Transrapid + Hong Kong + Universal Studios + BDI + Alaska + Chips + Johnny Erling
CRRC examines Lathen as Transrapid test track
Beijing adopts electoral law reform for Hong Kong
Universal Studios open in Beijing
BDI: Xinjiang endangers CAI
USA-China meeting in Alaska next week
Chips: China-US cooperation
Johnny Erling: hurt feelings and old friends
Dear reader,
The Transrapid monorail was seen as a testament to German innovation and engineering prowess before it became a multi-billion-dollar grave and political disaster, ultimately ending in a human tragedy in Emsland. China has since further developed magnetic levitation technology and is now planning several high-speed lines. To push ahead with this ambitious project, the state-owned CRRC is now looking into working with German and European partners to revitalize the former Transrapid test track in Lathen. An initial inquiry in Emsland has been confirmed to China.Table. Frank Sieren has the details.
Seemingly completely unaffected by international criticism, the Chinese “people’s representatives” ended the 2021 National People’s Congress yesterday with the decision to only admit “patriotic” – i.e., loyal to Beijing – deputies to the political bodies in Hong Kong in the future. Marcel Grzanna classifies this attack on democracy. It will be interesting to see how the process influences the US-Chinese foreign ministers’ meeting next Thursday in Alaska.
How the Chinese government has been using the accusation of “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people” for decades to enforce foreign policy interests – and, above all, how successful it has been in doing so – is dissected by Johnny Erling today. Angela Merkel was also once accused of this. However, she has long since become a “lao pengyou”, a “time-honored friend of the Chinese people“.
Under the direction of the state-owned railway company China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC), two Transrapid prototypes have been developed in recent years. One of the trains, named CRRC 600 and consisting of six elements, is a further development of the Transrapid TR08, manufactured by ThyssenKrupp at the time. It will not be able to travel faster than 600 kilometers per hour.
The second train is being developed by Southwest Jiaotong University Chengdu and CRRC. It could become a so-called Hyperloop train that also travels over 1000 kilometers per hour.
Transrapid 2.0: through the tube in a vacuum
The biggest technical difference: The Hyperloop is a Transrapid 2.0, which will travel in a likely transparent acrylic tube in which a vacuum is created. This means the train has no air resistance to overcome. Otherwise, the high speeds, which correspond to those of an airplane, are technically impossible to achieve.
Magnetic levitation technology was classified as a key technology by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology back in 2002. Since then, a total of over 30 Chinese companies and research institutions have been involved in the project under the leadership of CRRC.
CRRC is the world’s largest train manufacturer and one of the largest industrial groups. The company, which is listed on the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges, has a market capitalization of around €20 billion.
Now that the central government has decided to use magnetic levitation technology on a large scale, the CRRC is under considerable pressure to succeed. This is because several thousand kilometers of maglev trains are to be built in China by 2030 at the latest. The two most important routes are Beijing – Guangzhou – Shenzhen and Shanghai – Guangzhou – Shenzhen. It is planned to be able to travel from Beijing to Shenzhen in just over three and a half hours. The flight takes two and a half hours. Within just two and a half hours, the Transrapid 2.0 is to go between Guangzhou and Shanghai. China already has the largest conventional high-speed rail network in the world, with trains that travel a good 300 kilometers per hour.
Commuter train with 800 km/h
But a shorter route of just under 200 kilometers to the new administrative city of Xiongan, near Beijing, is also planned. It is considered one of the most important projects of state and party leader Xi Jinping. It is to be a commuter train with Hyperloop technology that travels 800 kilometers per hour.
The Chinese have developed it further to make the technology suitable for everyday use on these routes. The project is part of the climate strategy announced by President Xi Jinping in the fall of 2020, which aims to make China climate-neutral by 2060.
To ensure that the high-speed train project moves forward, CRRC plans to further develop the technology with European partners such as Thyssen-Krupp, Knorr-Bremse, and Beckhoff, and to revitalize the German test track in Lathen for the tests.
At the heart of the European-Chinese collaboration would be Hardt Hyperloop, a Dutch startup in which German investor Frank Thelen also has a stake worth tens of millions. The CRRC and Hardt are already in talks. Hardt, also with the support of German suppliers, is further ahead than CRRC in some development areas – for example, electronic switches, tubes, vacuum pumps, or braking technology.
There is a similar project in Las Vegas, financed by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, among others. However, for political reasons, the Chinese have decided not to cooperate with the Americans for the time being.
‘A win-win situation‘
Ralf Effenberger, managing director of INTIS GmbH and head of the Emsland Transrapid test facility, confirmed to China.Table that he is aware of the CRRC inquiry regarding Lathen. “For the facility to be put back into operation, a national interest must also be pursued through it, or so the law stipulates,” Effenberger explained. “Since numerous German companies would profit from the project, this case is certainly given.” It was virtually “a win-win situation”. Today, such large projects would no longer be developed by one company or nation alone. The test track in Lathen could become an example of “how global cooperation can work to develop a new climate-friendlier transport technology.”
The Chinese play it safe
Will the Chinese-European cooperation with a revived test track in Lathen really work in the end? In parallel with the CRRC’s push in Lathen, MP Yang Jun, who represents the city of Qingdao, submitted a motion to the National People’s Congress this week to build a 150-kilometer test track from the coastal city of Qingdao to Ri Zhao.
The facility in Emden continued to operate as a tourist attraction after the Transrapid project in Germany was halted, until it was shut down in 2006 after a severe accident that killed 23 people.
“It is possible to get the plant operational again within a maximum of 18 months,” says Effenberger. However, this is only an initial estimate. It is also conceivable that the plant could be expanded.
Parallel to the considerations of a test track in Germany, there is already an initial agreement of the Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu to cooperate closely with the University in Oldenburg and the Emden-Leer University of Applied Sciences. The universities are leaders in magnetic levitation technology in their respective countries.
CRRC buys German locomotive plant
In addition, in May of last year, the CRRC acquired the locomotive plant Vosslow in Kiel. This could become the European location of CRRC. In any case, it is planned that the trains will also receive European approval and will also be produced in Europe. Already in March 2016, CRRC acquired the Saxon company Cideon – reportedly the first purchase of the Chinese in Europe. The Bautzen-based company offers services such as the technical development, modernization, or conversion of rail vehicles.
From the Chinese point of view, the main advantage of Lathen is that the trains are easy to transport there. They would be transported by RoRo ship from China to Bremerhaven and from there on through the Weser-Ems Canal to the port of Doerpe, which is around four kilometers away from Lathen.
In 2003, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and the then Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji had opened a commercial test track in Shanghai. The Transrapid technology had originally been developed by Thyssen-Krupp and Siemens, although Siemens was more interested from the outset in selling the classic wheel-rail technology of the ICE to China because there was more to be earned from these trains. In the meantime, Chinais the only country in the world that has almost 20 years of everyday experience with magnetic levitation technology with over 90 million passengers.
The stab in the back for Hong Kong’s remaining democratic structures was accompanied by a long round of applause from political leaders. On Thursday, 2895 delegates of the National People’s Congress (NCP) in Beijing had voted in favor of the proposed electoral law reform, which finally turns the formerly competition-oriented Hong Kong system of government into an authoritarian copy in the sense of the People’s Republic of China.
The pro-democracy Apple Daily noted that no other decision by China’s parliament that day was met with more applause from the floor than the one that relegates Hong Kong’s opposition to irrelevance. With only one abstention, the near-unanimous result even eclipsed the passage of the National Security Law on the spot a year ago. Back then, six delegates voted against it.
“The Hong Kong government and I stand firmly behind this decision and want to express our gratitude from the bottom of our hearts,” Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam said, commenting on the result of the vote, which was no more based on democratic principles than the future election of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, the legislative body of the former British crown colony. It was not a matter of sidelining the opposition, but of ensuring that Hong Kong would be governed by patriots in the future, Lam declared. She was echoing Beijing’s call for Hong Kong’s executive, legislative and judicial branches to be composed only of “true patriots“. To ensure this, the city even introduced a new law requiring public officials to take an oath to act patriotically – and thus in the spirit of the Communist Party. What is patriotic is determined by the party. Those who break the law lose their posts.
‘It’s a very sad decision for Hong Kong’
In the pro-democracy camp, the vote was noted with regret. “It is a very sad decision for Hong Kong. I believe that the future members of the Legislative Council will be less and less representative of the city’s citizens. Instead, they will be loyalists whose hands will be tied and who will in no way represent the people of Hong Kong,” said Lo Kin-hei, chairman of the Democratic Party.
Hong Kong’s democratic electoral system, which has beenundermined for years, has now been restructured by the National People’s Congress in such a way that Beijing need no longer fear any nasty surprises. “Loopholes” have thus been plugged that could be exploited by those who wanted to harm Hong Kong, it was said. Key points of the reform are an increase in the staffing of two committees. Firstly, the committee that elects the head of government will be increased from 1200 to 1500 electors. At the same time, the number of members of parliament, i.e., the Legislative Council, will also be increased from 70 to 90. What sounds like formal changes with no impact on the election outcome is in fact an expansion of Beijing’s influence over appointments to the bodies. The additional seats on both bodies will be filled in advance from Beijing with candidates of choice. Democratically achieved majorities of the opposition are as good as impossible as long as Beijing’s organized voices do what the party expects of them.
Postponement of the elections to the Legislative Council by one year
The importance of district elections in the city is thus further minimized. In the fall of 2019, democratic politicians had won more than 80 percent of all local government seats in the wake of months of protests against Beijing’s hold on the city, capturing a large number of votes to elect the head of government. The opposition even thought it had a minimal chance of winning a majority in the Legislative Council, which could have been the undoing of Prime Minister Lam. All it would have taken was for her budget to be rejected twice. But the Legislative Council elections were then moved to the autumn of this year, officially because of the COVID pandemic. Opposition politicians, however, believe that the Hong Kong government wanted to buy time to model the framework in its favor until the election was rescheduled. That has now happened with the decision in Beijing.
The vote also triggered reactions in Germany. Frank Schwabe, human rights policy spokesman for the SPD in the German Bundestag, told China.Table: “With this reform, the Chinese government is trying to complete what it started a while ago. Namely, to take total political control in the city, contrary to its treaty commitments. Consistently, it wants to erase all remaining traces of democratic structures. This electoral reform is another bitter blow to the opposition in Hong Kong.” In 1997, the city was handed over to the People’s Republic by the British after 100 years of colonial rule. The restitution treaty included an agreement for broad autonomy for the city until 2047, including universal suffrage.
However, it never got that far. Today, Hong Kong is much further away from universal suffrage than it was in 1997. Yet the city’s political leadership is not telling the people the truth but rather selling its departure from democratic elements as a contribution to building a free society. Carrie Lam’s predecessor, Leung Chun-ying, claimed in an interview with the South China Morning Post a few days ago that the electoral law form created the basis for universal suffrage to become possible in the first place. However, the increasingly authoritarian structures in the city contradict this statement.
‘Political purge’
Didi Kirsten Tatlow, a Senior Fellow in the Asia Program of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) in Berlin, was born and raised in Hong Kong. She speaks of a “political purge”. All voices not in line with Beijing’s line are to be silenced, Tatlow believes. “It’s a tragedy to have to watch so much of what made Hong Kong a liberal metropolis for many decades now being destroyed by authoritarian Beijing policies.”
As a consequence of the developments of the past few years, the Heritage Foundation, a US think tank, had already removed the city from its global index of economic freedom and instead assigned it to the People’s Republic for the first time. Yet Hong Kong had actually topped the list for 25 years until 2019, before the city was replaced by Singapore the previous year. Both camps are arguing about what the lawmakers’ new authoritarian line means for Hong Kong as a financial center and business hub. Beijing’s advocates expect an increase in new issuance in the local stock market, which is expected to be particularly attractive to those companies that hail from nations participating in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, commonly referred to as the New Silk Road. On the other hand, Skeptics expect a withdrawal of numerous companies from the city’s financial markets.
However, consequences loom at least for the city’s leading political figures. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had already announced further sanctions against those “responsible for repressive measures in Hong Kong” shortly before the vote in Beijing. EU foreign affairs envoy Josep Borrell had also said in advance that Brussels was prepared to take additional steps. He did not give details on this so far.
Neue Seidenstraße
Universal Studios open in Beijing
The political mood between China and the US may be the worst it’s been in decades. Yet, that doesn’t change the fact that many Beijingers can hardly wait these days for the capital’s newest attraction to finally open: Chinese state media reports that the first Universal Studio Theme Park in mainland China is set to open in the Tongzhou district in May after less than three years of construction. Tests of the new facility are already in full swing, and the new park’s website is already online.
The timing couldn’t be better. With China having largely kept the COVID pandemic under control, domestic tourism is picking up strongly. At the same time, travel abroad is not yet an option, which is why a new offering like the Universal Park in Beijing can expect a huge rush from day one.
Ten million visitors expected
Until now, to visit one of the world’s most famous theme parks after the Disney resorts, Chinese citizens have had to travel either to Singapore, Osaka in Japan, or California, where the Universal movie studio opened its first theme park in 1964 to promote the heroes of its films.
As at the other locations, visitors to Beijing can expect not only thrilling roller coaster rides but also stage shows and over 80 restaurants. Highlights include themed worlds such as the Kung Fu Panda Land of Awesomeness, Transformers: Metrobase, a Minion Land, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and Jurassic World.
It is no coincidence that Universal has built its largest park to date on an area of 400 hectares in Beijing in a joint venture with Chinese partners. The company has closely observed how immensely successful its competitor Disney has been since opening in Shanghai in 2016. Last year alone, Disney recorded around eleven million visitors there. Universal is hoping for ten million guests per year in Beijing.
Some Chinese politicians don’t like the way the US is sneaking into the country with its seductive soft power. When Disney opened its doors in Shanghai, a well-known entrepreneur gave voice to these hardliners – but for his own business interests. Wanda Group founder Wang Jianlin said, in a television interview at the time, that Disney had “no business being in China”. The days of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck were long gone, and his company would soon “defeat” Disney.
At the time, Wang was in the process of retooling his real estate conglomerate Wanda into the country’s largest entertainment conglomerate. However, financial difficulties later forced Wanda to sell off its own parks.
No interest in Tencent figures
Nationalism here – Chinese values there: the Chinese people love their Western film heroes. Universal Studio is already feeling the effects of this, even weeks before the planned opening. The state-owned newspaper Global Times reported a storm of indignation when Universal announced that some well-known computer game characters from the Chinese Tencent company would also be represented in the new park. People don’t visit the park to see Tencent characters, but rather the well-known Universal heroes, the newspaper quoted Chinese Internet users as saying. Gregor Koppenburg/Jörn Petrin
Wang Jianlin
News
BDI: Xinjiang endangers CAI
The Federation of German Industries (BDI) has criticized the approaches to international trade set out in China’s Five-Year Plan as inadequate. “German industry misses clear signals in the 14th Five-Year Plan for a real change of course towards openness and a market economy,” said BDI Chief Executive Joachim Lang. A level playing field between foreign investors and Chinese state-owned enterprises does not exist and cannot be expected in the medium term.
The BDI is skepticalabout the improved protection of intellectual property promised by Beijing in its Five-Year Plan. China’s efforts to become more independent and the government’s promotion of future industries threaten to increase competition for German companies on the world market, according to the association’s assessment.
The “human rights situation in Xinjiang and the political situation in Hong Kong also put a strain on political and economic relations” and clouded the signing of the investment agreement between China and the EU (CAI), writes the BDI. China must clarify the allegations of human rights violations and provide the international community with insight into the conditions on the ground, the association demands. The BDI is critical of the planned EU supply chain law, as it could “lead to increased tensions with China“.
The BDI sees opportunities for German companies that contribute to “upgrading China’s industrial base”, i.e., supplying machinery and high-tech goods. The association also welcomes the tax cuts and write-off options announced by Beijing for expenditure on research and development, as well as the “improved and cheaper supply in the areas of energy and communications”.
Overall, the BDI praises the conclusion of the CAI negotiations. The association also calls on the EU to adopt a “powerful anti-subsidy instrument”. This measure would enable the EU to take action against market distortions caused by Chinese state subsidies. The BDI is also calling for the conclusion of the EU’s International Procurement Instrument (IPI), which has been planned for years. The instrument has been under discussion at the EU level since 2012 and is intended to lead to the mutual opening of public procurement markets with third countries. nib
14th Five-Year Plan
Human Rights
Sanctions
Xinjiang
China-USA meeting in Alaska next week
So now it’s certain: The top foreign policy officials of the USA and China will meet in Anchorage, Alaska, on Thursday next week. The foreign ministries of both countries confirmed the meeting, which was first reported this week by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post. Attending from the US side will be Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. From China, the Communist Party’s top foreign policy official and former Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi (officially “Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission”), as well as the current Foreign Minister and State Councillor Wang Yi, will attend.
US President Joe Biden had already spoken on the phone with China’s President Xi Jinping in February. But the meeting in Alaska will be the first personal contact at the highest level.
How quickly this meeting was organized is quite surprising. The high speed is already reflected in the fact that both sides did not even have time to define the meeting by name. While the Chinese side spoke of a “strategic dialogue”, US Secretary of State Blinken stressed that it was not initially a strategic dialogue – because there were “no plans at this point for a series of follow-up meetings”. There would have to be tangible progress on issues important to the United States for that to happen. Blinken classified the meeting before the US Congress as an opportunity to “lay out Washington’s concerns in very frank terms”. The State Department only said in vague terms that they would talk about “a number of issues”. There is a need to talk about many issues: Trade, technology, values, human rights, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang are just a few.
China’s Premier Li Keqiang touted a constructive relationship between the two sides to reporters yesterday. China and the US have far-reaching common interests, Li said. They could cooperate in many areas. Foreign Office spokesman Zhao Lijian, meanwhile, called on the US to abandon “Cold War thinking” and stop interfering in China’s internal affairs.
It was important to the US side that the first meetingtakes placeon American soil and after consultations with allies in Asia and Europe, said government spokeswoman Jen Psaki. The fact that China has agreed to this shows how important it is to Beijing, too, that the thread of talks be resumed. ck
Geopolitics
Yang Jiechi
Chips: China-US cooperation
The China Semiconductor Industry Association (CSIA) has announced the formation of a working group with its US counterpart, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). Both associations plan to meet semi-annually to keep each other informed about technology and trade restrictions, according to a CSIA statement. It also said it wants to exchange views on export controls, supply chain security, and encryption issues, as well as develop policy recommendations on areas that affect both sides. Ten member firms from each of the two associations are expected to participate in the biannual meetings. A date for the first meeting has not yet been announced.
Cooperation between the associations is urgently needed, a senior adviser at consulting firm Intralink told Bloomberg: “It would be a disaster if two semiconductor worlds emerged whose products were incompatible or there were no standards.”
The formation of the working group comes amid speculation that the US government may ease certain trade restrictions against Chinese semiconductor firms to ease the global shortage of chips, according to the South China Morning Post.
Strategies in USA, China, and EU
The shortage of chips and the dependencies on a few supplier countries have led to increased efforts to build up domestic production capacities in China, the USA as well as Europe. China aims to meet about 70 percent of its chip needs from its own production by 2025. So far, the country still imports semiconductors worth $300 billion annually. Just last week, Premier Li Keqiang announced massive investments in the chip industry. Last year, only just under 16 percent of the chips sold in China were produced in the country itself.
The US industry, on the other hand, is calling for greater government support for domestic production in order to secure supplies and maintain its technological lead over China, as reported by the Financial Times. The EU Commission is also pursuing plans for the economic area to produce its own advanced semiconductors by 2030. By then, at least 20 percent of global production by value should take place within the EU. That would be a doubling of the current value.
Currently, the EU, US (12 percent), and China (16 percent) together account for 38 percent of global chip production, while South Korea and Taiwan account for 43 percent of global production capacity. nib
Chips
Semiconductor
Technology
Column
Hurt feelings and old friends
By Johnny Erling
To describe the climate between the US and China asfreezing is a classic understatement. Currently, nearly nine out of ten US citizens (89 percent) see the People’s Republic as an unfriendlycompetitor and enemy, but not a partner. That was the finding of a representative online poll by the Washington-based Pew Research Center, which coincided with the opening of the People’s Congress. Pew also used a “temperature gauge” in its survey. For 67 percent, their China feelings had “cooled down”, compared with just 46 percent in 2018. Nearly one in four citizens (24 percent) reported freezing zero degrees, nearly three times more than in 2018.
The emotional temper tantrum seems like a tit-for-tat response to accusationsBeijing regularly makes to foreign countries of “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people“. (伤害中国人民的感情). With this formula, it lashes out at states, companies, individuals, or institutions of any kind that China’s government feels has stepped on its toes. It is, the Economist suggested, a move by the party to interfere abroad. In the process, the Chinese people are not being consulted about whether they feel offended. Beijing’s foreign ministry and its party media decide by proxy when, how, where, and by whom their “feelings” are hurt.
‘Hurt feelings of Chinese people’ becomes political slogan
In 1959, the People’s Daily first printed the formula as a warning to New Delhi because Indian troops had crossed into Chinese-claimed territory in the Himalayas. David Bandursky of the China Media Project examined 143 instances where the People’s Daily slapped the label of having “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people” on foreign countries between 1959 and 2015. Japan was warned 51 times, and the US 35 times. “After 1978, the slogan became an integral part of the party’s political discourse.”
Since Beijing has been more aggressive in representing its interests in foreign policy and flexing its economic muscles, it has happened more often that those so branded feel compelled to make a public apology for fear of sanctions. In 2018, carmaker Mercedes Benz made amends to the Chinese embassy in Berlin after quoting the Dalai Lama (politically outlawed only in China) in a commercial. The Italian luxury brand Dolce&Gabbana (D&G) was ruined by a humorous video showing a Chinese woman eating pizza with chopsticks. Beijing found the commercial deeply discriminatory. D&G had to cancel fashion shows and its China sales fell. The nationalist Global Times triumphed: “Facts show that hurting the national feelings of the Chinese people will be punished by the market, and the country’s 1.3 billion people will decide.”
Mercedes, Dolce&Gabbana, and Ronald Reagan
Nothing has changed in the sweeping accusation for 60 years. Only the number of Chinese suffering from hurt feelings had to be updated after each census. In 1959, it was 670 million people. In August 1980, Xinhua accused then-US President Ronald Reagan of “deeply hurting the feelings of a billion people” by wanting to set up a US government liaison office in Taiwan. Anyone who speaks critically abroad about China’s three T-taboos (Taiwan, Tibet, and Tiananmen) automatically hurts the feelings of the Chinese people.
In 2000, 1.2 billion people were offended after Sweden awarded its Nobel Prize for Literature to Gao Xingjian, a dissident living in France. In 2012, according to Xinhua, Japan hurt the feelings of 1.3 billion Chinese when China’s island dispute with Japan came to a head in September 2012 over who owns the Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands in the East China Sea.
In September 2007, Beijing’s sensitivity hit Chancellor Angela Merkel when she met the Dalai Lama in Berlin, “hurting and seriously undermining the feelings of the Chinese people and mutual relations”. However, because Merkel visited China every year thereafter, and never met the Dalai Lama again, she once more became the “lao pengyou”, the “time-honored friend of the Chinese people” (中国人民的老朋友).
Merkel is “time-honored friend of the people”
Being “lao pengyou” is the antithesis of being a feelings trampler. Politicians and business leaders who have visited China at least three times are entitled to it. The exception to the rule was Henry Kissinger, who met all of China’s leaders from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping. Because Beijing needed him, Mao and his Premier Zhou Enlai called him “old friend” by their second meeting. Kissinger noted in his book “China” that Beijing “flatters visitors by greeting them as ‘old friends’, making it difficult for them to disagree and engage in confrontation.”
Friendship, Kissinger said, is not seen as a “personal quality” but is forged as “long-term cultural, national or historical bonds”. China’s leadership had retained “a little of the traditional treatment of barbarians in its dealings with foreigners”.
Conversely, it means that the Chinese people’s feelings, so deeply hurt, will heal in an instant once Beijing’s alleged culprit appears useful again. Or won’t arise at all if everyone joins forces to resist the calculated pressure.
Geopolitics
Mercedes Benz
USA
Dessert
A 39-year-old farmer and noodle maker has unexpectedly become a social media star in China: Cheng Yunfu gained Internet fame for selling his hand-pulled noodles for the consistent price of three yuan – just over 40 cents – at a market in his home province of Shandong for as long as 15 years, several media outlets reported. In a video shared on social media sites such as Kuaishou, Cheng explains that he did not raise the price because otherwise, villagers would not be able to afford the noodle soup.
Thrilled with Cheng, onlookers and fans flooded the small village of Matihe – suddenly, his cooking was being filmed by hundreds of people. Some were streaming live alongside him on their mobile phone cameras, Cheng told the South China Morning Post. The overnight fame was too much for Cheng at the beginning. But he has since gotten used to it and wants to use his fame to help his village and bring paying customers there. He is glad that the village now has this chance, even if he does not want to be famous, Cheng said, according to the report.
The Transrapid monorail was seen as a testament to German innovation and engineering prowess before it became a multi-billion-dollar grave and political disaster, ultimately ending in a human tragedy in Emsland. China has since further developed magnetic levitation technology and is now planning several high-speed lines. To push ahead with this ambitious project, the state-owned CRRC is now looking into working with German and European partners to revitalize the former Transrapid test track in Lathen. An initial inquiry in Emsland has been confirmed to China.Table. Frank Sieren has the details.
Seemingly completely unaffected by international criticism, the Chinese “people’s representatives” ended the 2021 National People’s Congress yesterday with the decision to only admit “patriotic” – i.e., loyal to Beijing – deputies to the political bodies in Hong Kong in the future. Marcel Grzanna classifies this attack on democracy. It will be interesting to see how the process influences the US-Chinese foreign ministers’ meeting next Thursday in Alaska.
How the Chinese government has been using the accusation of “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people” for decades to enforce foreign policy interests – and, above all, how successful it has been in doing so – is dissected by Johnny Erling today. Angela Merkel was also once accused of this. However, she has long since become a “lao pengyou”, a “time-honored friend of the Chinese people“.
Under the direction of the state-owned railway company China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC), two Transrapid prototypes have been developed in recent years. One of the trains, named CRRC 600 and consisting of six elements, is a further development of the Transrapid TR08, manufactured by ThyssenKrupp at the time. It will not be able to travel faster than 600 kilometers per hour.
The second train is being developed by Southwest Jiaotong University Chengdu and CRRC. It could become a so-called Hyperloop train that also travels over 1000 kilometers per hour.
Transrapid 2.0: through the tube in a vacuum
The biggest technical difference: The Hyperloop is a Transrapid 2.0, which will travel in a likely transparent acrylic tube in which a vacuum is created. This means the train has no air resistance to overcome. Otherwise, the high speeds, which correspond to those of an airplane, are technically impossible to achieve.
Magnetic levitation technology was classified as a key technology by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology back in 2002. Since then, a total of over 30 Chinese companies and research institutions have been involved in the project under the leadership of CRRC.
CRRC is the world’s largest train manufacturer and one of the largest industrial groups. The company, which is listed on the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges, has a market capitalization of around €20 billion.
Now that the central government has decided to use magnetic levitation technology on a large scale, the CRRC is under considerable pressure to succeed. This is because several thousand kilometers of maglev trains are to be built in China by 2030 at the latest. The two most important routes are Beijing – Guangzhou – Shenzhen and Shanghai – Guangzhou – Shenzhen. It is planned to be able to travel from Beijing to Shenzhen in just over three and a half hours. The flight takes two and a half hours. Within just two and a half hours, the Transrapid 2.0 is to go between Guangzhou and Shanghai. China already has the largest conventional high-speed rail network in the world, with trains that travel a good 300 kilometers per hour.
Commuter train with 800 km/h
But a shorter route of just under 200 kilometers to the new administrative city of Xiongan, near Beijing, is also planned. It is considered one of the most important projects of state and party leader Xi Jinping. It is to be a commuter train with Hyperloop technology that travels 800 kilometers per hour.
The Chinese have developed it further to make the technology suitable for everyday use on these routes. The project is part of the climate strategy announced by President Xi Jinping in the fall of 2020, which aims to make China climate-neutral by 2060.
To ensure that the high-speed train project moves forward, CRRC plans to further develop the technology with European partners such as Thyssen-Krupp, Knorr-Bremse, and Beckhoff, and to revitalize the German test track in Lathen for the tests.
At the heart of the European-Chinese collaboration would be Hardt Hyperloop, a Dutch startup in which German investor Frank Thelen also has a stake worth tens of millions. The CRRC and Hardt are already in talks. Hardt, also with the support of German suppliers, is further ahead than CRRC in some development areas – for example, electronic switches, tubes, vacuum pumps, or braking technology.
There is a similar project in Las Vegas, financed by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, among others. However, for political reasons, the Chinese have decided not to cooperate with the Americans for the time being.
‘A win-win situation‘
Ralf Effenberger, managing director of INTIS GmbH and head of the Emsland Transrapid test facility, confirmed to China.Table that he is aware of the CRRC inquiry regarding Lathen. “For the facility to be put back into operation, a national interest must also be pursued through it, or so the law stipulates,” Effenberger explained. “Since numerous German companies would profit from the project, this case is certainly given.” It was virtually “a win-win situation”. Today, such large projects would no longer be developed by one company or nation alone. The test track in Lathen could become an example of “how global cooperation can work to develop a new climate-friendlier transport technology.”
The Chinese play it safe
Will the Chinese-European cooperation with a revived test track in Lathen really work in the end? In parallel with the CRRC’s push in Lathen, MP Yang Jun, who represents the city of Qingdao, submitted a motion to the National People’s Congress this week to build a 150-kilometer test track from the coastal city of Qingdao to Ri Zhao.
The facility in Emden continued to operate as a tourist attraction after the Transrapid project in Germany was halted, until it was shut down in 2006 after a severe accident that killed 23 people.
“It is possible to get the plant operational again within a maximum of 18 months,” says Effenberger. However, this is only an initial estimate. It is also conceivable that the plant could be expanded.
Parallel to the considerations of a test track in Germany, there is already an initial agreement of the Southwest Jiaotong University in Chengdu to cooperate closely with the University in Oldenburg and the Emden-Leer University of Applied Sciences. The universities are leaders in magnetic levitation technology in their respective countries.
CRRC buys German locomotive plant
In addition, in May of last year, the CRRC acquired the locomotive plant Vosslow in Kiel. This could become the European location of CRRC. In any case, it is planned that the trains will also receive European approval and will also be produced in Europe. Already in March 2016, CRRC acquired the Saxon company Cideon – reportedly the first purchase of the Chinese in Europe. The Bautzen-based company offers services such as the technical development, modernization, or conversion of rail vehicles.
From the Chinese point of view, the main advantage of Lathen is that the trains are easy to transport there. They would be transported by RoRo ship from China to Bremerhaven and from there on through the Weser-Ems Canal to the port of Doerpe, which is around four kilometers away from Lathen.
In 2003, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and the then Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji had opened a commercial test track in Shanghai. The Transrapid technology had originally been developed by Thyssen-Krupp and Siemens, although Siemens was more interested from the outset in selling the classic wheel-rail technology of the ICE to China because there was more to be earned from these trains. In the meantime, Chinais the only country in the world that has almost 20 years of everyday experience with magnetic levitation technology with over 90 million passengers.
The stab in the back for Hong Kong’s remaining democratic structures was accompanied by a long round of applause from political leaders. On Thursday, 2895 delegates of the National People’s Congress (NCP) in Beijing had voted in favor of the proposed electoral law reform, which finally turns the formerly competition-oriented Hong Kong system of government into an authoritarian copy in the sense of the People’s Republic of China.
The pro-democracy Apple Daily noted that no other decision by China’s parliament that day was met with more applause from the floor than the one that relegates Hong Kong’s opposition to irrelevance. With only one abstention, the near-unanimous result even eclipsed the passage of the National Security Law on the spot a year ago. Back then, six delegates voted against it.
“The Hong Kong government and I stand firmly behind this decision and want to express our gratitude from the bottom of our hearts,” Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam said, commenting on the result of the vote, which was no more based on democratic principles than the future election of the Hong Kong Legislative Council, the legislative body of the former British crown colony. It was not a matter of sidelining the opposition, but of ensuring that Hong Kong would be governed by patriots in the future, Lam declared. She was echoing Beijing’s call for Hong Kong’s executive, legislative and judicial branches to be composed only of “true patriots“. To ensure this, the city even introduced a new law requiring public officials to take an oath to act patriotically – and thus in the spirit of the Communist Party. What is patriotic is determined by the party. Those who break the law lose their posts.
‘It’s a very sad decision for Hong Kong’
In the pro-democracy camp, the vote was noted with regret. “It is a very sad decision for Hong Kong. I believe that the future members of the Legislative Council will be less and less representative of the city’s citizens. Instead, they will be loyalists whose hands will be tied and who will in no way represent the people of Hong Kong,” said Lo Kin-hei, chairman of the Democratic Party.
Hong Kong’s democratic electoral system, which has beenundermined for years, has now been restructured by the National People’s Congress in such a way that Beijing need no longer fear any nasty surprises. “Loopholes” have thus been plugged that could be exploited by those who wanted to harm Hong Kong, it was said. Key points of the reform are an increase in the staffing of two committees. Firstly, the committee that elects the head of government will be increased from 1200 to 1500 electors. At the same time, the number of members of parliament, i.e., the Legislative Council, will also be increased from 70 to 90. What sounds like formal changes with no impact on the election outcome is in fact an expansion of Beijing’s influence over appointments to the bodies. The additional seats on both bodies will be filled in advance from Beijing with candidates of choice. Democratically achieved majorities of the opposition are as good as impossible as long as Beijing’s organized voices do what the party expects of them.
Postponement of the elections to the Legislative Council by one year
The importance of district elections in the city is thus further minimized. In the fall of 2019, democratic politicians had won more than 80 percent of all local government seats in the wake of months of protests against Beijing’s hold on the city, capturing a large number of votes to elect the head of government. The opposition even thought it had a minimal chance of winning a majority in the Legislative Council, which could have been the undoing of Prime Minister Lam. All it would have taken was for her budget to be rejected twice. But the Legislative Council elections were then moved to the autumn of this year, officially because of the COVID pandemic. Opposition politicians, however, believe that the Hong Kong government wanted to buy time to model the framework in its favor until the election was rescheduled. That has now happened with the decision in Beijing.
The vote also triggered reactions in Germany. Frank Schwabe, human rights policy spokesman for the SPD in the German Bundestag, told China.Table: “With this reform, the Chinese government is trying to complete what it started a while ago. Namely, to take total political control in the city, contrary to its treaty commitments. Consistently, it wants to erase all remaining traces of democratic structures. This electoral reform is another bitter blow to the opposition in Hong Kong.” In 1997, the city was handed over to the People’s Republic by the British after 100 years of colonial rule. The restitution treaty included an agreement for broad autonomy for the city until 2047, including universal suffrage.
However, it never got that far. Today, Hong Kong is much further away from universal suffrage than it was in 1997. Yet the city’s political leadership is not telling the people the truth but rather selling its departure from democratic elements as a contribution to building a free society. Carrie Lam’s predecessor, Leung Chun-ying, claimed in an interview with the South China Morning Post a few days ago that the electoral law form created the basis for universal suffrage to become possible in the first place. However, the increasingly authoritarian structures in the city contradict this statement.
‘Political purge’
Didi Kirsten Tatlow, a Senior Fellow in the Asia Program of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) in Berlin, was born and raised in Hong Kong. She speaks of a “political purge”. All voices not in line with Beijing’s line are to be silenced, Tatlow believes. “It’s a tragedy to have to watch so much of what made Hong Kong a liberal metropolis for many decades now being destroyed by authoritarian Beijing policies.”
As a consequence of the developments of the past few years, the Heritage Foundation, a US think tank, had already removed the city from its global index of economic freedom and instead assigned it to the People’s Republic for the first time. Yet Hong Kong had actually topped the list for 25 years until 2019, before the city was replaced by Singapore the previous year. Both camps are arguing about what the lawmakers’ new authoritarian line means for Hong Kong as a financial center and business hub. Beijing’s advocates expect an increase in new issuance in the local stock market, which is expected to be particularly attractive to those companies that hail from nations participating in China’s Belt and Road Initiative, commonly referred to as the New Silk Road. On the other hand, Skeptics expect a withdrawal of numerous companies from the city’s financial markets.
However, consequences loom at least for the city’s leading political figures. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had already announced further sanctions against those “responsible for repressive measures in Hong Kong” shortly before the vote in Beijing. EU foreign affairs envoy Josep Borrell had also said in advance that Brussels was prepared to take additional steps. He did not give details on this so far.
Neue Seidenstraße
Universal Studios open in Beijing
The political mood between China and the US may be the worst it’s been in decades. Yet, that doesn’t change the fact that many Beijingers can hardly wait these days for the capital’s newest attraction to finally open: Chinese state media reports that the first Universal Studio Theme Park in mainland China is set to open in the Tongzhou district in May after less than three years of construction. Tests of the new facility are already in full swing, and the new park’s website is already online.
The timing couldn’t be better. With China having largely kept the COVID pandemic under control, domestic tourism is picking up strongly. At the same time, travel abroad is not yet an option, which is why a new offering like the Universal Park in Beijing can expect a huge rush from day one.
Ten million visitors expected
Until now, to visit one of the world’s most famous theme parks after the Disney resorts, Chinese citizens have had to travel either to Singapore, Osaka in Japan, or California, where the Universal movie studio opened its first theme park in 1964 to promote the heroes of its films.
As at the other locations, visitors to Beijing can expect not only thrilling roller coaster rides but also stage shows and over 80 restaurants. Highlights include themed worlds such as the Kung Fu Panda Land of Awesomeness, Transformers: Metrobase, a Minion Land, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and Jurassic World.
It is no coincidence that Universal has built its largest park to date on an area of 400 hectares in Beijing in a joint venture with Chinese partners. The company has closely observed how immensely successful its competitor Disney has been since opening in Shanghai in 2016. Last year alone, Disney recorded around eleven million visitors there. Universal is hoping for ten million guests per year in Beijing.
Some Chinese politicians don’t like the way the US is sneaking into the country with its seductive soft power. When Disney opened its doors in Shanghai, a well-known entrepreneur gave voice to these hardliners – but for his own business interests. Wanda Group founder Wang Jianlin said, in a television interview at the time, that Disney had “no business being in China”. The days of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck were long gone, and his company would soon “defeat” Disney.
At the time, Wang was in the process of retooling his real estate conglomerate Wanda into the country’s largest entertainment conglomerate. However, financial difficulties later forced Wanda to sell off its own parks.
No interest in Tencent figures
Nationalism here – Chinese values there: the Chinese people love their Western film heroes. Universal Studio is already feeling the effects of this, even weeks before the planned opening. The state-owned newspaper Global Times reported a storm of indignation when Universal announced that some well-known computer game characters from the Chinese Tencent company would also be represented in the new park. People don’t visit the park to see Tencent characters, but rather the well-known Universal heroes, the newspaper quoted Chinese Internet users as saying. Gregor Koppenburg/Jörn Petrin
Wang Jianlin
News
BDI: Xinjiang endangers CAI
The Federation of German Industries (BDI) has criticized the approaches to international trade set out in China’s Five-Year Plan as inadequate. “German industry misses clear signals in the 14th Five-Year Plan for a real change of course towards openness and a market economy,” said BDI Chief Executive Joachim Lang. A level playing field between foreign investors and Chinese state-owned enterprises does not exist and cannot be expected in the medium term.
The BDI is skepticalabout the improved protection of intellectual property promised by Beijing in its Five-Year Plan. China’s efforts to become more independent and the government’s promotion of future industries threaten to increase competition for German companies on the world market, according to the association’s assessment.
The “human rights situation in Xinjiang and the political situation in Hong Kong also put a strain on political and economic relations” and clouded the signing of the investment agreement between China and the EU (CAI), writes the BDI. China must clarify the allegations of human rights violations and provide the international community with insight into the conditions on the ground, the association demands. The BDI is critical of the planned EU supply chain law, as it could “lead to increased tensions with China“.
The BDI sees opportunities for German companies that contribute to “upgrading China’s industrial base”, i.e., supplying machinery and high-tech goods. The association also welcomes the tax cuts and write-off options announced by Beijing for expenditure on research and development, as well as the “improved and cheaper supply in the areas of energy and communications”.
Overall, the BDI praises the conclusion of the CAI negotiations. The association also calls on the EU to adopt a “powerful anti-subsidy instrument”. This measure would enable the EU to take action against market distortions caused by Chinese state subsidies. The BDI is also calling for the conclusion of the EU’s International Procurement Instrument (IPI), which has been planned for years. The instrument has been under discussion at the EU level since 2012 and is intended to lead to the mutual opening of public procurement markets with third countries. nib
14th Five-Year Plan
Human Rights
Sanctions
Xinjiang
China-USA meeting in Alaska next week
So now it’s certain: The top foreign policy officials of the USA and China will meet in Anchorage, Alaska, on Thursday next week. The foreign ministries of both countries confirmed the meeting, which was first reported this week by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post. Attending from the US side will be Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. From China, the Communist Party’s top foreign policy official and former Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi (officially “Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission”), as well as the current Foreign Minister and State Councillor Wang Yi, will attend.
US President Joe Biden had already spoken on the phone with China’s President Xi Jinping in February. But the meeting in Alaska will be the first personal contact at the highest level.
How quickly this meeting was organized is quite surprising. The high speed is already reflected in the fact that both sides did not even have time to define the meeting by name. While the Chinese side spoke of a “strategic dialogue”, US Secretary of State Blinken stressed that it was not initially a strategic dialogue – because there were “no plans at this point for a series of follow-up meetings”. There would have to be tangible progress on issues important to the United States for that to happen. Blinken classified the meeting before the US Congress as an opportunity to “lay out Washington’s concerns in very frank terms”. The State Department only said in vague terms that they would talk about “a number of issues”. There is a need to talk about many issues: Trade, technology, values, human rights, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang are just a few.
China’s Premier Li Keqiang touted a constructive relationship between the two sides to reporters yesterday. China and the US have far-reaching common interests, Li said. They could cooperate in many areas. Foreign Office spokesman Zhao Lijian, meanwhile, called on the US to abandon “Cold War thinking” and stop interfering in China’s internal affairs.
It was important to the US side that the first meetingtakes placeon American soil and after consultations with allies in Asia and Europe, said government spokeswoman Jen Psaki. The fact that China has agreed to this shows how important it is to Beijing, too, that the thread of talks be resumed. ck
Geopolitics
Yang Jiechi
Chips: China-US cooperation
The China Semiconductor Industry Association (CSIA) has announced the formation of a working group with its US counterpart, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). Both associations plan to meet semi-annually to keep each other informed about technology and trade restrictions, according to a CSIA statement. It also said it wants to exchange views on export controls, supply chain security, and encryption issues, as well as develop policy recommendations on areas that affect both sides. Ten member firms from each of the two associations are expected to participate in the biannual meetings. A date for the first meeting has not yet been announced.
Cooperation between the associations is urgently needed, a senior adviser at consulting firm Intralink told Bloomberg: “It would be a disaster if two semiconductor worlds emerged whose products were incompatible or there were no standards.”
The formation of the working group comes amid speculation that the US government may ease certain trade restrictions against Chinese semiconductor firms to ease the global shortage of chips, according to the South China Morning Post.
Strategies in USA, China, and EU
The shortage of chips and the dependencies on a few supplier countries have led to increased efforts to build up domestic production capacities in China, the USA as well as Europe. China aims to meet about 70 percent of its chip needs from its own production by 2025. So far, the country still imports semiconductors worth $300 billion annually. Just last week, Premier Li Keqiang announced massive investments in the chip industry. Last year, only just under 16 percent of the chips sold in China were produced in the country itself.
The US industry, on the other hand, is calling for greater government support for domestic production in order to secure supplies and maintain its technological lead over China, as reported by the Financial Times. The EU Commission is also pursuing plans for the economic area to produce its own advanced semiconductors by 2030. By then, at least 20 percent of global production by value should take place within the EU. That would be a doubling of the current value.
Currently, the EU, US (12 percent), and China (16 percent) together account for 38 percent of global chip production, while South Korea and Taiwan account for 43 percent of global production capacity. nib
Chips
Semiconductor
Technology
Column
Hurt feelings and old friends
By Johnny Erling
To describe the climate between the US and China asfreezing is a classic understatement. Currently, nearly nine out of ten US citizens (89 percent) see the People’s Republic as an unfriendlycompetitor and enemy, but not a partner. That was the finding of a representative online poll by the Washington-based Pew Research Center, which coincided with the opening of the People’s Congress. Pew also used a “temperature gauge” in its survey. For 67 percent, their China feelings had “cooled down”, compared with just 46 percent in 2018. Nearly one in four citizens (24 percent) reported freezing zero degrees, nearly three times more than in 2018.
The emotional temper tantrum seems like a tit-for-tat response to accusationsBeijing regularly makes to foreign countries of “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people“. (伤害中国人民的感情). With this formula, it lashes out at states, companies, individuals, or institutions of any kind that China’s government feels has stepped on its toes. It is, the Economist suggested, a move by the party to interfere abroad. In the process, the Chinese people are not being consulted about whether they feel offended. Beijing’s foreign ministry and its party media decide by proxy when, how, where, and by whom their “feelings” are hurt.
‘Hurt feelings of Chinese people’ becomes political slogan
In 1959, the People’s Daily first printed the formula as a warning to New Delhi because Indian troops had crossed into Chinese-claimed territory in the Himalayas. David Bandursky of the China Media Project examined 143 instances where the People’s Daily slapped the label of having “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people” on foreign countries between 1959 and 2015. Japan was warned 51 times, and the US 35 times. “After 1978, the slogan became an integral part of the party’s political discourse.”
Since Beijing has been more aggressive in representing its interests in foreign policy and flexing its economic muscles, it has happened more often that those so branded feel compelled to make a public apology for fear of sanctions. In 2018, carmaker Mercedes Benz made amends to the Chinese embassy in Berlin after quoting the Dalai Lama (politically outlawed only in China) in a commercial. The Italian luxury brand Dolce&Gabbana (D&G) was ruined by a humorous video showing a Chinese woman eating pizza with chopsticks. Beijing found the commercial deeply discriminatory. D&G had to cancel fashion shows and its China sales fell. The nationalist Global Times triumphed: “Facts show that hurting the national feelings of the Chinese people will be punished by the market, and the country’s 1.3 billion people will decide.”
Mercedes, Dolce&Gabbana, and Ronald Reagan
Nothing has changed in the sweeping accusation for 60 years. Only the number of Chinese suffering from hurt feelings had to be updated after each census. In 1959, it was 670 million people. In August 1980, Xinhua accused then-US President Ronald Reagan of “deeply hurting the feelings of a billion people” by wanting to set up a US government liaison office in Taiwan. Anyone who speaks critically abroad about China’s three T-taboos (Taiwan, Tibet, and Tiananmen) automatically hurts the feelings of the Chinese people.
In 2000, 1.2 billion people were offended after Sweden awarded its Nobel Prize for Literature to Gao Xingjian, a dissident living in France. In 2012, according to Xinhua, Japan hurt the feelings of 1.3 billion Chinese when China’s island dispute with Japan came to a head in September 2012 over who owns the Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands in the East China Sea.
In September 2007, Beijing’s sensitivity hit Chancellor Angela Merkel when she met the Dalai Lama in Berlin, “hurting and seriously undermining the feelings of the Chinese people and mutual relations”. However, because Merkel visited China every year thereafter, and never met the Dalai Lama again, she once more became the “lao pengyou”, the “time-honored friend of the Chinese people” (中国人民的老朋友).
Merkel is “time-honored friend of the people”
Being “lao pengyou” is the antithesis of being a feelings trampler. Politicians and business leaders who have visited China at least three times are entitled to it. The exception to the rule was Henry Kissinger, who met all of China’s leaders from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping. Because Beijing needed him, Mao and his Premier Zhou Enlai called him “old friend” by their second meeting. Kissinger noted in his book “China” that Beijing “flatters visitors by greeting them as ‘old friends’, making it difficult for them to disagree and engage in confrontation.”
Friendship, Kissinger said, is not seen as a “personal quality” but is forged as “long-term cultural, national or historical bonds”. China’s leadership had retained “a little of the traditional treatment of barbarians in its dealings with foreigners”.
Conversely, it means that the Chinese people’s feelings, so deeply hurt, will heal in an instant once Beijing’s alleged culprit appears useful again. Or won’t arise at all if everyone joins forces to resist the calculated pressure.
Geopolitics
Mercedes Benz
USA
Dessert
A 39-year-old farmer and noodle maker has unexpectedly become a social media star in China: Cheng Yunfu gained Internet fame for selling his hand-pulled noodles for the consistent price of three yuan – just over 40 cents – at a market in his home province of Shandong for as long as 15 years, several media outlets reported. In a video shared on social media sites such as Kuaishou, Cheng explains that he did not raise the price because otherwise, villagers would not be able to afford the noodle soup.
Thrilled with Cheng, onlookers and fans flooded the small village of Matihe – suddenly, his cooking was being filmed by hundreds of people. Some were streaming live alongside him on their mobile phone cameras, Cheng told the South China Morning Post. The overnight fame was too much for Cheng at the beginning. But he has since gotten used to it and wants to use his fame to help his village and bring paying customers there. He is glad that the village now has this chance, even if he does not want to be famous, Cheng said, according to the report.
