Volkswagen has got itself into knee-deep trouble with its involvement in Xinjiang. In its communications, the car manufacturer has since distanced itself from its joint venture there as far as possible. This may be technically correct. But considering that Volkswagen vehicles are assembled in Xinjiang using Volkswagen technology and then sold in China with the Volkswagen logo, its argumentation seems grotesque. Instead, the company provides a prime example of how reality catches up with a company’s communication strategy.
However, other German companies that have not invested directly in Xinjiang should also pay close attention. After all, the number of Uyghurs who are being forced to work in other provinces of the People’s Republic in the name of the state continues to rise. It was recently revealed that the food industry in Shandong employs forced laborers. What comes next, and which foreign companies might be involved?
Speaking of communication. Michael Radunski recently made the interesting observation in the corridors of the Munich Security Conference that the US and Chinese have been engaging in much more informal exchanges with each other than in the past. This is what he talked about with political scientist Ian Bremmer.
In today’s interview, Bremmer explains why the Americans are suddenly so talkative: They want to make sure the Chinese don’t get any surprises from the US, he says. If this is true, it is an expression of how tense the relationship between the two rivals is. After all, avoiding surprises means being able to better predict and even control your counterpart’s behavior.
But Bremmer also reassures that China is not a player that wants to see the world burn, as other countries would like to do out of self-interest. Let’s hope so. Why else would the Chinese have attended the Security Conference?
Volkswagen’s Xinjiang investment is a lesson in how a strategic decision in China can spiral out of control. Although the north-western Uyghur province is thousands of kilometers away from the country’s industrial hubs, where most foreign companies are based. But the risk of being confronted with concrete allegations of forced labor, just like Volkswagen, continues to spread to other parts of the People’s Republic.
The number of Uyghur laborers involuntarily transferred from Xinjiang to other provinces of the People’s Republic and put to work in various industrial sectors has continued to rise over the past year. In an article for the Jamestown Foundation, China researcher Adrian Zenz analyzed Chinese sources and estimated the number to be 38,000 in 2023. This represents an increase of almost 38 percent compared to 2022. In Xinjiang itself, the number of Uyghurs who are being relocated against their will each year is in the seven-digit range.
This also harbors risks for companies that have not invested in the autonomous region at all. The likelihood of their Chinese suppliers becoming increasingly involved in the transfer system increases. This is because foreign companies – probably not entirely by chance – know next to nothing about whether their suppliers employ transferred Uyghurs.
The labor transfer is part of the “Targeted Poverty Alleviation Strategy” initiated by President Xi Jinping himself. Despite international criticism, above all from the United Nations, China continues to implement the program in the form of forced labor and resettlement.
The administrative district of Kashgar in the far west of Xinjiang even complained that not enough “organized transfer employment” had been planned in the past year. Zenz interprets this as a “preference for and planned intensification of state-directed work assignments that transfer Uyghurs outside their immediate home regions.” Five-year plans suggest that the program will be continued until at least 2025.
This means that German and international companies risk becoming unintentionally entangled in the Chinese forced labor system. After all, Uyghur forced labor has long since spread to other parts of the country and threatens the ethical integrity of supply chains outside Xinjiang as well. In October, investigative portal The Outlaw Ocean Project reported that around 1,000 Uyghur men and women, as well as hundreds of North Korean refugees, are being forced to work in food factories in Chinese coastal provinces.
When and if a foreign company decides to pull the plug in such a complex environment depends on its subjective risk assessment. For years, Volkswagen stressed its high standards and repeatedly emphasized that it would rigorously investigate every indication of forced labor. The fact that such reports pointing to forced labor in the construction of a test track for the joint venture with the state-owned manufacturer Saic in Turpan came from within the company undermined the company’s previous public presentation.
“Volkswagen is thus providing a prime example of how reality can catch up with a company’s external presentation,” says Alicia Hennig, a business ethicist specializing in China at IHI Zittau. “When information comes from within the company, it questions the credibility of claims that it was unaware of it.”
Since the publication of the Xinjiang Files in 2019, Hennig and business economist Katrin Heucher from the University of Groningen have retraced the history of Volkswagen’s communication. Their study entitled “From a ‘good’ MNC to a ‘bad’ potential human rights violator: The shifting perceptions of Volkswagen in China in Western media” reflects the adaptation of Volkswagen’s communication strategy to new discoveries about the forced labor system.
They say the company’s rhetoric was manipulative for years and aimed to get others to accept a certain discourse. The researchers identified six core arguments with which Volkswagen had successfully justified its Xinjiang investment:
A constant stream of new publications such as the China Cables and Xinjiang Files (2019), the Karakax list (2020), the Aspi study “Uyghurs for Sale” (2020), the Xinjiang Police Files (2022) and the “Driving Force” report (2022) put Volkswagen under increasing pressure to explain itself. While only a few arguments were sufficient in 2019, the use of its communicative arsenal grew as its line of defense crumbled.
At first, it was enough to insist on the social and economic contribution of the investment to the Uyghur population despite the obvious low economic relevance of the plant. Volkswagen also categorically rejected the suspicion of possible forced labor. However, the company then rowed back for the first time and admitted that it could not fully guarantee that there might be a connection to forced labor somewhere along the supply chain.
According to Hennig and Heucher, Volkswagen was then forced to stress its own measures, its own corporate values, compliance with all standards and the continuous evaluation of standards from 2021 onwards.
Now the company is faced with a new challenge after it can no longer be denied that a joint venture subsidiary employed transferred workers. Volkswagen now speaks of the “non-controlled joint venture SAIC-Volkswagen” or “not as an affiliated company belonging to the group,” referring to Section 15 of the German Stock Corporation Act.
From a technical standpoint, this is clean. However, Hennig doubts whether it is morally justifiable: “The fact that information came from the Xinjiang branch itself suggests that they were aware of forced labor in Turpan. But they obviously decided to look the other way.”
At the Munich Security Conference, we heard and saw a new constructive atmosphere between China and the US. What are the reasons for this new development?
The United States does not want any additional crises, given just how challenging the geopolitical environment is right now. And China feels the same for different reasons: their economic difficulties at home and the geopolitics in their region, which are not working so well for them. So both leaders have made a strategic decision, not a short-term decision, that they want to try to at least stabilize the relationship to a degree.
What happened behind the scenes at the Security Conference?
The Americans did something very unusual. They over-communicated. They are working hard to ensure that the Chinese do not have any surprises from the United States. The Biden administration led directly by Jake Sullivan are making an effort to talk to all the senior leaders regularly and let them know what the Americans are doing, what they’re thinking, what’s coming down the pike, just no surprises. They are putting effort into the relationship, not just about fentanyl or Taiwan or whatever the crisis du jour happens to be
So everything is finally okay between the USA and China?
Of course not. It’s still fragile, and it’s not like we’ve suddenly created a relationship of trust. Areas of conflict are still the areas of conflict, but it’s a much more constructive engagement today than at any point over the last two administrations.
Do you think Xi Jinping’s hegemonic appetite could wane due to domestic political problems?
The big and open question is as to whether Xi Jinping has actually made a decision that China just needs to be more restrained in its geopolitical appetites or whether this is a tactical feint because China is in a difficult position and when the winds turn, China is going to come back to be exactly what it was before. I don’t know the answer to that. But I’m not sure it matters because the challenges that China’s facing right now are not three-month challenges. They’re multi-year challenges. They’re very deep and significant, and they won’t be suddenly undone by a charm offensive. So, either way, I think that the realities of today’s environment are constraining Xi’s actions.
China’s relations with Russia, North Korea and Iran are also improving.
… just an important additional point: I don’t see China as a chaos actor. Russia, Iran and North Korea are countries that want the international system to burn. They want the United States to be destroyed. They want more conflict and crisis around the world. China does not. I mean, China definitely is super competitive with the United States, and they are looking for an advantage. But they don’t want the system to fall apart. In fact, they really rely on the system. They need a stable United States, even a comparatively strong United States. Frankly, I’ve heard from a lot of senior Chinese leaders that they’re increasingly concerned about what might happen in a second Trump term because they worry about the chaos.
But China’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine, the conflict in the Middle East, the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea are nonetheless quite limited.
I think the Ukraine war being over would be a good thing from China’s perspective. Same in terms of Israel-Gaza. Look, the Chinese are the ones that are taking a bigger hit from the Red Sea disruptions than any other big country out there. China needs that freedom of navigation. But they’re not in a military position to do anything about that. At the Security Council, the Chinese did not veto the condemnation of the Houthi attacks. The Chinese are not happy about this at all. Meanwhile, as long as it’s going on, they are going to blame the United States to a degree.
On the other hand, we see the US turning inwards. What are the consequences for the US-China competition to be the world’s leading power?
I do think the Chinese want the Americans to play a leadership role in resolving the Russia-Ukraine war and resolving the Israel-Palestine issue. More broadly, it’s less of a concern that the Americans are going to become isolationist. It’s more that it’s becoming unilateralist. China is worried about what happens if the US is just driving industrial policy and doesn’t care about globalization anymore.
And what is the role of Germany and Europe in all that? Is there a role?
Of course. But I think the roleofr Germany depends on what administration you’re talking about. Under Biden, the US expects Germany and the EU to align their policies with the US on China. That means multilateralism on de-risking, coordination on critical minerals, coordination on semiconductor policy and a chip-agreement that eventually will bring others in. I think that Trump has very little interest in that. I think under Trump, it will be a US-led policy versus China. He will focus on the bilateral trade relationship – and there’ll be much less engagement, certainly with the European allies.
What does the US fear the most about China? Is it Beijing’s rapid military build-up? A Chinese attack on Taiwan? China’s borderless friendship with Russia?
It’s probably still the Taiwan issue, which I think is misplaced. Taiwan shouldn’t be our biggest concern. I think what they should fear is that China is going to build their own semiconductors and is going to become technologically dominant. I think that should be the area of greatest focus and concern.
Ian Bremmer is a US political scientist specializing in foreign policy. He is the founder and president of the Eurasia Group and initiator of the Global Political Risk Index on Wall Street.
China’s Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao met with US Trade Representative Katherine Tai on Monday. On the sidelines of the Thirteenth WTO Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi, Wang expressed serious concerns about US tariffs as well as Taiwan-related economic and trade issues.
China supports the multilateral trading system and attaches great importance to the work of the WTO, the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing said on Monday. It also sharply criticized the US. The accusations: the United States is violating WTO rules. Furthermore, China sees the US engaging in unilateral trade harassment that would seriously undermine the global trade order, reports the Global Times. According to a statement from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, Wang and Tai had a “professional and in-depth” exchange on bilateral economic and multilateral trade issues.
The US side said that Tai had expressed to Wang the need for continued cooperation between the US and the People’s Republic of China at the WTO. However, Tai had also expressed criticism – with regard to the People’s Republic’s surplus steel capacities on the world market or the continuing imbalances caused by China’s state-led, non-market-oriented approach to trade policy.
Trade ministers from all over the world met in Abu Dhabi on Monday. The aim is to establish new rules for global trade. rad
Wiesloch in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg is a small town with a population of just 30,000, but is home to two world-class companies: Heidelberger Druckmaschinen, and SAP are headquartered nearby. This is where Juergen Kretz grew up – with one brother, his father an architect and his mother a housewife. After the tenth grade, he went to the United States. Juergen Kretz wanted to spend his high school year in Louisiana: The spectacular Gulf of Mexico awaited him, as did lively New Orleans, where jazz and blues emanated from every nook and cranny.
However, along with many wonderful experiences, the carefree exchange year was accompanied by something that challenged his worldview. He witnessed the role that racism continued to play in the southern state of Louisiana. The 16-year-old was also unable to understand the way his conservative American peers viewed the world beyond the United States. This first step out of his own bubble greatly impacted him and sparked his interest in politics.
Back in Germany, Kretz began to focus on global justice and became politically active in the Green Youth organization. He did his mandatory civilian service in the Peruvian capital, Lima, where he lived in a children’s shelter in a poor neighborhood for a year. He then studied political science and intercultural communication in Chemnitz and Berlin.
Juergen Kretz has been a member of the German Bundestag for the Green Party since February. He represents the Rhine-Neckar constituency and has a wealth of China expertise. As part of his studies, he learned Chinese and lived in Beijing for a while, where, after a year abroad at university, he completed an internship at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and worked at the German Embassy for three months.
Kretz’s first job after graduation was from 2009 to 2012 in the parliamentary office of Viola von Cramon-Taubadel, a member of the Bundestag at the time. As a staff member for foreign policy issues, one of his main focuses was China. It was the time after the Olympic Games, when everything seemed to be on the move and Germany was seeking more dialogue with an opening People’s Republic. Kretz was involved in drawing up a China concept for the Green parliamentary group in the Bundestag, which – for the first time – offered a comprehensive approach across all policy areas and aimed to involve China more.
After this stint, he went to the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The following twelve years in development cooperation had one main topic: supply chains. As a country consultant for Bangladesh, Kretz dealt intensively with textile supply chains. He later lived in the Congo and focused on commodity supply chains, in which China also played a relevant role as an intermediary. Kretz said that his motivation to work in development cooperation was to improve things systemically. He now wants to do this differently – in politics.
Juergen Kretz sees his personal role as a conduit between environmental and social issues and pragmatic economic policy. In the Bundestag, he has a seat on the Environment Committee and a deputy seat on the Development Committee, and supply chains will also play a role here. Unlike the FDP party, which wants to prevent the European Supply Chain Act, he does not see it as a burden for the German economy – if it is designed correctly. In fact, Kretz believes it is necessary to ensure a level playing field. After all, there are already many sustainably operating companies in Germany whose competitiveness it could ensure.
Kretz sees China as an important, relevant partner with whom Germany should engage in constructive dialogue. At the same time, however, politicians must clearly express what they expect from this dialogue, he says. For him, the European Supply Chain Act is a key element here because it makes human rights policy tangible. This also applies to one’s own obligation to comply with rights and standards. This is not altruism, says Kretz, who also recognizes the competition with players such as China. Keeping this in mind and trying to be the more credible, reliable partner could be a great advantage. Julia Fiedler
The second construction phase of the Zhangzhou nuclear power plant has begun in the southeast Chinese coastal province of Fujian. It will be equipped with Hualong One reactors, third-generation reactors developed in China. Dozens more new reactors are to be built in the coming years. Nuclear power currently accounts for around five percent of electricity generation. According to Beijing’s plans, this share will rise to around ten percent in the future.
Volkswagen has got itself into knee-deep trouble with its involvement in Xinjiang. In its communications, the car manufacturer has since distanced itself from its joint venture there as far as possible. This may be technically correct. But considering that Volkswagen vehicles are assembled in Xinjiang using Volkswagen technology and then sold in China with the Volkswagen logo, its argumentation seems grotesque. Instead, the company provides a prime example of how reality catches up with a company’s communication strategy.
However, other German companies that have not invested directly in Xinjiang should also pay close attention. After all, the number of Uyghurs who are being forced to work in other provinces of the People’s Republic in the name of the state continues to rise. It was recently revealed that the food industry in Shandong employs forced laborers. What comes next, and which foreign companies might be involved?
Speaking of communication. Michael Radunski recently made the interesting observation in the corridors of the Munich Security Conference that the US and Chinese have been engaging in much more informal exchanges with each other than in the past. This is what he talked about with political scientist Ian Bremmer.
In today’s interview, Bremmer explains why the Americans are suddenly so talkative: They want to make sure the Chinese don’t get any surprises from the US, he says. If this is true, it is an expression of how tense the relationship between the two rivals is. After all, avoiding surprises means being able to better predict and even control your counterpart’s behavior.
But Bremmer also reassures that China is not a player that wants to see the world burn, as other countries would like to do out of self-interest. Let’s hope so. Why else would the Chinese have attended the Security Conference?
Volkswagen’s Xinjiang investment is a lesson in how a strategic decision in China can spiral out of control. Although the north-western Uyghur province is thousands of kilometers away from the country’s industrial hubs, where most foreign companies are based. But the risk of being confronted with concrete allegations of forced labor, just like Volkswagen, continues to spread to other parts of the People’s Republic.
The number of Uyghur laborers involuntarily transferred from Xinjiang to other provinces of the People’s Republic and put to work in various industrial sectors has continued to rise over the past year. In an article for the Jamestown Foundation, China researcher Adrian Zenz analyzed Chinese sources and estimated the number to be 38,000 in 2023. This represents an increase of almost 38 percent compared to 2022. In Xinjiang itself, the number of Uyghurs who are being relocated against their will each year is in the seven-digit range.
This also harbors risks for companies that have not invested in the autonomous region at all. The likelihood of their Chinese suppliers becoming increasingly involved in the transfer system increases. This is because foreign companies – probably not entirely by chance – know next to nothing about whether their suppliers employ transferred Uyghurs.
The labor transfer is part of the “Targeted Poverty Alleviation Strategy” initiated by President Xi Jinping himself. Despite international criticism, above all from the United Nations, China continues to implement the program in the form of forced labor and resettlement.
The administrative district of Kashgar in the far west of Xinjiang even complained that not enough “organized transfer employment” had been planned in the past year. Zenz interprets this as a “preference for and planned intensification of state-directed work assignments that transfer Uyghurs outside their immediate home regions.” Five-year plans suggest that the program will be continued until at least 2025.
This means that German and international companies risk becoming unintentionally entangled in the Chinese forced labor system. After all, Uyghur forced labor has long since spread to other parts of the country and threatens the ethical integrity of supply chains outside Xinjiang as well. In October, investigative portal The Outlaw Ocean Project reported that around 1,000 Uyghur men and women, as well as hundreds of North Korean refugees, are being forced to work in food factories in Chinese coastal provinces.
When and if a foreign company decides to pull the plug in such a complex environment depends on its subjective risk assessment. For years, Volkswagen stressed its high standards and repeatedly emphasized that it would rigorously investigate every indication of forced labor. The fact that such reports pointing to forced labor in the construction of a test track for the joint venture with the state-owned manufacturer Saic in Turpan came from within the company undermined the company’s previous public presentation.
“Volkswagen is thus providing a prime example of how reality can catch up with a company’s external presentation,” says Alicia Hennig, a business ethicist specializing in China at IHI Zittau. “When information comes from within the company, it questions the credibility of claims that it was unaware of it.”
Since the publication of the Xinjiang Files in 2019, Hennig and business economist Katrin Heucher from the University of Groningen have retraced the history of Volkswagen’s communication. Their study entitled “From a ‘good’ MNC to a ‘bad’ potential human rights violator: The shifting perceptions of Volkswagen in China in Western media” reflects the adaptation of Volkswagen’s communication strategy to new discoveries about the forced labor system.
They say the company’s rhetoric was manipulative for years and aimed to get others to accept a certain discourse. The researchers identified six core arguments with which Volkswagen had successfully justified its Xinjiang investment:
A constant stream of new publications such as the China Cables and Xinjiang Files (2019), the Karakax list (2020), the Aspi study “Uyghurs for Sale” (2020), the Xinjiang Police Files (2022) and the “Driving Force” report (2022) put Volkswagen under increasing pressure to explain itself. While only a few arguments were sufficient in 2019, the use of its communicative arsenal grew as its line of defense crumbled.
At first, it was enough to insist on the social and economic contribution of the investment to the Uyghur population despite the obvious low economic relevance of the plant. Volkswagen also categorically rejected the suspicion of possible forced labor. However, the company then rowed back for the first time and admitted that it could not fully guarantee that there might be a connection to forced labor somewhere along the supply chain.
According to Hennig and Heucher, Volkswagen was then forced to stress its own measures, its own corporate values, compliance with all standards and the continuous evaluation of standards from 2021 onwards.
Now the company is faced with a new challenge after it can no longer be denied that a joint venture subsidiary employed transferred workers. Volkswagen now speaks of the “non-controlled joint venture SAIC-Volkswagen” or “not as an affiliated company belonging to the group,” referring to Section 15 of the German Stock Corporation Act.
From a technical standpoint, this is clean. However, Hennig doubts whether it is morally justifiable: “The fact that information came from the Xinjiang branch itself suggests that they were aware of forced labor in Turpan. But they obviously decided to look the other way.”
At the Munich Security Conference, we heard and saw a new constructive atmosphere between China and the US. What are the reasons for this new development?
The United States does not want any additional crises, given just how challenging the geopolitical environment is right now. And China feels the same for different reasons: their economic difficulties at home and the geopolitics in their region, which are not working so well for them. So both leaders have made a strategic decision, not a short-term decision, that they want to try to at least stabilize the relationship to a degree.
What happened behind the scenes at the Security Conference?
The Americans did something very unusual. They over-communicated. They are working hard to ensure that the Chinese do not have any surprises from the United States. The Biden administration led directly by Jake Sullivan are making an effort to talk to all the senior leaders regularly and let them know what the Americans are doing, what they’re thinking, what’s coming down the pike, just no surprises. They are putting effort into the relationship, not just about fentanyl or Taiwan or whatever the crisis du jour happens to be
So everything is finally okay between the USA and China?
Of course not. It’s still fragile, and it’s not like we’ve suddenly created a relationship of trust. Areas of conflict are still the areas of conflict, but it’s a much more constructive engagement today than at any point over the last two administrations.
Do you think Xi Jinping’s hegemonic appetite could wane due to domestic political problems?
The big and open question is as to whether Xi Jinping has actually made a decision that China just needs to be more restrained in its geopolitical appetites or whether this is a tactical feint because China is in a difficult position and when the winds turn, China is going to come back to be exactly what it was before. I don’t know the answer to that. But I’m not sure it matters because the challenges that China’s facing right now are not three-month challenges. They’re multi-year challenges. They’re very deep and significant, and they won’t be suddenly undone by a charm offensive. So, either way, I think that the realities of today’s environment are constraining Xi’s actions.
China’s relations with Russia, North Korea and Iran are also improving.
… just an important additional point: I don’t see China as a chaos actor. Russia, Iran and North Korea are countries that want the international system to burn. They want the United States to be destroyed. They want more conflict and crisis around the world. China does not. I mean, China definitely is super competitive with the United States, and they are looking for an advantage. But they don’t want the system to fall apart. In fact, they really rely on the system. They need a stable United States, even a comparatively strong United States. Frankly, I’ve heard from a lot of senior Chinese leaders that they’re increasingly concerned about what might happen in a second Trump term because they worry about the chaos.
But China’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine, the conflict in the Middle East, the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea are nonetheless quite limited.
I think the Ukraine war being over would be a good thing from China’s perspective. Same in terms of Israel-Gaza. Look, the Chinese are the ones that are taking a bigger hit from the Red Sea disruptions than any other big country out there. China needs that freedom of navigation. But they’re not in a military position to do anything about that. At the Security Council, the Chinese did not veto the condemnation of the Houthi attacks. The Chinese are not happy about this at all. Meanwhile, as long as it’s going on, they are going to blame the United States to a degree.
On the other hand, we see the US turning inwards. What are the consequences for the US-China competition to be the world’s leading power?
I do think the Chinese want the Americans to play a leadership role in resolving the Russia-Ukraine war and resolving the Israel-Palestine issue. More broadly, it’s less of a concern that the Americans are going to become isolationist. It’s more that it’s becoming unilateralist. China is worried about what happens if the US is just driving industrial policy and doesn’t care about globalization anymore.
And what is the role of Germany and Europe in all that? Is there a role?
Of course. But I think the roleofr Germany depends on what administration you’re talking about. Under Biden, the US expects Germany and the EU to align their policies with the US on China. That means multilateralism on de-risking, coordination on critical minerals, coordination on semiconductor policy and a chip-agreement that eventually will bring others in. I think that Trump has very little interest in that. I think under Trump, it will be a US-led policy versus China. He will focus on the bilateral trade relationship – and there’ll be much less engagement, certainly with the European allies.
What does the US fear the most about China? Is it Beijing’s rapid military build-up? A Chinese attack on Taiwan? China’s borderless friendship with Russia?
It’s probably still the Taiwan issue, which I think is misplaced. Taiwan shouldn’t be our biggest concern. I think what they should fear is that China is going to build their own semiconductors and is going to become technologically dominant. I think that should be the area of greatest focus and concern.
Ian Bremmer is a US political scientist specializing in foreign policy. He is the founder and president of the Eurasia Group and initiator of the Global Political Risk Index on Wall Street.
China’s Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao met with US Trade Representative Katherine Tai on Monday. On the sidelines of the Thirteenth WTO Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi, Wang expressed serious concerns about US tariffs as well as Taiwan-related economic and trade issues.
China supports the multilateral trading system and attaches great importance to the work of the WTO, the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing said on Monday. It also sharply criticized the US. The accusations: the United States is violating WTO rules. Furthermore, China sees the US engaging in unilateral trade harassment that would seriously undermine the global trade order, reports the Global Times. According to a statement from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, Wang and Tai had a “professional and in-depth” exchange on bilateral economic and multilateral trade issues.
The US side said that Tai had expressed to Wang the need for continued cooperation between the US and the People’s Republic of China at the WTO. However, Tai had also expressed criticism – with regard to the People’s Republic’s surplus steel capacities on the world market or the continuing imbalances caused by China’s state-led, non-market-oriented approach to trade policy.
Trade ministers from all over the world met in Abu Dhabi on Monday. The aim is to establish new rules for global trade. rad
Wiesloch in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg is a small town with a population of just 30,000, but is home to two world-class companies: Heidelberger Druckmaschinen, and SAP are headquartered nearby. This is where Juergen Kretz grew up – with one brother, his father an architect and his mother a housewife. After the tenth grade, he went to the United States. Juergen Kretz wanted to spend his high school year in Louisiana: The spectacular Gulf of Mexico awaited him, as did lively New Orleans, where jazz and blues emanated from every nook and cranny.
However, along with many wonderful experiences, the carefree exchange year was accompanied by something that challenged his worldview. He witnessed the role that racism continued to play in the southern state of Louisiana. The 16-year-old was also unable to understand the way his conservative American peers viewed the world beyond the United States. This first step out of his own bubble greatly impacted him and sparked his interest in politics.
Back in Germany, Kretz began to focus on global justice and became politically active in the Green Youth organization. He did his mandatory civilian service in the Peruvian capital, Lima, where he lived in a children’s shelter in a poor neighborhood for a year. He then studied political science and intercultural communication in Chemnitz and Berlin.
Juergen Kretz has been a member of the German Bundestag for the Green Party since February. He represents the Rhine-Neckar constituency and has a wealth of China expertise. As part of his studies, he learned Chinese and lived in Beijing for a while, where, after a year abroad at university, he completed an internship at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and worked at the German Embassy for three months.
Kretz’s first job after graduation was from 2009 to 2012 in the parliamentary office of Viola von Cramon-Taubadel, a member of the Bundestag at the time. As a staff member for foreign policy issues, one of his main focuses was China. It was the time after the Olympic Games, when everything seemed to be on the move and Germany was seeking more dialogue with an opening People’s Republic. Kretz was involved in drawing up a China concept for the Green parliamentary group in the Bundestag, which – for the first time – offered a comprehensive approach across all policy areas and aimed to involve China more.
After this stint, he went to the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The following twelve years in development cooperation had one main topic: supply chains. As a country consultant for Bangladesh, Kretz dealt intensively with textile supply chains. He later lived in the Congo and focused on commodity supply chains, in which China also played a relevant role as an intermediary. Kretz said that his motivation to work in development cooperation was to improve things systemically. He now wants to do this differently – in politics.
Juergen Kretz sees his personal role as a conduit between environmental and social issues and pragmatic economic policy. In the Bundestag, he has a seat on the Environment Committee and a deputy seat on the Development Committee, and supply chains will also play a role here. Unlike the FDP party, which wants to prevent the European Supply Chain Act, he does not see it as a burden for the German economy – if it is designed correctly. In fact, Kretz believes it is necessary to ensure a level playing field. After all, there are already many sustainably operating companies in Germany whose competitiveness it could ensure.
Kretz sees China as an important, relevant partner with whom Germany should engage in constructive dialogue. At the same time, however, politicians must clearly express what they expect from this dialogue, he says. For him, the European Supply Chain Act is a key element here because it makes human rights policy tangible. This also applies to one’s own obligation to comply with rights and standards. This is not altruism, says Kretz, who also recognizes the competition with players such as China. Keeping this in mind and trying to be the more credible, reliable partner could be a great advantage. Julia Fiedler
The second construction phase of the Zhangzhou nuclear power plant has begun in the southeast Chinese coastal province of Fujian. It will be equipped with Hualong One reactors, third-generation reactors developed in China. Dozens more new reactors are to be built in the coming years. Nuclear power currently accounts for around five percent of electricity generation. According to Beijing’s plans, this share will rise to around ten percent in the future.
