A success of German subsidy policy, albeit a quite costly one. After tough negotiations, it seems that the German side has apparently succeeded in bringing TSMC, the absolute top player in the global chip industry, to Germany. The final decision is expected to be announced in August.
The Taiwanese company is said to receive €3 to €4 billion in state funds to establish a high-tech factory in Dresden. Compared to the €10 billion that competitor Intel is demanding for its investments in Magdeburg, the price that TSMC is asking for seems reasonable. However, the Taiwanese do not intend to manufacture their most advanced microchips, over which TSMC holds a quasi-monopoly, in “Silicon Saxony”. Instead, they will only produce chips that were already current a decade ago. After all, the company headquarters in Taiwan is expected to remain irreplaceable for the West as a “Silicon Shield” in the future, as analyzed by Finn Mayer-Kuckuk.
While electric buses are still the exception in German cities, electric buses from China have long become a bestseller. Electrically operated buses from the People’s Republic are now present in almost all African countries. The Chinese manufacturer Yutong plans to sell an additional 16,000 electric buses to the Nigerian mega metropolis of Lagos, if not for the financial problems of the Nigerian partner company. Africa.Table editor Christian von Hiller has delved into the problems.
Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer TSMC is openly discussing its planned investment in Dresden for the first time. The project is making good progress, said Kevin Zhang 張曉強, Senior Vice President for Business Development, in Amsterdam in front of journalists. The final decision will be made in August at a board meeting.
The EU and Germany are aggressively courting the market leader in advanced chips. The automotive industry, in particular, is pushing to bring back the vital components within the EU. This is also an important building block for the “de-risking” strategy that currently dominates the China debate. A conflict involving or with China should not cripple the entire industry. TSMC’s main site in Hsinchu is potentially threatened by a Chinese grab for Taiwan.
A TSMC site in Dresden has been under discussion for some time. The Taiwanese company is already building new factories in the US and Japan, also at the request of the respective governments. Now it’s Europe’s turn. Therefore, the company was able to negotiate high subsidies. It has strong arguments that the state should provide an incentive for the investment:
According to reports, TSMC will receive €3 to €4 billion from the state, which is nearly half of the project’s total cost of around €10 billion. Local partners being considered include semiconductor specialist Infineon and automotive supplier Bosch. Collaboration with national champions is common. In Japan, the technology company Sony and automotive supplier Denso are also involved.
The higher costs in Germany partly justify the subsidies. However, they also reflect a worldwide race for subsidies. China itself is currently allocating ¥1 trillion yuan (€130 billion) to the semiconductor sector. All major economies are acting similarly at present: They want or need to become more independent from others.
China is under particular pressure as the US effectively cuts off the country’s access to high-tech semiconductors. Europe is acting hastily due to the shock of dependence on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, but the idea of establishing a semiconductor facility had already emerged long before. The US is allocating $1.5 trillion for the Chips and Science Act which aims to bring technologies back to the country. Enormous sums are being invested globally in the semiconductor industry by taxpayers.
Europe now sees the danger that subventioned semiconductors manufactured in China will be gratefully accepted by customers. Chinese state-owned enterprises could thus displace European competitors and become indispensable.
The EU Commission is countering this, among other things, with its Chips Act, which provides incentives for semiconductor manufacturing. The EU aims to double its share of global semiconductor production by 2030. Under the Chips Act, it is mobilizing €43 billion for this purpose. TSMC is likely to tap into funds from the program.
The new chip factory in Dresden is very welcome from the perspective of the German industry, but TSMC is by no means offering Europe the latest technology here. Most likely, the company is building a factory for semiconductor generations that were current around the year 2010. Specifically, these are chips with feature sizes of 28 nanometers and larger.
However, the current technical limit that only TSMC reaches is at three nanometers, with the market currently utilizing seven-nanometer chips for high-end applications. The smaller the number, the faster, more energy-efficient and cooler the chips run. Modern AI applications require the immense computing power that is possible in the single-digit nanometer range.
However, for the simpler computers in today’s cars, 28-nanometer chips are still perfectly adequate, which is why Germany eagerly seized the opportunity. Chips of this performance class are already being produced in Europe – even in Dresden.
TSMC will continue to manufacture the most advanced chips with tiny feature sizes in Taiwan for the foreseeable future. This is also in the interest of the threatened island republic. The “Silicon Shield” against China works when the US fears the failure of system-critical suppliers and therefore has a concrete motivation for military assistance.
TSMC is currently definitely of systemic relevance. This also has to do with how the industry has developed. The providers with the best technology have prevailed over decades – and only a few companies remain that actually produce physically.
The well-known names in the chip business, such as Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Infineon, Apple or Qualcomm, have TSMC implement their ideas and put their name on them. The clients have the advantage of not having to invest capital in buildings, machinery and employees, yet they can still offer the most advanced products.
The potential investment partners Bosch and Infineon already operate their own factories in the Dresden region. They would be the ideal customers for the products from the new TSMC facility, which the Taiwanese company could manufacture on their behalf. Bosch manufactures semiconductor components for the automotive industry here.
The Nigerian port city of Lagos is leaving German cities far behind in terms of electromobility. Chinese manufacturer Yutong Bus Co will deliver 12,000 electric buses to Lagos, surpassing the number currently in operation in many German cities. For example, Berlin currently has only around 1,500 electric buses on the roads.
Yutong produces plug-in hybrid buses, battery buses and trolleybuses, claiming to sell over 16,000 “new energy buses” annually. It is the world’s largest manufacturer of electric vehicles and collaborates with MAN to align Yutong’s products with international standards.
The largest manufacturer in Europe is Solaris, with a delivery of around 400 electric and hydrogen buses in 2021 (numbers for 2022 have yet to be published). Other European manufacturers include Ebusco and VDL from the Netherlands. MAN, Volkswagen, and Daimler are also entering the market for electric buses.
While European bus manufacturers have had minimal activity in Africa, Yutong claims to be present in 50 African countries, representing almost all of the continent’s 54 countries. Yutong has been operating in the African market since 2004 and now accounts for 45 percent of Chinese bus exports to the continent. Yutong also operates its assembly plants in Nigeria and Ethiopia.
The transaction between Yutong and the Nigerian capital Lagos would be a sensation if it reached a successful conclusion. However, the future of the Nigerian partner remains uncertain as it is facing existential challenges. The Chinese partner’s Nigerian counterpart is Oando, one of the major oil companies in Nigeria. Oando Clean Energy Limited (Ocel), owned by Oando through its subsidiary Oando Energy Resources, is responsible for managing the bus business with Yutong and is committed to building the necessary infrastructure for electromobility in the metropolitan region within seven years. Ocel has pledged to establish a functional ecosystem based on electric mobility infrastructure for the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (Lamata).
This task will be challenging enough. However, the greatest uncertainty in this business lies in the uncertainties surrounding the Oando Group. The company has been embroiled in a severe financial scandal for years. The Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), similar to the American SEC, has imposed fines and other penalties on Oando due to malpractices in the company’s financial reports. In 2019, Oando faced severe penalties for these compliance violations, which it unsuccessfully contested.
While Oando reached a settlement with the SEC in the summer of 2021, which cost the company a significant, undisclosed amount, it has never fully recovered from the scandal. The company’s stock price has plummeted by 60 percent over the past ten years. The company, listed on the Lagos and Johannesburg stock exchanges, currently has a market capitalization of approximately €150 million.
Two months ago, on March 29, Oando finally released its 2020 annual report with significant delays. According to the report, Oando reduced its loss from ₦171 billion (€342 million) in the previous year to ₦118 billion (€236 million). However, a loss of over half a billion euros in just two years weighs heavily.
While the auditor BDO had given an unqualified opinion in the annual report, it expressed doubts about the company’s continuity. The day after, the major shareholder of Oando, Ocean and Oil Development Partners, announced its intention to acquire all the shares of minority shareholders and delist Oando from the stock exchange. Therefore, it is not yet certain that Oando will be able to complete the bus business.
It is also unclear how Oando intends to finance the purchase of the buses, given its significant losses. Neither Oando nor Yutong have disclosed the value of the contract. Therefore, it can only be roughly estimated: In Germany, the price of a standard overnight-charged electric bus is slightly over €500,000. This makes it approximately twice as expensive as a conventional diesel bus. If Oando were to pay this standard price, the purchase price for the Chinese buses alone would be €6 billion.
Although the buses for Lagos are expected to be highly advanced, equipped with air conditioning and Wi-Fi, the Yutong buses are likely to be cheaper than comparable European models. It is also hoped that Oando’s managers have negotiated a substantial volume discount. However, the purchase of the buses alone is likely to cost several billion euros.
In addition to the purchase price of the buses, the construction of charging infrastructure in Lagos, the establishment of depots and workshops for the 12,000 buses, and certainly the development of sufficient power generation need to be taken into account. Nigeria currently produces only a fraction of the electricity needed in the country, and the population is supplied with electricity for only a few hours a day.
The business partners have yet to announce the energy sources from which the buses will be powered. However, Ocel specializes in the construction and operation of solar parks and wind farms, as well as the production of biofuels, geothermal energy utilization and waste management.
Despite the uncertainty about the future of Oando, Yutong representatives remain optimistic. “This is a turning point for Yutong,” said Frank Lee, Head of West Africa at Yutong, in a company statement. “It is our first delivery of electric urban buses in Sub-Saharan Africa and the first step towards the large-scale introduction of an electric-powered public road transport system in Nigeria.” We can only hope that the Chinese partner will also provide the financing for this order with the buses.
Unlike many African countries, China was never fully colonized. However, after the end of the First Opium War (1839-1842), a war that forced China to open up to foreign trade and access, the country was also partially colonized. Historian Juergen Osterhammel refers to this as “base colonization”, as certain parts of the country were under foreign jurisdiction, and foreign economic and government representatives gained increasing power throughout China. As Western states penetrated the country through imperialism, China faced political, economic and societal crises.
The so-called “Boxer Rebellion”, which emerged in North China in 1899, was a reaction to this situation. It was brutally suppressed by an Eight-Nation Alliance, including the German Empire, resulting in the looting and pillaging of Beijing and North China. Kaiser Wilhelm II’s infamous Hun speech during the farewell ceremony for the German East Asian Expeditionary Corps on July 27, 1900, encapsulated the approach: “No quarter will be given! Prisoners will not be taken!” In China, the period from the beginning of the First Opium War to the founding of the People’s Republic (1839-1949) is still regarded as the “century of humiliation”. The fact that many cultural treasures were looted and illegally taken out of the country is also a topic in China. As a result, the Chinese government established a special unit four years ago to research the losses of cultural artifacts from that era.
Of course, we cannot automatically suspect anyone who acquired art in China around 1900 of intentionally or unintentionally possessing plundered goods. It is undisputed that the Chinese art market has a long tradition. Because, in addition to the cruel contexts of acquisition during the months surrounding the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion, there were also legal ways of acquiring art in China around the turn of the century, it is necessary to take a closer look.
It is certain that a large number of foreigners who were present in Beijing at that time benefited from the looting – including members of the military, diplomats, missionaries and merchants – and that numerous collectors and dealers traveled to Beijing precisely because of the “good opportunities”. Local actors also engaged in looting. The stolen treasures passed through the Chinese art market for many years. It is crucial to conduct detailed research to determine who acquired or sold what under what circumstances.
This research is still in its early stages because we still know too little about the individual military operations, the mechanisms of the art market, and the networks of collectors and dealers during that time. Important foundational research is currently being conducted, and we hope for new sources and insights from Chinese researchers. However, provenance research must also accept gaps in knowledge, as it is often impossible to fully reconstruct the biographies of individual objects.
In the project “Traces of the ‘Boxer War’ in German Museum Collections – a joint approach“, in which seven German museums are involved in cooperation with the Palace Museum in Beijing, we are exploring the major lines of museum collecting during the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion and the global entanglements of cultural transfer from China to Germany, starting from our institutions. The crucial factor is not the contribution that the cultural assets brought to Germany in the early 20th century had to our understanding of China but rather the circumstances under which they left the country of origin.
When it comes to addressing Germany’s colonial responsibilities, we should spare no effort. In terms of the overall societal task, provenance research in museums contributes only a small but highly significant part. Through research on collection holdings, not only are mechanisms, entanglements and networks made visible, but cooperative research with countries of origin also creates new levels of relationships, forming a basis for future collaboration. Restitution is not part of provenance research but may be a consequence that is no longer in the hands of researchers.
Since the return of Chinese astronomical instruments imposed by the Treaty of Versailles in 1921 and the political act of return by East Germany as part of a friendship treaty with the People’s Republic, including the return of 10 Boxer Rebellion flags in 1955, there have been no further restitutions from Germany to China. This could change in the coming years with the increased focus on addressing colonial collection history in German museums.
Private collectors in Germany cannot be compelled to address their family histories. However, public institutions have committed themselves to an ethical and moral obligation to examine and research the circumstances under which objects entered their collections. By doing so, they aim not only to explore their own acquisition histories but also to make global-historical connections visible and, ultimately, to send important impulses to society. We have already experienced this success in our project through the overwhelming support and fruitful exchange at our workshop in March this year. We will continue to seek dialogue and hope that, over time, more and more people will be engaged in this process.
Dr. Christine Howald is the Deputy Director of the Central Archive, which leads and coordinates the provenance research at the National Museums in Berlin. She is the initiator and project leader of the collaborative project “Traces of the ‘Boxer War’ in German Museum Collections – a joint approach“, funded by the German Lost Art Foundation since November 2021. The project involves the Museum am Rothenbaum – Kunst und Kulturen der Welt in Hamburg, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art of the National Museums in Berlin, the GRASSI Museum of Applied Arts in Leipzig, the Museum of Applied Arts in Frankfurt am Main and the Museum Fünf Kontinente in Munich. She wrote this text on behalf of the entire project team.
The Himalayasaurus has not made it into the Jurassic Park film series yet. One reason may be that little is known about this giant reptile, which looks like an overweight dolphin with sharp teeth. In 1972, a Chinese researcher first learned about this sea monster, which has been extinct for about 200 million years. Paleontologists hope to gain new insights from the fossil they have discovered near Lhasa. In that area, the creature is also known as the Tibetosaurus.
A success of German subsidy policy, albeit a quite costly one. After tough negotiations, it seems that the German side has apparently succeeded in bringing TSMC, the absolute top player in the global chip industry, to Germany. The final decision is expected to be announced in August.
The Taiwanese company is said to receive €3 to €4 billion in state funds to establish a high-tech factory in Dresden. Compared to the €10 billion that competitor Intel is demanding for its investments in Magdeburg, the price that TSMC is asking for seems reasonable. However, the Taiwanese do not intend to manufacture their most advanced microchips, over which TSMC holds a quasi-monopoly, in “Silicon Saxony”. Instead, they will only produce chips that were already current a decade ago. After all, the company headquarters in Taiwan is expected to remain irreplaceable for the West as a “Silicon Shield” in the future, as analyzed by Finn Mayer-Kuckuk.
While electric buses are still the exception in German cities, electric buses from China have long become a bestseller. Electrically operated buses from the People’s Republic are now present in almost all African countries. The Chinese manufacturer Yutong plans to sell an additional 16,000 electric buses to the Nigerian mega metropolis of Lagos, if not for the financial problems of the Nigerian partner company. Africa.Table editor Christian von Hiller has delved into the problems.
Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer TSMC is openly discussing its planned investment in Dresden for the first time. The project is making good progress, said Kevin Zhang 張曉強, Senior Vice President for Business Development, in Amsterdam in front of journalists. The final decision will be made in August at a board meeting.
The EU and Germany are aggressively courting the market leader in advanced chips. The automotive industry, in particular, is pushing to bring back the vital components within the EU. This is also an important building block for the “de-risking” strategy that currently dominates the China debate. A conflict involving or with China should not cripple the entire industry. TSMC’s main site in Hsinchu is potentially threatened by a Chinese grab for Taiwan.
A TSMC site in Dresden has been under discussion for some time. The Taiwanese company is already building new factories in the US and Japan, also at the request of the respective governments. Now it’s Europe’s turn. Therefore, the company was able to negotiate high subsidies. It has strong arguments that the state should provide an incentive for the investment:
According to reports, TSMC will receive €3 to €4 billion from the state, which is nearly half of the project’s total cost of around €10 billion. Local partners being considered include semiconductor specialist Infineon and automotive supplier Bosch. Collaboration with national champions is common. In Japan, the technology company Sony and automotive supplier Denso are also involved.
The higher costs in Germany partly justify the subsidies. However, they also reflect a worldwide race for subsidies. China itself is currently allocating ¥1 trillion yuan (€130 billion) to the semiconductor sector. All major economies are acting similarly at present: They want or need to become more independent from others.
China is under particular pressure as the US effectively cuts off the country’s access to high-tech semiconductors. Europe is acting hastily due to the shock of dependence on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, but the idea of establishing a semiconductor facility had already emerged long before. The US is allocating $1.5 trillion for the Chips and Science Act which aims to bring technologies back to the country. Enormous sums are being invested globally in the semiconductor industry by taxpayers.
Europe now sees the danger that subventioned semiconductors manufactured in China will be gratefully accepted by customers. Chinese state-owned enterprises could thus displace European competitors and become indispensable.
The EU Commission is countering this, among other things, with its Chips Act, which provides incentives for semiconductor manufacturing. The EU aims to double its share of global semiconductor production by 2030. Under the Chips Act, it is mobilizing €43 billion for this purpose. TSMC is likely to tap into funds from the program.
The new chip factory in Dresden is very welcome from the perspective of the German industry, but TSMC is by no means offering Europe the latest technology here. Most likely, the company is building a factory for semiconductor generations that were current around the year 2010. Specifically, these are chips with feature sizes of 28 nanometers and larger.
However, the current technical limit that only TSMC reaches is at three nanometers, with the market currently utilizing seven-nanometer chips for high-end applications. The smaller the number, the faster, more energy-efficient and cooler the chips run. Modern AI applications require the immense computing power that is possible in the single-digit nanometer range.
However, for the simpler computers in today’s cars, 28-nanometer chips are still perfectly adequate, which is why Germany eagerly seized the opportunity. Chips of this performance class are already being produced in Europe – even in Dresden.
TSMC will continue to manufacture the most advanced chips with tiny feature sizes in Taiwan for the foreseeable future. This is also in the interest of the threatened island republic. The “Silicon Shield” against China works when the US fears the failure of system-critical suppliers and therefore has a concrete motivation for military assistance.
TSMC is currently definitely of systemic relevance. This also has to do with how the industry has developed. The providers with the best technology have prevailed over decades – and only a few companies remain that actually produce physically.
The well-known names in the chip business, such as Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Infineon, Apple or Qualcomm, have TSMC implement their ideas and put their name on them. The clients have the advantage of not having to invest capital in buildings, machinery and employees, yet they can still offer the most advanced products.
The potential investment partners Bosch and Infineon already operate their own factories in the Dresden region. They would be the ideal customers for the products from the new TSMC facility, which the Taiwanese company could manufacture on their behalf. Bosch manufactures semiconductor components for the automotive industry here.
The Nigerian port city of Lagos is leaving German cities far behind in terms of electromobility. Chinese manufacturer Yutong Bus Co will deliver 12,000 electric buses to Lagos, surpassing the number currently in operation in many German cities. For example, Berlin currently has only around 1,500 electric buses on the roads.
Yutong produces plug-in hybrid buses, battery buses and trolleybuses, claiming to sell over 16,000 “new energy buses” annually. It is the world’s largest manufacturer of electric vehicles and collaborates with MAN to align Yutong’s products with international standards.
The largest manufacturer in Europe is Solaris, with a delivery of around 400 electric and hydrogen buses in 2021 (numbers for 2022 have yet to be published). Other European manufacturers include Ebusco and VDL from the Netherlands. MAN, Volkswagen, and Daimler are also entering the market for electric buses.
While European bus manufacturers have had minimal activity in Africa, Yutong claims to be present in 50 African countries, representing almost all of the continent’s 54 countries. Yutong has been operating in the African market since 2004 and now accounts for 45 percent of Chinese bus exports to the continent. Yutong also operates its assembly plants in Nigeria and Ethiopia.
The transaction between Yutong and the Nigerian capital Lagos would be a sensation if it reached a successful conclusion. However, the future of the Nigerian partner remains uncertain as it is facing existential challenges. The Chinese partner’s Nigerian counterpart is Oando, one of the major oil companies in Nigeria. Oando Clean Energy Limited (Ocel), owned by Oando through its subsidiary Oando Energy Resources, is responsible for managing the bus business with Yutong and is committed to building the necessary infrastructure for electromobility in the metropolitan region within seven years. Ocel has pledged to establish a functional ecosystem based on electric mobility infrastructure for the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (Lamata).
This task will be challenging enough. However, the greatest uncertainty in this business lies in the uncertainties surrounding the Oando Group. The company has been embroiled in a severe financial scandal for years. The Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), similar to the American SEC, has imposed fines and other penalties on Oando due to malpractices in the company’s financial reports. In 2019, Oando faced severe penalties for these compliance violations, which it unsuccessfully contested.
While Oando reached a settlement with the SEC in the summer of 2021, which cost the company a significant, undisclosed amount, it has never fully recovered from the scandal. The company’s stock price has plummeted by 60 percent over the past ten years. The company, listed on the Lagos and Johannesburg stock exchanges, currently has a market capitalization of approximately €150 million.
Two months ago, on March 29, Oando finally released its 2020 annual report with significant delays. According to the report, Oando reduced its loss from ₦171 billion (€342 million) in the previous year to ₦118 billion (€236 million). However, a loss of over half a billion euros in just two years weighs heavily.
While the auditor BDO had given an unqualified opinion in the annual report, it expressed doubts about the company’s continuity. The day after, the major shareholder of Oando, Ocean and Oil Development Partners, announced its intention to acquire all the shares of minority shareholders and delist Oando from the stock exchange. Therefore, it is not yet certain that Oando will be able to complete the bus business.
It is also unclear how Oando intends to finance the purchase of the buses, given its significant losses. Neither Oando nor Yutong have disclosed the value of the contract. Therefore, it can only be roughly estimated: In Germany, the price of a standard overnight-charged electric bus is slightly over €500,000. This makes it approximately twice as expensive as a conventional diesel bus. If Oando were to pay this standard price, the purchase price for the Chinese buses alone would be €6 billion.
Although the buses for Lagos are expected to be highly advanced, equipped with air conditioning and Wi-Fi, the Yutong buses are likely to be cheaper than comparable European models. It is also hoped that Oando’s managers have negotiated a substantial volume discount. However, the purchase of the buses alone is likely to cost several billion euros.
In addition to the purchase price of the buses, the construction of charging infrastructure in Lagos, the establishment of depots and workshops for the 12,000 buses, and certainly the development of sufficient power generation need to be taken into account. Nigeria currently produces only a fraction of the electricity needed in the country, and the population is supplied with electricity for only a few hours a day.
The business partners have yet to announce the energy sources from which the buses will be powered. However, Ocel specializes in the construction and operation of solar parks and wind farms, as well as the production of biofuels, geothermal energy utilization and waste management.
Despite the uncertainty about the future of Oando, Yutong representatives remain optimistic. “This is a turning point for Yutong,” said Frank Lee, Head of West Africa at Yutong, in a company statement. “It is our first delivery of electric urban buses in Sub-Saharan Africa and the first step towards the large-scale introduction of an electric-powered public road transport system in Nigeria.” We can only hope that the Chinese partner will also provide the financing for this order with the buses.
Unlike many African countries, China was never fully colonized. However, after the end of the First Opium War (1839-1842), a war that forced China to open up to foreign trade and access, the country was also partially colonized. Historian Juergen Osterhammel refers to this as “base colonization”, as certain parts of the country were under foreign jurisdiction, and foreign economic and government representatives gained increasing power throughout China. As Western states penetrated the country through imperialism, China faced political, economic and societal crises.
The so-called “Boxer Rebellion”, which emerged in North China in 1899, was a reaction to this situation. It was brutally suppressed by an Eight-Nation Alliance, including the German Empire, resulting in the looting and pillaging of Beijing and North China. Kaiser Wilhelm II’s infamous Hun speech during the farewell ceremony for the German East Asian Expeditionary Corps on July 27, 1900, encapsulated the approach: “No quarter will be given! Prisoners will not be taken!” In China, the period from the beginning of the First Opium War to the founding of the People’s Republic (1839-1949) is still regarded as the “century of humiliation”. The fact that many cultural treasures were looted and illegally taken out of the country is also a topic in China. As a result, the Chinese government established a special unit four years ago to research the losses of cultural artifacts from that era.
Of course, we cannot automatically suspect anyone who acquired art in China around 1900 of intentionally or unintentionally possessing plundered goods. It is undisputed that the Chinese art market has a long tradition. Because, in addition to the cruel contexts of acquisition during the months surrounding the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion, there were also legal ways of acquiring art in China around the turn of the century, it is necessary to take a closer look.
It is certain that a large number of foreigners who were present in Beijing at that time benefited from the looting – including members of the military, diplomats, missionaries and merchants – and that numerous collectors and dealers traveled to Beijing precisely because of the “good opportunities”. Local actors also engaged in looting. The stolen treasures passed through the Chinese art market for many years. It is crucial to conduct detailed research to determine who acquired or sold what under what circumstances.
This research is still in its early stages because we still know too little about the individual military operations, the mechanisms of the art market, and the networks of collectors and dealers during that time. Important foundational research is currently being conducted, and we hope for new sources and insights from Chinese researchers. However, provenance research must also accept gaps in knowledge, as it is often impossible to fully reconstruct the biographies of individual objects.
In the project “Traces of the ‘Boxer War’ in German Museum Collections – a joint approach“, in which seven German museums are involved in cooperation with the Palace Museum in Beijing, we are exploring the major lines of museum collecting during the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion and the global entanglements of cultural transfer from China to Germany, starting from our institutions. The crucial factor is not the contribution that the cultural assets brought to Germany in the early 20th century had to our understanding of China but rather the circumstances under which they left the country of origin.
When it comes to addressing Germany’s colonial responsibilities, we should spare no effort. In terms of the overall societal task, provenance research in museums contributes only a small but highly significant part. Through research on collection holdings, not only are mechanisms, entanglements and networks made visible, but cooperative research with countries of origin also creates new levels of relationships, forming a basis for future collaboration. Restitution is not part of provenance research but may be a consequence that is no longer in the hands of researchers.
Since the return of Chinese astronomical instruments imposed by the Treaty of Versailles in 1921 and the political act of return by East Germany as part of a friendship treaty with the People’s Republic, including the return of 10 Boxer Rebellion flags in 1955, there have been no further restitutions from Germany to China. This could change in the coming years with the increased focus on addressing colonial collection history in German museums.
Private collectors in Germany cannot be compelled to address their family histories. However, public institutions have committed themselves to an ethical and moral obligation to examine and research the circumstances under which objects entered their collections. By doing so, they aim not only to explore their own acquisition histories but also to make global-historical connections visible and, ultimately, to send important impulses to society. We have already experienced this success in our project through the overwhelming support and fruitful exchange at our workshop in March this year. We will continue to seek dialogue and hope that, over time, more and more people will be engaged in this process.
Dr. Christine Howald is the Deputy Director of the Central Archive, which leads and coordinates the provenance research at the National Museums in Berlin. She is the initiator and project leader of the collaborative project “Traces of the ‘Boxer War’ in German Museum Collections – a joint approach“, funded by the German Lost Art Foundation since November 2021. The project involves the Museum am Rothenbaum – Kunst und Kulturen der Welt in Hamburg, the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art of the National Museums in Berlin, the GRASSI Museum of Applied Arts in Leipzig, the Museum of Applied Arts in Frankfurt am Main and the Museum Fünf Kontinente in Munich. She wrote this text on behalf of the entire project team.
The Himalayasaurus has not made it into the Jurassic Park film series yet. One reason may be that little is known about this giant reptile, which looks like an overweight dolphin with sharp teeth. In 1972, a Chinese researcher first learned about this sea monster, which has been extinct for about 200 million years. Paleontologists hope to gain new insights from the fossil they have discovered near Lhasa. In that area, the creature is also known as the Tibetosaurus.
