For the first time in 22 years, two German warships passed through the Taiwan Strait on Friday – under the watchful eye of the Chinese Navy. China had expressed criticism of the German plans beforehand. Since mid-2022, the country has been actively trying to question the status of the Taiwan Strait as international waters and present the Strait as an “inland sea” within China’s territory. David Demes has looked at the reactions in the region: Taiwan considers the passage a sign of international solidarity, while China speaks of a provocation.
Our second analysis is also about international security: Over the weekend, Beijing hosted its own security conference, the Xiangshan Forum. This year’s motto was “Promoting Peace for a Shared Future,” – and China seized the opportunity to present itself as a new global mediating power, as Michael Radunski analyzes. However, Beijing is less focused on the West, the USA, or Europe. China is much more interested in Asia and the countries summarized under the title “Global South.”
For the first time in 22 years, two German warships passed through the Taiwan Strait on Friday. The frigate “Baden-Wuerttemberg” and its supply ship, the “Frankfurt am Main,” navigated on their way from South Korea to the Philippines through the Strait between the democratic island republic of Taiwan and the Chinese province of Fujian. Officially because it was the shortest route, said German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius on Friday. “It’s the shortest route and, given the weather conditions, the safest, so we’re going through,” said the minister. Chancellor Scholz also appeared demonstratively calm. There is not much to say about the passage of ships, he said. “It’s an international waterway,” he said at a press conference in Berlin.
China had criticized the German plans beforehand. Since mid-2022, the country has been actively trying to challenge the status of the Taiwan Strait as international waters and present the Strait as an “inland sea” within Chinese territory. The USA in particular regularly sails through the Taiwan Strait. On the one hand, to defend freedom of navigation, but also to keep China’s increasingly aggressive behavior towards Taiwan in check.
For the Inspector General of the German Armed Forces, the passage of the German ships is not a provocation of the People’s Republic of China. “I don’t think we risk provoking China, but rather the other way around. It is precisely this international law that is being called into question by the perception and the issues that China is introducing,” explained General Carsten Breuer. In addition to the USA and Germany, ships from Canada and the Netherlands have already traveled through the Strait this year.
As an important trade route, the Taiwan Strait is also of significant interest to Germany. Despite this, the Merkel government was still reluctant to send the frigate “Bayern” through the disputed Strait in 2021. The Chinese government rejected the German request for a port call in Shanghai, which was widely interpreted as the Chancellor’s olive branch at the time. And now that Germany has dared to sail through for the first time in 22 years, the reaction in China has been predictably negative. Both the Foreign Ministry, the Chinese embassy in Germany and the Eastern Regional Command of the People’s Liberation Army have openly criticized the German move.
In response to the statement by German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius that the Taiwan Strait is international waters, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a press conference on Friday that the Taiwan issue was not about “freedom of navigation” but about “Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Mao explained that although the People’s Republic respects the right of other countries to cross the Taiwan Strait peacefully, it “firmly opposes provocations and actions that threaten China’s sovereignty and security under the guise of freedom of navigation.” The Foreign Ministry had already used similar wording on September 9.
The Chinese embassy in Berlin went one step further on its website: China called on the German side to “adhere to the one-China principle and uphold basic international norms, cautioning against actions that could disrupt or damage the stable development of China-Germany relations.” According to the statement, a formal protest has been lodged with the German side.
On Saturday morning, the Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army, which is responsible for Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait, confirmed the passage in a post on the microblogging service Weibo. The spokesperson for the regional command, Flotilla Admiral Li Xi, criticized the “public hype” surrounding the event and warned that the behavior of the German side had “increased the security risk” and “sent the wrong signals.” The troops in the theatre of operations were on high alert at all times and would “resolutely counter all threats and provocations.” Li also stated that the Eastern Theater Command had instructed naval and air forces to track and monitor the entire passage.
An earlier exclusive report by the Taiwanese news site RW News had claimed that the “Baden-Wuerttemberg” and its supply ship, the “Frankfurt am Main,” had each been flanked by a Chinese Navy vessel to the west and east of the median line of the Taiwan Strait. When asked, the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense neither confirmed nor denied the RW News report to Table.Briefings. A press spokesperson declined to comment on individual media reports. “The Taiwan Strait is an important international shipping route. The Ministry of Defence respects the free passage of warships of all countries as long as they comply with international legal standards,” it said in a brief statement.
However, the co-chairman of the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee in the Taiwanese parliament, Wang Ting-yu (DPP), confirmed to Table.Briefings that the German frigate and its supply ship had been accompanied by Chinese vessels. However, he rejected reports that they had been flanked on both sides: “Instead, they accompanied the German ships on the Chinese side of the median line and monitored them from behind.” According to Mr Wang, the fact that Germany is exercising freedom of navigation in these international waters contributes significantly to maintaining peace and stability in the region.
According to the daily report from the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense, five Chinese fighter jets and drones were also registered in the airspace above the median line on Friday.
The Foreign Ministry in Taipei also welcomed the transit. In a written statement to Table.Briefings it welcomed Germany “defending the legal status of the Taiwan Strait as international waters” while safeguarding the right to freedom of navigation as well as peace and stability in the region. Germany is a democratic value partner and Taiwan’s largest trading partner in Europe, the Foreign Ministry added. “Taiwan will continue to work with countries around the world to promote democracy, freedom and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.”
Approval also came from Taiwan’s civil society. The civil defense organization Kuma Academy has been working since 2021 to strengthen Taiwan’s social resilience and prepare its citizens for various disasters. In a lengthy post on Facebook, the organization poses the rhetorical question of whether a sleeping Germany has finally woken up. “In order to secure access to the Chinese market for traditional industries such as the chemical and automotive sectors, Germany has long taken a relatively lenient and tolerant stance towards China,” the statement reads. Now, Berlin is finally starting to take concrete measures against China. According to the Kuma Academy team, the passage is a statement that could not have been clearer.
On Chinese social media, the German transit has naturally been perceived differently. Jin Canrong, Professor of International Relations at Renmin University in Beijing, explained on his Weibo account that Germany only carried out the passage under pressure from the USA, adding that the US demanded that its allies side with it.
Countries such as the UK, Canada, and Australia have already done so. “Germany must also position itself as a leading country in Europe under American pressure and express its loyalty to the USA. This is to signal to China that the West stands united,” said Jin, who has more than three million followers on Weibo. “From a military perspective, this action has no significance for China, but from a political perspective, it does indeed disgust us.”
China’s political leadership has called for more peace in the world. In the closing speech of the Xiangshang Forum on Saturday in Beijing, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong announced that China would take on the role of mediator and peacemaker to resolve international crises politically and promote regional security and stability. He said this is what the “Global Security Initiative” proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2022 stands for.
China’s Defence Minister Dong Jun had previously been more specific. He called for negotiations to end the wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip. “The earlier we sit down for negotiations, the sooner peace arrives on hot-spot issues,” said Dong.
Established in 2006, the Xiangshan Forum is China’s largest and most important security policy event. This year’s motto was “Promoting Peace for a Shared Future,” – and China used the opportunity to present itself as a new global mediating power. However, Beijing is less concerned with the West, the USA or Europe. China is much more interested in Asia and the countries that are often summarized under the obscure title “Global South.”
At the Xiangshan Forum, Defense Minister Dong called for a fairer global order. He stressed that China and other big countries had a responsibility to ensure the necessary security. Dong left no doubt as to who would fulfill this task – and who would not.
He said China was trying to strengthen its role as a peacemaker. As a neutral player, it is trying to mediate in the Ukraine conflict. Steps have also been taken to reconcile rival Palestinian factions. In contrast, other major powers would bully weaker countries. Dong did not mention any names. It was clear to everyone present in Beijing who he was referring to: the United States.
However, it should be noted that Dong chose an extremely conciliatory tone at the Xiangshan Forum. He did not criticize the USA by name, nor did he launch verbal attacks against Taiwan. At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in July, China’s Defense Minister had warned: “Anyone who dares to separate Taiwan from China is engaging in self-destruction.”
And Dong also deserves some credit for the content. China did indeed bring Hamas and Fatah together in Beijing in July, and the year before, it even facilitated an agreement between arch-enemies Iran and Saudi Arabia. These are significant diplomatic successes for China – in a crisis region in which the USA and Europe are losing an enormous international reputation.
However, it is also true that China’s supposed neutrality in the Ukraine war is rather sketchy. Keyword: boundless friendship with Russia. And Beijing’s attempts to mediate similarly successfully in the Ukraine war have so far been very limited: a loose 12-point proposal and its absence from the peace conference in Switzerland.
But Dong did not want to go into that much detail. The Chinese representatives at the three-day event were interested in something bigger: Positioning China as an alternative to the Western-led global order. Beijing wants to present itself as a mediator and peacemaker to exert more influence on world politics.
The Xiangshang Forum itself should also be seen as part of this endeavor. It is China’s answer to the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s main security meeting in Singapore. While Beijing believes that the Shangri-La dialogue is dominated by the narratives of the United States and the West, the Xiangshan Forum offers an open and inclusive platform for dialogue. Background: China has recently been criticized quite openly in Singapore for its increasingly aggressive conduct in the South China Sea, as well as its growing ties with Moscow – regardless of the Russian attack on Ukraine. At the Xiangshan Forum from Thursday to Saturday in Beijing, however, China was able to present itself as a new global mediating power, undisturbed by such interjections.
The Chinese newspaper Global Times mentions another goal that China is pursuing with the Xiangshan Forum: In the past, international security forums have been dominated by Western countries, “leaving the voices and concerns of developing and smaller countries easily overshadowed and ignored.” In contrast, China’s Xiangshan Forum aims to provide “a platform for these nations to engage in equal dialogue and express their collective voices.”
And this brings us back full circle to the USA. Jia Qingguo, Professor at the School of International Studies at Peking University, explained on the podium that the economic decoupling of the USA from China not only destabilizes global supply chains. It would also increase development costs for the countries of the global South and the risk of a global economic recession. China’s constructive role stands in contrast to this, Qingguo continued. With the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), for example, Beijing was promoting the joint development of infrastructure and supporting socio-economic development in many countries.
After a six-month absence, China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has again released official youth employment data for December 2023: 14.9 percent. The government stopped reporting the rate in June 2023, after it had risen continuously to record high of more than 21 percent, as high as 40 percent in rural regions or as high as 50 percent when you factor in part-time or underemployment. The methodology behind the measure, however, has now been revised to exclude students. The lower result though, is still about three times the overall unemployment rate in China (5.1 percent) and reflects the quandary facing young people there. (For comparison, the OECD average is 10.5 percent.)
Some of the factors in China follow the youth unemployment story we continue to see around the world, including inadequate private sector job creation and skills mismatches. In China, the number of new graduates entering the labor market is also rising-to nearly 12 million in 2024, and there aren’t enough jobs to keep pace, especially as regulatory burdens are dampening growth in industries most likely to employ young people such as technology.
But the youth labor market in China has a few unique characteristics as well. The cultural demands on young Chinese workers are high-they are routinely expected to work “9-9-6″-from 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week. The resulting burnout is a key contributor to the elevated and stubborn youth unemployment
The general economic downturn and collapse of the property and housing market in particular has led to a hiring slowdown, with jobs that might be most suitable to new labor market entrants continuing to be among the hardest hit. Meanwhile, in the face of grueling hours for low pay, young people in China are opting out, choosing instead to “lie flat”-remain idle and not work or engage in any economic activities-or become “professional children,” paid by their parents or grandparents to live with and care for them.
At the same time, with higher deaths and fewer births (even with the end of the one-child policy nearly a decade ago to in part to help mitigate the aging population) younger Chinese women face further constraints to getting or keeping a job as society and employers are averse to hiring them and instead discourage them from joining the workforce versus staying home to have and raise children.
Failing at first to acknowledge the extent or damage of the crisis, the response from the government has been slow. Enforcing labor laws and financial incentives to hire youth and efforts to smooth the school to work transition (especially from university) can help, but macroeconomic risks as well as longer-term structural or societal challenges-including relevance of education, rapid urbanization, and emotional mental health-demand attention with a youth lens, too.
The implications of the situation are stark not only as a drag on Chinese productivity and growth but, given the outsized role of China in the global economy, its weakening has the potential to impact youth labor markets worldwide. That’s especially true in countries-in Africa and Latin America for example-where Chinese development finance, investment, and trade are critical to their own dynamism and job creation amid debt distress.
The article was first published on the website of the Atlantic Council.
Nicole Goldin is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.
This article is part of the event series “Global China Conversations” of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW). On Thursday (19.09.2024, 3.00-4.00 pm, CEST), Nicole Goldin, Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, and Maximilian Butek, Chief Representative of Delegation of German Industry and Commerce Shanghai, will discuss the topic: “How is China’s youth unemployment challenging the development of the country and the world?“. China.Table is the media partner of this event series.
You’ve already put your feet up, but now you suddenly crave a roast chicken from your favorite chicken joint on the other side of town? You don’t feel like waiting in line at the trendy barbecue, but you still need a reservation? You’re too exhausted to go out and stretch your legs, but your four-legged friend needs to go for a walk around the block? No worries! In China, the service land of milk and honey, you can borrow legs, or rather “running legs” – so-called 跑腿 pǎotuǐ (from 跑 pǎo “to walk, run” and 腿 tuǐ “leg, legs”).
Actually, 跑腿 pǎotuǐ means “to run small errands.” However, the trend term is now also synonymous with “errand boy” or “errand girl.” In China’s stress-ridden cities with its increasingly affluent middle class, the idea of borrowed legs has evolved into its own service sector. And it has long since become a big hit.
Apps that allow you to book a little legroom in the form of errands and assistance services are all the rage in China’s app stores. The best-known providers include Dada-Express 达达快送 dádá kuàisòng – which advertises with the wide-legged promise of “seconds delivery” (秒送 miǎosòng) – and the leg-walking app UU-paotui (UU跑腿 UU pǎotuǐ). Delivery giant Meituan (美团 měituán) is also heavily active in the leg business with its service Meituan Paotui (美团跑腿 měituán pǎotuǐ). In addition, inner-city express courier services such as 闪送 shǎnsòng and 顺丰同城急送 shùnfēng tóngchéng jísòng – the express service of the parcel delivery company Shunfeng – are also working hard for lazy customers.
Blogs and posts from the Paotui community reveal customers’ bizarre service requests for the paid foot soldiers. The range of needs is as colorful as the clients’ comfortable slippers and pajamas. It ranges from late-night purchases of midnight snacks and booze runs to cat feeding and walking the dog, picking up pets at the airport and taking medical treatment numbers at the hospital. Forgot your house key in the office? Easily solved: The colleague orders a Paotui. You feel a migraine coming up and can’t be bothered to maneuver your car home through the rush hour? Again, a paotui is happy to take the wheel in China.
The swift legs even come directly to your home on request, help blow up balloons for children’s birthdays or Valentine’s surprises, mend clothing and sew buttons back on and even do the dishes after cookouts at home. In short: The lazy economy is flourishing, for the right amount of money, of course.
However, there is one area where running legs cannot help you reach the finishing line – learning vocabulary. Here, we Chinese learners have to use our own brainpower and build mnemonic bridges so that new words that we have painstakingly learned actually gain a foothold in our long-term memory and don’t immediately run off. It’s good that Mandarin has even more illustrative language material about legs to leave their mental footprints in your memory.
For example, chopstick legs (筷子腿 kuàizituǐ) – the Chinese term for skinny legs. Those who are blessed by Mother Nature with enviably long legs, on the other hand, are called 大长腿 dàchángtuǐ (“big long leg”) in Internet slang. Less desirable, however, are legs in the form of the Chinese character 八 (“eight”), 八字腿bāzìtuǐ. These 八-legs are China’s linguistic equivalent to our X-legs. Hey, as long as you have legs at all, you might say, no matter which way they bend. Wrong! The Chinese language teaches us better. Because “having a leg” (有一腿 yǒu yī tuǐ) is a colloquial code word in Mandarin for “having an affair.“
If you feel like you’ve been emotionally stepped on after such a bad move, you might just see your partner as a drag on your leg – in Chinese, this is called 拖后腿 tuōhòutuǐ (“to slow someone down, to be a drag on someone’s leg” – literally: “to pull on someone’s hind leg”). Sometimes, even rich and influential people have a drag on their legs. This happens when someone tries to chum up to them to gain benefits. Of course, Mandarin also has the proper leg expression for this: 抱大腿 bào dàtuǐ “to hug a thigh” is the colloquial expression.
As you can see, there are plenty of metaphors to give us a leg up in our learning rut and provide entertainment. Now, all you have to do is memorize all the word material you have learned. Perhaps this text will help you kick-off your learning motivation.
Verena Menzel runs the online language school New Chinese in Beijing.
For the first time in 22 years, two German warships passed through the Taiwan Strait on Friday – under the watchful eye of the Chinese Navy. China had expressed criticism of the German plans beforehand. Since mid-2022, the country has been actively trying to question the status of the Taiwan Strait as international waters and present the Strait as an “inland sea” within China’s territory. David Demes has looked at the reactions in the region: Taiwan considers the passage a sign of international solidarity, while China speaks of a provocation.
Our second analysis is also about international security: Over the weekend, Beijing hosted its own security conference, the Xiangshan Forum. This year’s motto was “Promoting Peace for a Shared Future,” – and China seized the opportunity to present itself as a new global mediating power, as Michael Radunski analyzes. However, Beijing is less focused on the West, the USA, or Europe. China is much more interested in Asia and the countries summarized under the title “Global South.”
For the first time in 22 years, two German warships passed through the Taiwan Strait on Friday. The frigate “Baden-Wuerttemberg” and its supply ship, the “Frankfurt am Main,” navigated on their way from South Korea to the Philippines through the Strait between the democratic island republic of Taiwan and the Chinese province of Fujian. Officially because it was the shortest route, said German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius on Friday. “It’s the shortest route and, given the weather conditions, the safest, so we’re going through,” said the minister. Chancellor Scholz also appeared demonstratively calm. There is not much to say about the passage of ships, he said. “It’s an international waterway,” he said at a press conference in Berlin.
China had criticized the German plans beforehand. Since mid-2022, the country has been actively trying to challenge the status of the Taiwan Strait as international waters and present the Strait as an “inland sea” within Chinese territory. The USA in particular regularly sails through the Taiwan Strait. On the one hand, to defend freedom of navigation, but also to keep China’s increasingly aggressive behavior towards Taiwan in check.
For the Inspector General of the German Armed Forces, the passage of the German ships is not a provocation of the People’s Republic of China. “I don’t think we risk provoking China, but rather the other way around. It is precisely this international law that is being called into question by the perception and the issues that China is introducing,” explained General Carsten Breuer. In addition to the USA and Germany, ships from Canada and the Netherlands have already traveled through the Strait this year.
As an important trade route, the Taiwan Strait is also of significant interest to Germany. Despite this, the Merkel government was still reluctant to send the frigate “Bayern” through the disputed Strait in 2021. The Chinese government rejected the German request for a port call in Shanghai, which was widely interpreted as the Chancellor’s olive branch at the time. And now that Germany has dared to sail through for the first time in 22 years, the reaction in China has been predictably negative. Both the Foreign Ministry, the Chinese embassy in Germany and the Eastern Regional Command of the People’s Liberation Army have openly criticized the German move.
In response to the statement by German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius that the Taiwan Strait is international waters, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a press conference on Friday that the Taiwan issue was not about “freedom of navigation” but about “Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Mao explained that although the People’s Republic respects the right of other countries to cross the Taiwan Strait peacefully, it “firmly opposes provocations and actions that threaten China’s sovereignty and security under the guise of freedom of navigation.” The Foreign Ministry had already used similar wording on September 9.
The Chinese embassy in Berlin went one step further on its website: China called on the German side to “adhere to the one-China principle and uphold basic international norms, cautioning against actions that could disrupt or damage the stable development of China-Germany relations.” According to the statement, a formal protest has been lodged with the German side.
On Saturday morning, the Eastern Theater Command of the People’s Liberation Army, which is responsible for Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait, confirmed the passage in a post on the microblogging service Weibo. The spokesperson for the regional command, Flotilla Admiral Li Xi, criticized the “public hype” surrounding the event and warned that the behavior of the German side had “increased the security risk” and “sent the wrong signals.” The troops in the theatre of operations were on high alert at all times and would “resolutely counter all threats and provocations.” Li also stated that the Eastern Theater Command had instructed naval and air forces to track and monitor the entire passage.
An earlier exclusive report by the Taiwanese news site RW News had claimed that the “Baden-Wuerttemberg” and its supply ship, the “Frankfurt am Main,” had each been flanked by a Chinese Navy vessel to the west and east of the median line of the Taiwan Strait. When asked, the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense neither confirmed nor denied the RW News report to Table.Briefings. A press spokesperson declined to comment on individual media reports. “The Taiwan Strait is an important international shipping route. The Ministry of Defence respects the free passage of warships of all countries as long as they comply with international legal standards,” it said in a brief statement.
However, the co-chairman of the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee in the Taiwanese parliament, Wang Ting-yu (DPP), confirmed to Table.Briefings that the German frigate and its supply ship had been accompanied by Chinese vessels. However, he rejected reports that they had been flanked on both sides: “Instead, they accompanied the German ships on the Chinese side of the median line and monitored them from behind.” According to Mr Wang, the fact that Germany is exercising freedom of navigation in these international waters contributes significantly to maintaining peace and stability in the region.
According to the daily report from the Taiwanese Ministry of Defense, five Chinese fighter jets and drones were also registered in the airspace above the median line on Friday.
The Foreign Ministry in Taipei also welcomed the transit. In a written statement to Table.Briefings it welcomed Germany “defending the legal status of the Taiwan Strait as international waters” while safeguarding the right to freedom of navigation as well as peace and stability in the region. Germany is a democratic value partner and Taiwan’s largest trading partner in Europe, the Foreign Ministry added. “Taiwan will continue to work with countries around the world to promote democracy, freedom and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.”
Approval also came from Taiwan’s civil society. The civil defense organization Kuma Academy has been working since 2021 to strengthen Taiwan’s social resilience and prepare its citizens for various disasters. In a lengthy post on Facebook, the organization poses the rhetorical question of whether a sleeping Germany has finally woken up. “In order to secure access to the Chinese market for traditional industries such as the chemical and automotive sectors, Germany has long taken a relatively lenient and tolerant stance towards China,” the statement reads. Now, Berlin is finally starting to take concrete measures against China. According to the Kuma Academy team, the passage is a statement that could not have been clearer.
On Chinese social media, the German transit has naturally been perceived differently. Jin Canrong, Professor of International Relations at Renmin University in Beijing, explained on his Weibo account that Germany only carried out the passage under pressure from the USA, adding that the US demanded that its allies side with it.
Countries such as the UK, Canada, and Australia have already done so. “Germany must also position itself as a leading country in Europe under American pressure and express its loyalty to the USA. This is to signal to China that the West stands united,” said Jin, who has more than three million followers on Weibo. “From a military perspective, this action has no significance for China, but from a political perspective, it does indeed disgust us.”
China’s political leadership has called for more peace in the world. In the closing speech of the Xiangshang Forum on Saturday in Beijing, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Chen Xiaodong announced that China would take on the role of mediator and peacemaker to resolve international crises politically and promote regional security and stability. He said this is what the “Global Security Initiative” proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2022 stands for.
China’s Defence Minister Dong Jun had previously been more specific. He called for negotiations to end the wars in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip. “The earlier we sit down for negotiations, the sooner peace arrives on hot-spot issues,” said Dong.
Established in 2006, the Xiangshan Forum is China’s largest and most important security policy event. This year’s motto was “Promoting Peace for a Shared Future,” – and China used the opportunity to present itself as a new global mediating power. However, Beijing is less concerned with the West, the USA or Europe. China is much more interested in Asia and the countries that are often summarized under the obscure title “Global South.”
At the Xiangshan Forum, Defense Minister Dong called for a fairer global order. He stressed that China and other big countries had a responsibility to ensure the necessary security. Dong left no doubt as to who would fulfill this task – and who would not.
He said China was trying to strengthen its role as a peacemaker. As a neutral player, it is trying to mediate in the Ukraine conflict. Steps have also been taken to reconcile rival Palestinian factions. In contrast, other major powers would bully weaker countries. Dong did not mention any names. It was clear to everyone present in Beijing who he was referring to: the United States.
However, it should be noted that Dong chose an extremely conciliatory tone at the Xiangshan Forum. He did not criticize the USA by name, nor did he launch verbal attacks against Taiwan. At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in July, China’s Defense Minister had warned: “Anyone who dares to separate Taiwan from China is engaging in self-destruction.”
And Dong also deserves some credit for the content. China did indeed bring Hamas and Fatah together in Beijing in July, and the year before, it even facilitated an agreement between arch-enemies Iran and Saudi Arabia. These are significant diplomatic successes for China – in a crisis region in which the USA and Europe are losing an enormous international reputation.
However, it is also true that China’s supposed neutrality in the Ukraine war is rather sketchy. Keyword: boundless friendship with Russia. And Beijing’s attempts to mediate similarly successfully in the Ukraine war have so far been very limited: a loose 12-point proposal and its absence from the peace conference in Switzerland.
But Dong did not want to go into that much detail. The Chinese representatives at the three-day event were interested in something bigger: Positioning China as an alternative to the Western-led global order. Beijing wants to present itself as a mediator and peacemaker to exert more influence on world politics.
The Xiangshang Forum itself should also be seen as part of this endeavor. It is China’s answer to the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s main security meeting in Singapore. While Beijing believes that the Shangri-La dialogue is dominated by the narratives of the United States and the West, the Xiangshan Forum offers an open and inclusive platform for dialogue. Background: China has recently been criticized quite openly in Singapore for its increasingly aggressive conduct in the South China Sea, as well as its growing ties with Moscow – regardless of the Russian attack on Ukraine. At the Xiangshan Forum from Thursday to Saturday in Beijing, however, China was able to present itself as a new global mediating power, undisturbed by such interjections.
The Chinese newspaper Global Times mentions another goal that China is pursuing with the Xiangshan Forum: In the past, international security forums have been dominated by Western countries, “leaving the voices and concerns of developing and smaller countries easily overshadowed and ignored.” In contrast, China’s Xiangshan Forum aims to provide “a platform for these nations to engage in equal dialogue and express their collective voices.”
And this brings us back full circle to the USA. Jia Qingguo, Professor at the School of International Studies at Peking University, explained on the podium that the economic decoupling of the USA from China not only destabilizes global supply chains. It would also increase development costs for the countries of the global South and the risk of a global economic recession. China’s constructive role stands in contrast to this, Qingguo continued. With the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), for example, Beijing was promoting the joint development of infrastructure and supporting socio-economic development in many countries.
After a six-month absence, China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has again released official youth employment data for December 2023: 14.9 percent. The government stopped reporting the rate in June 2023, after it had risen continuously to record high of more than 21 percent, as high as 40 percent in rural regions or as high as 50 percent when you factor in part-time or underemployment. The methodology behind the measure, however, has now been revised to exclude students. The lower result though, is still about three times the overall unemployment rate in China (5.1 percent) and reflects the quandary facing young people there. (For comparison, the OECD average is 10.5 percent.)
Some of the factors in China follow the youth unemployment story we continue to see around the world, including inadequate private sector job creation and skills mismatches. In China, the number of new graduates entering the labor market is also rising-to nearly 12 million in 2024, and there aren’t enough jobs to keep pace, especially as regulatory burdens are dampening growth in industries most likely to employ young people such as technology.
But the youth labor market in China has a few unique characteristics as well. The cultural demands on young Chinese workers are high-they are routinely expected to work “9-9-6″-from 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week. The resulting burnout is a key contributor to the elevated and stubborn youth unemployment
The general economic downturn and collapse of the property and housing market in particular has led to a hiring slowdown, with jobs that might be most suitable to new labor market entrants continuing to be among the hardest hit. Meanwhile, in the face of grueling hours for low pay, young people in China are opting out, choosing instead to “lie flat”-remain idle and not work or engage in any economic activities-or become “professional children,” paid by their parents or grandparents to live with and care for them.
At the same time, with higher deaths and fewer births (even with the end of the one-child policy nearly a decade ago to in part to help mitigate the aging population) younger Chinese women face further constraints to getting or keeping a job as society and employers are averse to hiring them and instead discourage them from joining the workforce versus staying home to have and raise children.
Failing at first to acknowledge the extent or damage of the crisis, the response from the government has been slow. Enforcing labor laws and financial incentives to hire youth and efforts to smooth the school to work transition (especially from university) can help, but macroeconomic risks as well as longer-term structural or societal challenges-including relevance of education, rapid urbanization, and emotional mental health-demand attention with a youth lens, too.
The implications of the situation are stark not only as a drag on Chinese productivity and growth but, given the outsized role of China in the global economy, its weakening has the potential to impact youth labor markets worldwide. That’s especially true in countries-in Africa and Latin America for example-where Chinese development finance, investment, and trade are critical to their own dynamism and job creation amid debt distress.
The article was first published on the website of the Atlantic Council.
Nicole Goldin is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center.
This article is part of the event series “Global China Conversations” of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW). On Thursday (19.09.2024, 3.00-4.00 pm, CEST), Nicole Goldin, Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, and Maximilian Butek, Chief Representative of Delegation of German Industry and Commerce Shanghai, will discuss the topic: “How is China’s youth unemployment challenging the development of the country and the world?“. China.Table is the media partner of this event series.
You’ve already put your feet up, but now you suddenly crave a roast chicken from your favorite chicken joint on the other side of town? You don’t feel like waiting in line at the trendy barbecue, but you still need a reservation? You’re too exhausted to go out and stretch your legs, but your four-legged friend needs to go for a walk around the block? No worries! In China, the service land of milk and honey, you can borrow legs, or rather “running legs” – so-called 跑腿 pǎotuǐ (from 跑 pǎo “to walk, run” and 腿 tuǐ “leg, legs”).
Actually, 跑腿 pǎotuǐ means “to run small errands.” However, the trend term is now also synonymous with “errand boy” or “errand girl.” In China’s stress-ridden cities with its increasingly affluent middle class, the idea of borrowed legs has evolved into its own service sector. And it has long since become a big hit.
Apps that allow you to book a little legroom in the form of errands and assistance services are all the rage in China’s app stores. The best-known providers include Dada-Express 达达快送 dádá kuàisòng – which advertises with the wide-legged promise of “seconds delivery” (秒送 miǎosòng) – and the leg-walking app UU-paotui (UU跑腿 UU pǎotuǐ). Delivery giant Meituan (美团 měituán) is also heavily active in the leg business with its service Meituan Paotui (美团跑腿 měituán pǎotuǐ). In addition, inner-city express courier services such as 闪送 shǎnsòng and 顺丰同城急送 shùnfēng tóngchéng jísòng – the express service of the parcel delivery company Shunfeng – are also working hard for lazy customers.
Blogs and posts from the Paotui community reveal customers’ bizarre service requests for the paid foot soldiers. The range of needs is as colorful as the clients’ comfortable slippers and pajamas. It ranges from late-night purchases of midnight snacks and booze runs to cat feeding and walking the dog, picking up pets at the airport and taking medical treatment numbers at the hospital. Forgot your house key in the office? Easily solved: The colleague orders a Paotui. You feel a migraine coming up and can’t be bothered to maneuver your car home through the rush hour? Again, a paotui is happy to take the wheel in China.
The swift legs even come directly to your home on request, help blow up balloons for children’s birthdays or Valentine’s surprises, mend clothing and sew buttons back on and even do the dishes after cookouts at home. In short: The lazy economy is flourishing, for the right amount of money, of course.
However, there is one area where running legs cannot help you reach the finishing line – learning vocabulary. Here, we Chinese learners have to use our own brainpower and build mnemonic bridges so that new words that we have painstakingly learned actually gain a foothold in our long-term memory and don’t immediately run off. It’s good that Mandarin has even more illustrative language material about legs to leave their mental footprints in your memory.
For example, chopstick legs (筷子腿 kuàizituǐ) – the Chinese term for skinny legs. Those who are blessed by Mother Nature with enviably long legs, on the other hand, are called 大长腿 dàchángtuǐ (“big long leg”) in Internet slang. Less desirable, however, are legs in the form of the Chinese character 八 (“eight”), 八字腿bāzìtuǐ. These 八-legs are China’s linguistic equivalent to our X-legs. Hey, as long as you have legs at all, you might say, no matter which way they bend. Wrong! The Chinese language teaches us better. Because “having a leg” (有一腿 yǒu yī tuǐ) is a colloquial code word in Mandarin for “having an affair.“
If you feel like you’ve been emotionally stepped on after such a bad move, you might just see your partner as a drag on your leg – in Chinese, this is called 拖后腿 tuōhòutuǐ (“to slow someone down, to be a drag on someone’s leg” – literally: “to pull on someone’s hind leg”). Sometimes, even rich and influential people have a drag on their legs. This happens when someone tries to chum up to them to gain benefits. Of course, Mandarin also has the proper leg expression for this: 抱大腿 bào dàtuǐ “to hug a thigh” is the colloquial expression.
As you can see, there are plenty of metaphors to give us a leg up in our learning rut and provide entertainment. Now, all you have to do is memorize all the word material you have learned. Perhaps this text will help you kick-off your learning motivation.
Verena Menzel runs the online language school New Chinese in Beijing.
