The first anniversary of the war in Ukraine is approaching. The fact that China’s chief diplomat Wang Yi wants to travel to Moscow this week of all weeks can be interpreted in different ways. Either as Beijing’s support of the Russian aggression or as part of a peace offensive Wang announced in Munich last weekend.
To appear credible to the West, Wang will also have to travel to Ukraine, analyzes Michael Radunski, who first-hand experienced the hectic and tense atmosphere at the Security Conference in the past few days. After all, a peace initiative can only be successful if there is credible mediation between the two warring parties. To talk in person with just one of the two sides would drastically diminish China’s ambitions for success. Especially since Ukraine so far has more trust in Beijing than the West. Or at least still does.
On the moon, on the other hand, one would think that territorial disputes are as far away as the earth, – well -, is from the moon. And so far that has been the case. But worldly concerns are already growing in the US that China, with its advancing space program, could make territorial claims in the immediate vicinity of the Earth’s satellite. Just as it is currently doing in the South China Sea, writes Frank Sieren. In other words, without an international legal basis.
This all sounds very much like the distant future. For all the momentum of China’s space program, the Americans, but also we should be relatively unconcerned about the moon as tomorrow’s contested territory today. We have enough earthly worries.
Wang Yi is currently on a big diplomatic mission. After the Security Conference in Munich, the next stop for China’s top diplomat was Budapest on Monday. There, he reportedly worked together with Hungary on a peaceful solution to the Ukraine war. While Washington, Berlin and Paris are still eagerly awaiting China’s initiative, Hungary’s head of government Victor Orbán is full of praise: Their guest from Beijing would highly appreciate Hungary’s “China-friendly policy”, the news agency MTI quoted him as saying.
Wang is afterward expected in Moscow. He might even meet with President Putin there. “The agenda is clear and very extensive, so there is lots to talk about,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. China’s peace initiative will also be discussed there. The conditions for Chinese mediation are good. Nevertheless, China’s advance should not be met with too much expectation.
There are basically two questions at the moment: How realistic is Wang’s announcement? And what can be expected from Beijing exactly? First, it is good to see China back in global politics after three years of the Covid pandemic. Many problems these days can only be solved together with the world’s second-largest power.
Moreover, China has long since become a country whose political, economic and also military power entails a certain level of responsibility. Beijing formulates this claim frequently – especially when it comes to establishing a new multipolar world order. It should then also live up to this responsibility in crisis situations.
And in the particular case of the Ukraine war, China would indeed be in a position to mediate between the warring parties. As Russia’s strategic partner, China has a better line to the Kremlin than probably any other country at the moment. Xi Jinping seems to be one of the few politicians who could actually persuade Vladimir Putin to stop his war campaign.
At the same time, China also seems an acceptable choice for Ukraine. The two countries have maintained good relations in the past. And even the new, strong ties between Beijing and Moscow do not seem to be a reason for Kyiv to reject Beijing as a mediator. For example, in an interview with the German newspaper Welt, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday: “I see an opportunity for China to make a pragmatic assessment of what is happening here.” Zelenskiy would even prefer to have China on his side.
So the conditions for China’s peace offensive to succeed are good. And yet, expectations of the Chinese initiative should not be too high – for several reasons.
If there is now talk in many media of a Chinese peace plan for Ukraine, it appears more like wishful thinking. A comprehensive peace plan would include the following: concrete steps, if possible also timelines, places, meetings, shuttle diplomacy – none of which can be expected from China.
China already made headlines in the past with similar announcements of taking on a major mediation role. However, the successes of Chinese mediation efforts so far have been rather limited, be it in Syria, Myanmar or Sudan. The reason: Beijing’s approach mainly focuses on media attention and direct access to local governments.
As vague as Wang Yi appeared in Munich, the few points he mentioned are already contradictory.
While this all sounds nice, a closer look reveals that the intentions contradict each other: Point 1 protects Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Point 3, however, is Russia’s literal justification for why its troops have been shooting down point 1 for almost a year.
Chinese security expert Zhou Bo also expressed this sentiment at the Munich Security Conference: The war in Ukraine clearly represents the violation of the sovereignty of one country by another. But according to the Chinese ex-military officer and current researcher at Qinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy CISS, China’s thoughts go much further on this issue, namely about the reasons. “This is where we sympathize with Russia because we know Russia took this action because of NATO expansion.”
This is not a good opening position to appear credible to Ukraine. Although China criticizes the incursion into Ukrainian territory, it otherwise follows the Russian narrative of a NATO advance that made preventive action necessary.
Bo also explained that since China and Russia share a long border, both countries have an interest in maintaining a “good and stable” relationship.
China’s own understanding of the situation also speaks against a successful mediation role. Even one year after the war began, Beijing is still playing the cruel war actions down as a “crisis”. Moreover, China holds the USA and NATO solely responsible as provocateurs and triggers of the war.
However, the fact that it was Russia that invaded Ukraine has not been heard from Beijing so far. China’s own perception as a “neutral state” is therefore commonly referred to as “pro-Russian neutrality“.
The term “pro-Russian neutrality” derives its justification not only from rhetorical subtleties (see point 3) but also from tangible acts. While the US and Europe have almost completely severed their economic ties with Russia, bilateral trade between Beijing and Moscow has grown enormously since the beginning of the war.
The West’s reaction to the Chinese proposal is correspondingly skeptical. “We know that China very clearly supports Russia’s position,” said EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen in Munich. Omid Nouripour is also not particularly convinced. “With its closeness to Russia, how can China seriously mediate?” the Green Party co-chairman told Table.Media. “But let’s wait and see what the Chinese will present.”
Wang Yi will probably want to sell his visit to Moscow as the first step in a Chinese mediation mission. If China were really serious about this, its next stop would be Kyiv.
Added to this are new accusations from the USA. China allegedly considers supplying “lethal aid” to Russia, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He also announced that he would soon present corresponding proof. It is not yet clear whether Blinken refers to the direct provision of weapons or at least the supply of dual-use systems, i.e. products that can be used for both civil and military purposes.
According to experts, China could provide satellite imagery that would enable the Russian Wagner Group to carry out more targeted strikes or provide high-quality electronic parts urgently needed by the Russian military.
In any case, China firmly rejected such accusations on Monday: “The US is in no position to tell China what to do,” said a foreign ministry spokesperson in Beijing. “We would never stand for finger-pointing, or even coercion and pressurizing from the US on our relations with Russia.”
China and the USA are fighting for supremacy not only at the border between airspace and outer space, but also in outer space itself. Here, China has to catch up, but it is making surprisingly rapid progress. The People’s Republic has been running a permanent space station since the end of 2022, and two astronauts carried out their first spacewalk around the beginning of 2023. This means that mankind now operates two permanent habitable outposts in space.
The rivalry was sparked by the Americans’ decision to exclude the Chinese from the International Space Station (ISS). But the ISS, a joint project of the USA, Russia, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency ESA, will be decommissioned in 2031: it is too expensive. Private investors are supposed to step in.
China’s space station, on the other hand, remains in operation – no matter how much it costs. The figures are not disclosed anyway. However, it is much smaller than the ISS. It weighs only 66 tonnes, while the ISS weighs seven times as much. “Tiangong” can accommodate up to six taikonauts. But as a rule, only three people are supposed to be on board per mission. That is the minimum manning for spacewalks. Two go out, and the third astronaut assists from inside. Seven astronauts are stationed on the ISS. During crew changes, there are briefly as many as eleven.
After the former Soviet Union and the United States, China became in October 2003 the third country to send an astronaut into Earth orbit. The first spacewalk was carried out by the “Shenzhou 7” spacecraft in September 2008. After only seven manned space flights. And in these 20 years, China has come a long way in space: It successfully operates an exploration vehicle on Mars, has retrieved rocks from the Moon with the probe “Chang’e 5” and was the first nation ever to land a spacecraft on the far side of the Earth’s satellite. However, no Chinese has ever been to the moon.
NASA chief Bill Nelson is already warning about being too relaxed about the competitor: “We are in a space race.” His fear: The Chinese could do the same thing on the moon as they did in the South China Sea. “It is not beyond the realm of possibility that they say, ‘Keep out, we’re here, this is our territory.’” Although Nelson probably also said this to receive more funding.
The next stage, which both China and the USA are planning, is a permanent station on the moon. Here, too, NASA is dependent on private entrepreneurs. For example, Elon Musk. In March, he will send his new SpaceX rocket into orbit, the most powerful and largest rocket in space history. Coupled with it is “Starship”, a reusable spacecraft that has already completed several test flights – some of which literally went up in flames.
NASA wants to rent Musk’s rocket for its Artemis program, which aims to send astronauts to the moon again. The plan is to return to the moon in 2025 for the first time in 50 years. The lander is also expected to come from Musk’s SpaceX program. The Chinese do not plan to do this before the end of the decade. In the 2030s, Americans and the Chinese want to establish permanent research stations there.
From a legal standpoint, the fears expressed by NASA chief Nelson are not very probable. Lunar law is much clearer and more clearly defined than the maritime law for the islands claimed by China in the South China Sea. The problem there is that the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is not accepted by the US, among others. The Chinese have signed it, but do not feel bound by it because the Americans are not part of it.
A ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague from July 2016, in which the Philippines successfully attempted to legally limit China’s extensive territorial and maritime claims, therefore, has remained without consequence. The court declared China’s historical argumentation incompatible with sea law. It also concluded that none of the elevations of the Spratly Islands fulfilled the minimum conditions of an island as defined by the Convention on the Law of the Sea. Thus, the 200-mile zone around the islands, which China lays claim to, does not apply either.
The situation is much clearer for the moon. The three most important countries on Earth have signed the treaty. The UN Outer Space Treaty was adopted back in 1967 and signed by 110 countries, including the USA, China and Russia. The treaty clearly states that no other planet or its mineral resources can be occupied by any country.
So the moon or parts of planets cannot become American or Chinese. “There are no loopholes,” says Kai-Uwe Schrogl, president of the International Institute of Space Law (IISL) in The Hague, Holland. Anyone who doesn’t comply is violating international law. But international law is often the law of the strongest. In this respect, the international community should take a close look at what the USA and China are up to.
With the end of China’s zero-covid policy, freight transport via the newly built China-Laos railroad line has picked up speed. For a few days now, mainly agricultural products have been shuttling along the rail line between Kunming in southern China and Thailand’s capital Bangkok. Around 420 kilometers of the line pass through Laos, which as a landlocked country has no coastline of its own and is difficult to develop economically due to its hilly terrain.
According to Thai and Laotian officials to Radio Free Asia, hardly any Laotian products are currently being transported. Instead, Thailand mainly exports to China and vice versa. Although the route was already opened at the end of 2021, it is only now becoming relevant for goods exchange.
The construction costs of the route between the Laotian border crossing Boten to the capital Vientiane amounted to almost six billion US dollars, of which more than two-thirds were financed by China. The Laotian government guaranteed the Chinese loans with natural resources from the country.
Questions about China’s funding of infrastructure projects as part of its Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) were recently raised by the UN Social Committee in Geneva. China rejected accusations of having lured countries such as Sri Lanka and Pakistan into a debt trap. grz
When talking to Christian Goebel, things quickly become technical, because the sinology professor with a focus on social sciences at the University of Vienna is not only an expert on Chinese protest movements and regime stability, but also programs custom machine learning algorithms for his research.
Christian Goebel originally studied English and political science until a Chinese roommate recommended a relatively inexpensive travel destination for his semester break in 1993. After arriving in China, he not only discovered a fondness for the country but also learned more about himself with every step he took. Two years later, he returned to China, but eventually ended up in Taiwan and decided to stay. For the next two and a half years, he studied Chinese on-site to gain a deeper insight into the culture and earned a living as an English teacher on the side.
Upon his return to Germany, he finally decided against studying English and in favor of Sinology. He then earned his Ph.D. with a dissertation on tax reform in rural China. For almost ten years now, Christian Goebel has been working as a professor at the University of Vienna, where he accepted the then-newly created chair of sinology with a social science focus.
Goebel recognized the potential of the technical evaluation of online resources early on, “also due to the fact that research in China had become very difficult after 2014,” he says. Interviews with local politicians, which had been his daily routine to that point, were hardly possible anymore because almost no one was willing to talk to him. That is why he taught himself to write code and soon wrote his own web-scraping and machine-learning algorithms, and now uses them to analyze and visualize data on protest movements from Chinese social media, among other things.
His research has shown that protests were taking place almost daily in China long before Covid. They mostly centered on labor rights issues, education or the real estate sector. However, he says their intensity has increased.
However, he does “not see any protests developing in the near future” that could directly challenge the government. Those who are truly opposed to the CP are a small minority, he believes. “But those who are really for it are also a small minority. Most are pragmatically in the middle and can go to one side or the other at any time.”
However, the recurrence of negative news and experiences has recently been building up resentment, which increases both the likelihood of one day joining a dissident protest and the chance of major, violent riots, the professor says. Clemens Ruben
Two bulls charge at each other in front of packed crowds at the Lieshen Festival of the Li ethnic group in Yiliang, in the province of Yunnan. Bullfights – also with human participation – have experienced a renaissance in China in recent years.
The first anniversary of the war in Ukraine is approaching. The fact that China’s chief diplomat Wang Yi wants to travel to Moscow this week of all weeks can be interpreted in different ways. Either as Beijing’s support of the Russian aggression or as part of a peace offensive Wang announced in Munich last weekend.
To appear credible to the West, Wang will also have to travel to Ukraine, analyzes Michael Radunski, who first-hand experienced the hectic and tense atmosphere at the Security Conference in the past few days. After all, a peace initiative can only be successful if there is credible mediation between the two warring parties. To talk in person with just one of the two sides would drastically diminish China’s ambitions for success. Especially since Ukraine so far has more trust in Beijing than the West. Or at least still does.
On the moon, on the other hand, one would think that territorial disputes are as far away as the earth, – well -, is from the moon. And so far that has been the case. But worldly concerns are already growing in the US that China, with its advancing space program, could make territorial claims in the immediate vicinity of the Earth’s satellite. Just as it is currently doing in the South China Sea, writes Frank Sieren. In other words, without an international legal basis.
This all sounds very much like the distant future. For all the momentum of China’s space program, the Americans, but also we should be relatively unconcerned about the moon as tomorrow’s contested territory today. We have enough earthly worries.
Wang Yi is currently on a big diplomatic mission. After the Security Conference in Munich, the next stop for China’s top diplomat was Budapest on Monday. There, he reportedly worked together with Hungary on a peaceful solution to the Ukraine war. While Washington, Berlin and Paris are still eagerly awaiting China’s initiative, Hungary’s head of government Victor Orbán is full of praise: Their guest from Beijing would highly appreciate Hungary’s “China-friendly policy”, the news agency MTI quoted him as saying.
Wang is afterward expected in Moscow. He might even meet with President Putin there. “The agenda is clear and very extensive, so there is lots to talk about,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. China’s peace initiative will also be discussed there. The conditions for Chinese mediation are good. Nevertheless, China’s advance should not be met with too much expectation.
There are basically two questions at the moment: How realistic is Wang’s announcement? And what can be expected from Beijing exactly? First, it is good to see China back in global politics after three years of the Covid pandemic. Many problems these days can only be solved together with the world’s second-largest power.
Moreover, China has long since become a country whose political, economic and also military power entails a certain level of responsibility. Beijing formulates this claim frequently – especially when it comes to establishing a new multipolar world order. It should then also live up to this responsibility in crisis situations.
And in the particular case of the Ukraine war, China would indeed be in a position to mediate between the warring parties. As Russia’s strategic partner, China has a better line to the Kremlin than probably any other country at the moment. Xi Jinping seems to be one of the few politicians who could actually persuade Vladimir Putin to stop his war campaign.
At the same time, China also seems an acceptable choice for Ukraine. The two countries have maintained good relations in the past. And even the new, strong ties between Beijing and Moscow do not seem to be a reason for Kyiv to reject Beijing as a mediator. For example, in an interview with the German newspaper Welt, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday: “I see an opportunity for China to make a pragmatic assessment of what is happening here.” Zelenskiy would even prefer to have China on his side.
So the conditions for China’s peace offensive to succeed are good. And yet, expectations of the Chinese initiative should not be too high – for several reasons.
If there is now talk in many media of a Chinese peace plan for Ukraine, it appears more like wishful thinking. A comprehensive peace plan would include the following: concrete steps, if possible also timelines, places, meetings, shuttle diplomacy – none of which can be expected from China.
China already made headlines in the past with similar announcements of taking on a major mediation role. However, the successes of Chinese mediation efforts so far have been rather limited, be it in Syria, Myanmar or Sudan. The reason: Beijing’s approach mainly focuses on media attention and direct access to local governments.
As vague as Wang Yi appeared in Munich, the few points he mentioned are already contradictory.
While this all sounds nice, a closer look reveals that the intentions contradict each other: Point 1 protects Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Point 3, however, is Russia’s literal justification for why its troops have been shooting down point 1 for almost a year.
Chinese security expert Zhou Bo also expressed this sentiment at the Munich Security Conference: The war in Ukraine clearly represents the violation of the sovereignty of one country by another. But according to the Chinese ex-military officer and current researcher at Qinghua University’s Center for International Security and Strategy CISS, China’s thoughts go much further on this issue, namely about the reasons. “This is where we sympathize with Russia because we know Russia took this action because of NATO expansion.”
This is not a good opening position to appear credible to Ukraine. Although China criticizes the incursion into Ukrainian territory, it otherwise follows the Russian narrative of a NATO advance that made preventive action necessary.
Bo also explained that since China and Russia share a long border, both countries have an interest in maintaining a “good and stable” relationship.
China’s own understanding of the situation also speaks against a successful mediation role. Even one year after the war began, Beijing is still playing the cruel war actions down as a “crisis”. Moreover, China holds the USA and NATO solely responsible as provocateurs and triggers of the war.
However, the fact that it was Russia that invaded Ukraine has not been heard from Beijing so far. China’s own perception as a “neutral state” is therefore commonly referred to as “pro-Russian neutrality“.
The term “pro-Russian neutrality” derives its justification not only from rhetorical subtleties (see point 3) but also from tangible acts. While the US and Europe have almost completely severed their economic ties with Russia, bilateral trade between Beijing and Moscow has grown enormously since the beginning of the war.
The West’s reaction to the Chinese proposal is correspondingly skeptical. “We know that China very clearly supports Russia’s position,” said EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen in Munich. Omid Nouripour is also not particularly convinced. “With its closeness to Russia, how can China seriously mediate?” the Green Party co-chairman told Table.Media. “But let’s wait and see what the Chinese will present.”
Wang Yi will probably want to sell his visit to Moscow as the first step in a Chinese mediation mission. If China were really serious about this, its next stop would be Kyiv.
Added to this are new accusations from the USA. China allegedly considers supplying “lethal aid” to Russia, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He also announced that he would soon present corresponding proof. It is not yet clear whether Blinken refers to the direct provision of weapons or at least the supply of dual-use systems, i.e. products that can be used for both civil and military purposes.
According to experts, China could provide satellite imagery that would enable the Russian Wagner Group to carry out more targeted strikes or provide high-quality electronic parts urgently needed by the Russian military.
In any case, China firmly rejected such accusations on Monday: “The US is in no position to tell China what to do,” said a foreign ministry spokesperson in Beijing. “We would never stand for finger-pointing, or even coercion and pressurizing from the US on our relations with Russia.”
China and the USA are fighting for supremacy not only at the border between airspace and outer space, but also in outer space itself. Here, China has to catch up, but it is making surprisingly rapid progress. The People’s Republic has been running a permanent space station since the end of 2022, and two astronauts carried out their first spacewalk around the beginning of 2023. This means that mankind now operates two permanent habitable outposts in space.
The rivalry was sparked by the Americans’ decision to exclude the Chinese from the International Space Station (ISS). But the ISS, a joint project of the USA, Russia, Japan, Canada and the European Space Agency ESA, will be decommissioned in 2031: it is too expensive. Private investors are supposed to step in.
China’s space station, on the other hand, remains in operation – no matter how much it costs. The figures are not disclosed anyway. However, it is much smaller than the ISS. It weighs only 66 tonnes, while the ISS weighs seven times as much. “Tiangong” can accommodate up to six taikonauts. But as a rule, only three people are supposed to be on board per mission. That is the minimum manning for spacewalks. Two go out, and the third astronaut assists from inside. Seven astronauts are stationed on the ISS. During crew changes, there are briefly as many as eleven.
After the former Soviet Union and the United States, China became in October 2003 the third country to send an astronaut into Earth orbit. The first spacewalk was carried out by the “Shenzhou 7” spacecraft in September 2008. After only seven manned space flights. And in these 20 years, China has come a long way in space: It successfully operates an exploration vehicle on Mars, has retrieved rocks from the Moon with the probe “Chang’e 5” and was the first nation ever to land a spacecraft on the far side of the Earth’s satellite. However, no Chinese has ever been to the moon.
NASA chief Bill Nelson is already warning about being too relaxed about the competitor: “We are in a space race.” His fear: The Chinese could do the same thing on the moon as they did in the South China Sea. “It is not beyond the realm of possibility that they say, ‘Keep out, we’re here, this is our territory.’” Although Nelson probably also said this to receive more funding.
The next stage, which both China and the USA are planning, is a permanent station on the moon. Here, too, NASA is dependent on private entrepreneurs. For example, Elon Musk. In March, he will send his new SpaceX rocket into orbit, the most powerful and largest rocket in space history. Coupled with it is “Starship”, a reusable spacecraft that has already completed several test flights – some of which literally went up in flames.
NASA wants to rent Musk’s rocket for its Artemis program, which aims to send astronauts to the moon again. The plan is to return to the moon in 2025 for the first time in 50 years. The lander is also expected to come from Musk’s SpaceX program. The Chinese do not plan to do this before the end of the decade. In the 2030s, Americans and the Chinese want to establish permanent research stations there.
From a legal standpoint, the fears expressed by NASA chief Nelson are not very probable. Lunar law is much clearer and more clearly defined than the maritime law for the islands claimed by China in the South China Sea. The problem there is that the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea is not accepted by the US, among others. The Chinese have signed it, but do not feel bound by it because the Americans are not part of it.
A ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague from July 2016, in which the Philippines successfully attempted to legally limit China’s extensive territorial and maritime claims, therefore, has remained without consequence. The court declared China’s historical argumentation incompatible with sea law. It also concluded that none of the elevations of the Spratly Islands fulfilled the minimum conditions of an island as defined by the Convention on the Law of the Sea. Thus, the 200-mile zone around the islands, which China lays claim to, does not apply either.
The situation is much clearer for the moon. The three most important countries on Earth have signed the treaty. The UN Outer Space Treaty was adopted back in 1967 and signed by 110 countries, including the USA, China and Russia. The treaty clearly states that no other planet or its mineral resources can be occupied by any country.
So the moon or parts of planets cannot become American or Chinese. “There are no loopholes,” says Kai-Uwe Schrogl, president of the International Institute of Space Law (IISL) in The Hague, Holland. Anyone who doesn’t comply is violating international law. But international law is often the law of the strongest. In this respect, the international community should take a close look at what the USA and China are up to.
With the end of China’s zero-covid policy, freight transport via the newly built China-Laos railroad line has picked up speed. For a few days now, mainly agricultural products have been shuttling along the rail line between Kunming in southern China and Thailand’s capital Bangkok. Around 420 kilometers of the line pass through Laos, which as a landlocked country has no coastline of its own and is difficult to develop economically due to its hilly terrain.
According to Thai and Laotian officials to Radio Free Asia, hardly any Laotian products are currently being transported. Instead, Thailand mainly exports to China and vice versa. Although the route was already opened at the end of 2021, it is only now becoming relevant for goods exchange.
The construction costs of the route between the Laotian border crossing Boten to the capital Vientiane amounted to almost six billion US dollars, of which more than two-thirds were financed by China. The Laotian government guaranteed the Chinese loans with natural resources from the country.
Questions about China’s funding of infrastructure projects as part of its Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) were recently raised by the UN Social Committee in Geneva. China rejected accusations of having lured countries such as Sri Lanka and Pakistan into a debt trap. grz
When talking to Christian Goebel, things quickly become technical, because the sinology professor with a focus on social sciences at the University of Vienna is not only an expert on Chinese protest movements and regime stability, but also programs custom machine learning algorithms for his research.
Christian Goebel originally studied English and political science until a Chinese roommate recommended a relatively inexpensive travel destination for his semester break in 1993. After arriving in China, he not only discovered a fondness for the country but also learned more about himself with every step he took. Two years later, he returned to China, but eventually ended up in Taiwan and decided to stay. For the next two and a half years, he studied Chinese on-site to gain a deeper insight into the culture and earned a living as an English teacher on the side.
Upon his return to Germany, he finally decided against studying English and in favor of Sinology. He then earned his Ph.D. with a dissertation on tax reform in rural China. For almost ten years now, Christian Goebel has been working as a professor at the University of Vienna, where he accepted the then-newly created chair of sinology with a social science focus.
Goebel recognized the potential of the technical evaluation of online resources early on, “also due to the fact that research in China had become very difficult after 2014,” he says. Interviews with local politicians, which had been his daily routine to that point, were hardly possible anymore because almost no one was willing to talk to him. That is why he taught himself to write code and soon wrote his own web-scraping and machine-learning algorithms, and now uses them to analyze and visualize data on protest movements from Chinese social media, among other things.
His research has shown that protests were taking place almost daily in China long before Covid. They mostly centered on labor rights issues, education or the real estate sector. However, he says their intensity has increased.
However, he does “not see any protests developing in the near future” that could directly challenge the government. Those who are truly opposed to the CP are a small minority, he believes. “But those who are really for it are also a small minority. Most are pragmatically in the middle and can go to one side or the other at any time.”
However, the recurrence of negative news and experiences has recently been building up resentment, which increases both the likelihood of one day joining a dissident protest and the chance of major, violent riots, the professor says. Clemens Ruben
Two bulls charge at each other in front of packed crowds at the Lieshen Festival of the Li ethnic group in Yiliang, in the province of Yunnan. Bullfights – also with human participation – have experienced a renaissance in China in recent years.
