, in offering solutions rather than just products, and also when efficiency or accuracy is required.
And where are the problem areas?
They are in the mid-price range, the actual bread-and-butter business. The Chinese are grabbing market share faster than we expected. Our companies have a technological edge, but Chinese companies outweigh that with speed. We not only have to remain innovative, but also become faster. And Berlin should urgently address the issue of energy costs and the shortage of qualified workers. Germany’s export strength depends on it. And exports account for almost 50 percent of the German economy.
What worries you about the geopolitical conflict between China and the USA?
We are already telling our members to think about what will happen if the world splits into three blocs: USA, China and Europe. That would be the worst-case scenario. If you want to be on the safe side, you should produce in all three regions with independent supply chains.
Is that not more sensible anyway?
No. The vast majority of mechanical engineering companies are too small to be able to operate production sites in all parts of the triad. And: The more globally branched our supply chains can be, the lower our costs are. This is especially true in Germany and Europe. In China, on the other hand, localization can still be a cost advantage.
What role does the RCEP free trade zone, the world’s largest, which unites China and large parts of Asia, play in this?
That is, of course, an advantage. German companies can export from China to this region or they can outsource parts of their production to neighboring countries and benefit from the labor cost advantages there without them melting away again due to customs tariffs.
Germany’s mechanical engineering industry depends on the liquidity of Chinese customers. Is it coming back now after a bad year in 2022?
This is one of the biggest questions this year: Are local governments in Chinese provinces receiving enough money after they had to finance the Covid measures to be able to invest again? And: Most cities and municipalities finance themselves from land sales. However, the central government has now introduced legal regulations that make that more difficult in an attempt to prevent a real estate bubble. So that will be tricky. In the infrastructure sector, we are not seeing a big upswing at the moment. It’s better than last year, but it is not quite where the Chinese government in Beijing would like it to be. Quite a few local governments are running on fumes.
How are your companies responding?
We hardly have any companies that are withdrawing from China. Most will continue to expand in China. But we also have many cautious companies, especially because of the geopolitical situation. That is definitely a risk that companies have to take into account here. This core faith in the Chinese market, which companies had before Covid, has been tarnished and must first regenerate. Beijing needs to deliver now. We are currently conducting our business climate survey. We will know more in May.
With these strong political interventions, is China still an attractive market at all?
By its size and dynamism alone, China will remain an important market. In any case, we will not remain competitive if we close ourselves off from China. On the contrary, surviving in the strong competition in China makes companies strong. We have to adapt and find ways to work with China and the competition from China. That will not be easy.
So diversify into other countries?
It always makes sense to look at where precisely the dependencies are. However, it also should be noted that companies were already looking for new markets long before politicians became aware of the issue. But they have realized that China is a very special growth market in terms of its size, growth and efficiency, which cannot be compensated for in the short and medium term. China is the largest market when it comes to the production and sales of machinery. China produces as many machines as the next four countries in the ranking combined – the USA, Japan, Germany and Italy. And many of the machines are also used there. That is also part of it when we now say: we cannot be naive.
Claudia Barkowskyhas lived in Beijing since 2005. She took over the management of the Representative Office of the German Engineering Federation (VDMA) in 2016. Before joining the VDMA, she worked first at the German Chamber of Commerce and then at Daimler Greater China in Global Assignment Management.
If Holger Goerg were allowed to ask Chinese President Xi Jinping a question, he would ask what grand plan he was actually pursuing in the coming years. “Xi would certainly not tell me,” says Goerg. “But his answer would be intriguing.”
In order to nevertheless gain insights into China’s economic future, Goerg prefers to do his own research. Since 2008, he has been a Professor of Foreign Economics at Kiel Christian Albrecht University and Head of the ‘International Trade and Investment’ research area at the Kiel Institute for Economics (IfW Kiel). He is a widely published economist, and his name is associated with globalization in academia.
As part of the intensive examination of the People’s Republic, Goerg also identifies weaknesses in the German government’s planned China strategy. He believes there is currently no need for an economic strategy specifically for one country, but rather a general strategy on how to deal with autocratically run trading partners, such as China, Vietnam or even Qatar. “Companies need clear guidelines to weigh up risks in these countries,” says Goerg. A China strategy will only succeed if it is pursued across the EU, he adds. “Germany alone is not taken seriously by China,” says the professor. “Both economically, but also politically, Europe can only really have leverage as an EU in this China-US-Europe triangle.”
As part of the intensive examination of the People’s Republic, Goerg also identifies weaknesses in the German government’s planned China strategy. He believes there is currently no need for an economic strategy specifically for one country, but rather a general strategy on how to deal with autocratically run trading partners, such as China, Vietnam or even Qatar. “Companies need clear guidelines to weigh up risks in these countries,” says Goerg. A China strategy will only succeed if it is pursued across the EU, he adds. “Germany alone is not taken seriously by China,” says the professor. “Both economically, but also politically, Europe can only really have leverage as an EU in this China-US-Europe triangle.”
Today, foreign economic analyses dominate much of Goerg’s day-to-day work. That was not always the case: After completing a banking apprenticeship, Goerg studied business administration at the University of Worms in the early 1990s. He then moved to Ireland, first for postgraduate studies in economics in Galway, then for his master’s degree and Ph.D. at the University of Dublin.
“In statistics you can really go wild and work with exciting data,” Goerg says about his decision to pursue a career in science. His Ph.D. was followed by positions as a junior lecturer at the universities of Cork, Belfast and Nottingham. He spent eight years in England and worked his way up to associate professor before finally receiving an offer from Kiel.
Apart from spreadsheets and economic analyses, Goerg finds his balance in sailing. When the economist sets sail from Kiel, he can clear his head – then numbers no longer play a role, only wind and waves. “It’s the concentration when sailing that allows me to relax.” Dayan Djajadisastra
A natal cleft, a tramp stamp, or a muffin top – sometimes our eyes have to put up with a lot from the people around us. Whenever your visual pain limits are tested again in day-to-day life and are leaving you speechless, simply resort to Chinese. As is often the case, Mandarin has delightfully vivid linguistic metaphors at the ready to parry such tasteful assaults on the retina.
A metaphor that works well even across cultural boundaries. Just think of the onion-cutting massacre in your home kitchen resulting in infernal eye-watering. Or the classic of grabbing your eye after cutting chili peppers. Or maybe you’re one of the folks who lose their sense of proportion every time they go to hip sushi restaurants and mix way too much wasabi into their soy sauce. What do all these scenarios have in common? Exactly: They burn like hell, right in the eyes. 辣眼睛 Là yǎnjing is the Chinese word for it, from 辣 là “spicy” and 眼睛 yǎnjing “eyes”. So something burns like chili in the eyes. And it’s precisely this feeling that China’s online community has chosen as a meme to rant about visual gaffes that make you wish you’d never seen
So let’s sharpen our focus and take a closer look at the word 辣 là. It quickly shows that the word has a lot of lexical tricks up its sleeve in everyday speech. Like hot can not only mean “spicy” but is also an expression for “sexy” or “attractive”, the Chinese character 辣 là is not only used for spicy things. The hanzi appears, for example, in火辣 huǒlà (or 火辣辣 huǒlàlà), which can mean not only “fiery spicy” but also “super hot” in the sexy context. And a hot chick is consequently called 辣妹 làmèi or 辣妹子 làmèizi in Mandarin, literally “hot sister”. The Chinese originally used this term to describe female eye candy from the provinces of Sichuan and Hunan, where chili flavor is known to be imbibed with mother’s milk. 辣妹子 Làmèizi, however, is not just an allusion to the devilishly spicy cuisine of this region. Women from Sichuan and Hunan also have a reputation in China for being particularly “spicy” themselves, that is, a real feast for the eyes.
On the one hand, due to their elegant physique, and on the other hand, due to their supposedly immaculate complexion, which in turn is attributed to the warm, humid climate. Incidentally, five “spicy ladies” from Europe also made a name for themselves in China, back in the nineties. “Hot sisters” (辣妹 làmèi) was actually the official Chinese name for the British band Spice Girls in the People’s Republic. Given their advanced age, however, their members can now only pass as 辣妈 làmā “hot mums” at best.
Meanwhile, you should refrain from bold literal translations of spicy Western terms. If, for example, you refer to a “hot chick” in China as 辣鸡 lājī (“hot chicken”), you are getting yourself into trouble, at least in online jargon. Because contrary to expectations, the hot chicken here does not refer to hot ladies, but is a synonym for social “scum”. It’s a play on words based on the identical-sounding term 垃圾 lājī – “garbage, refuse, trash”.
That spiciness can have many twisted linguistic facets is also shown by spicy vocabulary such as 毒辣 dúlà, literally “toxically sharp”, which is translated in the dictionary as “insidious, diabolical”, or also手辣 shǒulà “with a sharp hand” as a term for “merciless, ruthless”. So it is not surprising that the little word 辣 là also partly appears in the Chinese translation for “Sodom and Gomorrah” (索多玛与哈摩辣 Suǒduōmǎ yǔ Hāmólà), which, mind you, is a phonetic translation.
“Sodom and Gomorrah!” might also shriek from the hot throat of those tender-footed Central Europeans who have dared to step into a restaurant serving authentic Sichuan or Hunan cuisine without the necessary vocabulary preparations. After all, if you forget to give tell the chef to not make the food so spicy with words like 不辣 bú là (“not spicy”), 微微辣 wēiwēi là (“just a touch spicy”) or 微辣 wēilà (“slightly spicy”), you will be sending your palate and intestines on a chili hell trip par excellence. Life is a roller coaster ride with ups and downs, with good times and bad, as the Chinese know. In Chinese, of course, they also like to summarize this wisdom in gustatory terms, as 酸甜苦辣 suān-tián-kǔ-là “joys and sorrows in life”, literally “sour – sweet – bitter – hot”.
Some menu masochists, on the other hand, are hot for the next chili kick. If you are one of them, simply order the hardcore 变态辣 biàntài là (literally “perversely hot”), which is also on the menu in certain hip restaurants. Your funeral. But maybe one day you’ll learn to trust the wisdom of those Chinese veterans around you. Because it is certainly not a good idea to flood your guts with chili juices in the long run. Listen to this hard-learned advice. For with age comes wisdom, as we say. Or as the Chinese put it: 姜还是老的辣 jiāng háishi lǎo de là – “Ginger only gets hotter with age”.
Verena Menzel runs the online language school New Chinese in Beijing.
