Visa-free travel for Europeans! China is always good for surprises, and this time, the entry regulations suddenly changed from yellow to green after being red until March.
The exemption only applies to trips of up to 15 days. But in my circle of friends, I heard again and again over the weekend: “I’m already looking for flights,” – “Then I’ll finally get back to China” – “Under these circumstances, I’d like to go back soon too.” If these are good indicators, a wave of travelers is rolling towards the country. And that would be very welcome for both sides. China’s economy is in need of tourism spending and investment. To achieve both, people need to be able to enter the country easily.
A lot is riding on the Taiwanese presidential election next January. Although no one knows whether a rapprochement with China or clear warnings against an attack will secure lasting peace, what we do know now is that Taiwan is more likely to focus on keeping more distance from China.
Since the opposition is hopelessly divided despite promises of cooperation, the ruling DPP’s chances of securing the presidency again are increasing significantly. After all, votes in favor of closer ties with China are now spread between different candidates. David Demes has all the details.
The news came as a surprise on Friday, even to informed circles in business and diplomacy: Travelers from Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia no longer need to apply for a visa for short trips to China.
According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, this is expressly a “unilateral” concession. In other words, the countries in question did not have to offer anything in return.
However, this facilitation comes with some conditions and restrictions:
The spokesperson calls the rule a “visa-free treatment” and explicitly states that citizens from these six countries “can be exempted from visa.” If these words are chosen correctly, it is not merely a matter of facilitation through unbureaucratic visa issuance upon arrival (“Visa on Arrival”), but actually a change of course by lifting the visa requirement.
This means that China’s offer to travelers from the six beneficiary countries is very extensive. It is also possible to enter the USA without a visa – but an online pre-check with many questions (“Esta”) is mandatory.
The Foreign Office spokesperson also explains the reasons for the sudden move: “To further facilitate cross-border travel and China’s high-quality development and high-standard opening up.” In plain language: China urgently needs tourists and business travelers.
During the pandemic, China mercilessly closed its borders. Visas for foreigners have only been issued as usual since March 2023. From 2021 to 2022, the reason behind this isolation was the fear of introducing infections and the wish to have peace from Covid during the Winter Olympics. The border closures quickly became mutual. After the lockdowns were lifted at the end of 2022, foreigners were probably not supposed to see how violently the infection wave was rushing across the country.
All indicators suggest that the absence of travelers has significantly exacerbated the post-pandemic economic crisis.
In response to the current economic downturn, a broad charm offensive is currently underway to make China more attractive and prevent further trade barriers. However, the decline in investment is hardly the result of a consistent response by the economy to the “de-risking” calls from politicians, but rather a long series of broken promises. This includes physical access to the country. If people cannot make business trips to China, they will unlikely spend millions there. People want to meet business partners, touch products and visit emerging business parks.
Incidentally, the reluctance to invest does not affect Germany; on the contrary, the German economy is pumping more money into China than before. China is an important trading partner for Germany, after all. Much of the decline since 2022 is probably also down to the global economic downturn.
The five benefiting European countries cannot easily return the favor. The entry policy into the Schengen area, to which they all belong, is a joint affair. After all, travelers can move freely between the 27 participating countries.
In other words, Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands and Spain cannot simply declare a two-week visa-free regime for Chinese citizens. However, China’s goodwill does not extend to 22 of the 27 Schengen countries. They would have no motivation to join a visa relaxation.
One could speculate that extending the rule to the entire EU might be in China’s interest. The choice of countries already reflects the expectation that hardly any illegal entries are to be expected from there, but many useful visits. The same would apply to the rest of Schengen. “We hope that the Chinese government will implement the measures announced today for all EU member states,” German Ambassador to China Patricia Flor wrote on X.
The 15-day rule should cover most travel needs of tourists, business executives and specialists. However, China also facilitates longer stays with a standard visa validity period of 90 days.
Visa applications for travelers to China are now possible without an appointment. This means that online appointments are no longer necessary, according to the Chinese Tourist Office.
The application should be submitted around one month before departure. According to the tourist office, receiving the visa typically takes four days after applying. A visa form must be completed online, printed out, and presented. From the beginning of August until the end of the year, providing fingerprints is no longer required.
The lifting of the visa requirement and other facilitations met with broad approval. “The recently announced cancellation of the visa requirement for short trips is an important signal that can boost both tourism and economic exchange,” said Volker Treier, Head of Foreign Trade at the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK). Finn Mayer-Kuckuk/dpa/rtr
Taiwan’s political scene is known for its theatrical displays. Altercations in parliament and tears during election campaigns are not uncommon. However, what happened Thursday evening at the Grand Hyatt in Taipei’s capital was unusual, even for Taiwan.
For more than twenty minutes, former President Ma Ying-jeou, KMT party leader Eric Chu and presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih sat in silence in front of the assembled press. Next to them was a digital display with a countdown showing the time until the end of the registration period for the presidential candidacy on Friday afternoon. Their hosts, Foxconn founder Terry Gou and TPP candidate Ko Wen-je, deliberately kept the three of them waiting – a public insult and the beginning of the end of a long-awaited collaboration.
Overall, the chances of the more China-friendly opposition winning the presidential election are diminishing considerably. This is because the camp remains divided, with votes spread across several parties. The current ruling DPP, on the other hand, can hope to become president again. It is known for its rather strong words against Beijing.
For weeks, the opposition parties KMT and TPP had been discussing a possible coalition government and a joint presidential candidacy. They argued that this was the only way to fulfill the majority’s will and replace the ruling DPP. Yet neither of the two leading candidates seemed willing to make way for the other. Only after former President Ma and the former mayor of the southern city of Kaohsiung, Han Kuo-yu, publicly declared their support for cooperation between the KMT and TPP, the negotiations began to move forward.
The DPP and its candidate, William Lai, generally stand for a more critical stance towards China, while the KMT and the smaller TPP favor a rapprochement with their big neighbor. The KMT is the bedrock of Taiwanese politics. It was founded after the ousting of the last emperor. Many of its members fled to Taiwan after the communists came to power and continued the Republic of China there.
Initially, the DPP had the image of the young opposition but has now held the presidency for 15 years. The KMT now positions itself as an attacker and portrays the DPP’s anti-China stance as a threat to stability and peace. Former President Ma even visited the People’s Republic last March.
On Wednesday, November 15, Ko Wen-je, Hou Yu-ih and Eric Chu met at the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation to flesh out their cooperation. In a private meeting in which former President Ma acted as a witness, Ko and Hou finally came to an agreement, signed a memorandum of understanding on a joint candidacy, and laid down rules for determining the candidate.
Three opinion pollsters were tasked with identifying the strongest candidate. The only condition: The result of the polls had to be outside the “margin of error” for such statistics. However, on the very day of the public agreement, Ko expressed doubts about the deal and claimed in an interview that he had been tricked.
A short time later, Ko also changed his definition of “margin of error” and withdrew his consent. Ultimately, both sides accused each other of lacking credibility, and an agreement before last Friday’s registration deadline no longer seemed possible. Ko then turned to the independent candidate Terry Gou and tried to convince him of a possible joint candidacy. The founder of iPhone manufacturer Foxconn is one of the country’s wealthiest men and could have given Ko’s campaign a much-needed cash injection.
When Hou Yu-ih turned up at the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation again on Thursday morning and declared his intention to wait there for Ko Wen-je, it was already clear that the two sides would not be able to reach an agreement. It was Hous’ final attempt at showing his willingness to cooperate, thereby blaming Ko alone for the failed negotiations. Instead of accepting Hous’ invitation, Ko and Terry Gou issued a counter-invitation. The three opposition presidential candidates were to meet at the Grand Hyatt in the afternoon and negotiate in public.
With Ma and Chu, Hou made his way to the hotel and the three KMT politicians took their seats on the stage. After a long wait, Ko and Gou made it clear that Eric Chu and Ma were not welcome. The talks finally reached a low point when Hou read aloud a text message from Ko saying that Gou should be given a face-saving chance to withdraw his candidacy.
At this point, any basis for cooperation between Ko and Hou, as well as between Ko and Gou, was ruined. On Friday morning, the KMT and TPP finally presented their candidates separately for the office of Vice President. The idea of a joint candidacy was dead. A short time later, Terry Gou also issued a statement in which he withdrew his candidature. The official reason: To make room for the other opposition candidates and enable a change of power.
KMT party leader Eric Chu officially issued a mobilization order at a Central Committee meeting on Friday morning, calling the entire party to rally behind candidate Hou Yu-ih. Hou then took to the microphone to announce his candidate for vice president: 73-year-old media entrepreneur Jaw Shaw-kong.
Jaw fell out with the KMT in the early 1990s and founded the “New Party.” He has been a member of the KMT again since 2021. Jaw will likely dominate the campaign content and take the offensive in the dispute with the ruling DPP. In the 1994 election campaign for the office of mayor of Taipei, Jaw called the DPP Nazis and fascists.
Jaw’s candidacy and the decision to put former Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu at the top of the party list are considered the KMT leadership’s attempt to consolidate the party’s base. However, by fielding particularly pro-China candidates such as Jaw and Han, the party will have a hard time winning over voters in the center of society. This is good news for William Lai and the DPP.
Meanwhile, Ko Wen-je introduced TPP member of parliament Cynthia Wu as his vice president. The 45-year-old comes from a wealthy family and is a successful businesswoman. Observers assume that Wu will possibly take over this role after Terry Gou dropped out as Kos’s financier. This certainly does not fit Kos’ image as a new and fresh politician.
François Godement is a historian, sinologist and France’s leading expert on relations between China and the EU. As a professor of political science, he has taught at the University of California, Sciences Po and the Inalco Asia Institute in Paris. Today, he is a consultant on China and Asia at the Institut Montaigne in Paris and a non-resident fellow in the Asia Program of the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, D.C.
74-year-old François Godement still remembers well how his passion for China first began. “As a child, I was given simplified versions of classic Chinese novels to read.” These included “The Journey to the West,” the famous 16th-century story about the journey of a Buddhist monk and the monkey king Sun Wukong. Its Buddhist philosophy inspired him even as a child.
Godement has been researching the geopolitical role of China for over 50 years, with a focus on relations with the EU since 2005. As a professor of Chinese history, he taught at the Inalco East Asia Institute in Paris, and later as a professor of political science at Sciences Po and the University of California. He believes the biggest difference between teaching in the USA and Europe lies in the resources: “I would be surprised if we had more than two percent of the library resources and staff in France that we have in the USA.” What he missed during his time teaching in California was the passionate atmosphere and the controversial discussions among the French students.
This spirit at French universities motivated him as a young student in the 1960s to expand his knowledge of China. While his left-wing Maoist fellow students in history often chose social topics for their dissertations, he studied Chinese history and learned Chinese. After a scholarship at Harvard, his view of China was shaped by a subsequent year of training in Taiwan in the 1970s.
After researching in France on famines in China, he was astounded by the successes that the Communist Party had nevertheless achieved in agriculture. “Since then, I have never underestimated that the party, as the driving force, has managed to feed the people despite all the sacrifices.” This was another reason why he took the reform efforts after Mao’s death in 1976 seriously. And he was proved right that, contrary to the assessment of his contemporaries, no left-wing course correction followed until 1989. After the first signs of an opening, the suppression of the protests on Tiananmen Square in 1989 came as a shock. “At this point, I lost hope that China would gradually develop into a more humane system.”
The fact that European governments in the mid-1990s were still mainly working with outdated assumptions and assumed that Tiananmen had been a slip-up still baffles him today. He says this was one of the reasons why he shifted his research focus after 2006 and increasingly worked at think tanks such as the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), the Montaigne Institute and the Carnegie Endowment.
In these capacities, he primarily advised companies, the French government and the EU Commission informally. “When I specialized in relations between the EU and China, I decided to no longer take the detour via the USA.” A far-sighted decision, given the USA’s unilateral approach after 2016.
He uses an anecdote to explain why he was right in his prediction of an increasing consolidation of power within the Communist Party. A high-ranking Chinese official once told him: “You still take into account the politics and existence of the Communist Party. That’s why you’re often right.” Godement laughs and continues more seriously: “Many observers look at China either from the perspective of the market or from the perspective of sociology, according to which the party is just a surviving organization.” But the party has instead remained true to itself, and its authoritarian DNA is becoming more and more prevalent.
Godement is clear that it is never wise to underestimate your counterpart. “I try to find out the truth behind a myth. Not to refute it, but to question prevailing interpretations.” Curiosity is what drives him the most. Not just when it comes to China but also personally. The Buddhist monk from “Journey to the West” would probably not see it much differently. Carlos Hanke Barajas
Visa-free travel for Europeans! China is always good for surprises, and this time, the entry regulations suddenly changed from yellow to green after being red until March.
The exemption only applies to trips of up to 15 days. But in my circle of friends, I heard again and again over the weekend: “I’m already looking for flights,” – “Then I’ll finally get back to China” – “Under these circumstances, I’d like to go back soon too.” If these are good indicators, a wave of travelers is rolling towards the country. And that would be very welcome for both sides. China’s economy is in need of tourism spending and investment. To achieve both, people need to be able to enter the country easily.
A lot is riding on the Taiwanese presidential election next January. Although no one knows whether a rapprochement with China or clear warnings against an attack will secure lasting peace, what we do know now is that Taiwan is more likely to focus on keeping more distance from China.
Since the opposition is hopelessly divided despite promises of cooperation, the ruling DPP’s chances of securing the presidency again are increasing significantly. After all, votes in favor of closer ties with China are now spread between different candidates. David Demes has all the details.
The news came as a surprise on Friday, even to informed circles in business and diplomacy: Travelers from Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia no longer need to apply for a visa for short trips to China.
According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, this is expressly a “unilateral” concession. In other words, the countries in question did not have to offer anything in return.
However, this facilitation comes with some conditions and restrictions:
The spokesperson calls the rule a “visa-free treatment” and explicitly states that citizens from these six countries “can be exempted from visa.” If these words are chosen correctly, it is not merely a matter of facilitation through unbureaucratic visa issuance upon arrival (“Visa on Arrival”), but actually a change of course by lifting the visa requirement.
This means that China’s offer to travelers from the six beneficiary countries is very extensive. It is also possible to enter the USA without a visa – but an online pre-check with many questions (“Esta”) is mandatory.
The Foreign Office spokesperson also explains the reasons for the sudden move: “To further facilitate cross-border travel and China’s high-quality development and high-standard opening up.” In plain language: China urgently needs tourists and business travelers.
During the pandemic, China mercilessly closed its borders. Visas for foreigners have only been issued as usual since March 2023. From 2021 to 2022, the reason behind this isolation was the fear of introducing infections and the wish to have peace from Covid during the Winter Olympics. The border closures quickly became mutual. After the lockdowns were lifted at the end of 2022, foreigners were probably not supposed to see how violently the infection wave was rushing across the country.
All indicators suggest that the absence of travelers has significantly exacerbated the post-pandemic economic crisis.
In response to the current economic downturn, a broad charm offensive is currently underway to make China more attractive and prevent further trade barriers. However, the decline in investment is hardly the result of a consistent response by the economy to the “de-risking” calls from politicians, but rather a long series of broken promises. This includes physical access to the country. If people cannot make business trips to China, they will unlikely spend millions there. People want to meet business partners, touch products and visit emerging business parks.
Incidentally, the reluctance to invest does not affect Germany; on the contrary, the German economy is pumping more money into China than before. China is an important trading partner for Germany, after all. Much of the decline since 2022 is probably also down to the global economic downturn.
The five benefiting European countries cannot easily return the favor. The entry policy into the Schengen area, to which they all belong, is a joint affair. After all, travelers can move freely between the 27 participating countries.
In other words, Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands and Spain cannot simply declare a two-week visa-free regime for Chinese citizens. However, China’s goodwill does not extend to 22 of the 27 Schengen countries. They would have no motivation to join a visa relaxation.
One could speculate that extending the rule to the entire EU might be in China’s interest. The choice of countries already reflects the expectation that hardly any illegal entries are to be expected from there, but many useful visits. The same would apply to the rest of Schengen. “We hope that the Chinese government will implement the measures announced today for all EU member states,” German Ambassador to China Patricia Flor wrote on X.
The 15-day rule should cover most travel needs of tourists, business executives and specialists. However, China also facilitates longer stays with a standard visa validity period of 90 days.
Visa applications for travelers to China are now possible without an appointment. This means that online appointments are no longer necessary, according to the Chinese Tourist Office.
The application should be submitted around one month before departure. According to the tourist office, receiving the visa typically takes four days after applying. A visa form must be completed online, printed out, and presented. From the beginning of August until the end of the year, providing fingerprints is no longer required.
The lifting of the visa requirement and other facilitations met with broad approval. “The recently announced cancellation of the visa requirement for short trips is an important signal that can boost both tourism and economic exchange,” said Volker Treier, Head of Foreign Trade at the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK). Finn Mayer-Kuckuk/dpa/rtr
Taiwan’s political scene is known for its theatrical displays. Altercations in parliament and tears during election campaigns are not uncommon. However, what happened Thursday evening at the Grand Hyatt in Taipei’s capital was unusual, even for Taiwan.
For more than twenty minutes, former President Ma Ying-jeou, KMT party leader Eric Chu and presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih sat in silence in front of the assembled press. Next to them was a digital display with a countdown showing the time until the end of the registration period for the presidential candidacy on Friday afternoon. Their hosts, Foxconn founder Terry Gou and TPP candidate Ko Wen-je, deliberately kept the three of them waiting – a public insult and the beginning of the end of a long-awaited collaboration.
Overall, the chances of the more China-friendly opposition winning the presidential election are diminishing considerably. This is because the camp remains divided, with votes spread across several parties. The current ruling DPP, on the other hand, can hope to become president again. It is known for its rather strong words against Beijing.
For weeks, the opposition parties KMT and TPP had been discussing a possible coalition government and a joint presidential candidacy. They argued that this was the only way to fulfill the majority’s will and replace the ruling DPP. Yet neither of the two leading candidates seemed willing to make way for the other. Only after former President Ma and the former mayor of the southern city of Kaohsiung, Han Kuo-yu, publicly declared their support for cooperation between the KMT and TPP, the negotiations began to move forward.
The DPP and its candidate, William Lai, generally stand for a more critical stance towards China, while the KMT and the smaller TPP favor a rapprochement with their big neighbor. The KMT is the bedrock of Taiwanese politics. It was founded after the ousting of the last emperor. Many of its members fled to Taiwan after the communists came to power and continued the Republic of China there.
Initially, the DPP had the image of the young opposition but has now held the presidency for 15 years. The KMT now positions itself as an attacker and portrays the DPP’s anti-China stance as a threat to stability and peace. Former President Ma even visited the People’s Republic last March.
On Wednesday, November 15, Ko Wen-je, Hou Yu-ih and Eric Chu met at the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation to flesh out their cooperation. In a private meeting in which former President Ma acted as a witness, Ko and Hou finally came to an agreement, signed a memorandum of understanding on a joint candidacy, and laid down rules for determining the candidate.
Three opinion pollsters were tasked with identifying the strongest candidate. The only condition: The result of the polls had to be outside the “margin of error” for such statistics. However, on the very day of the public agreement, Ko expressed doubts about the deal and claimed in an interview that he had been tricked.
A short time later, Ko also changed his definition of “margin of error” and withdrew his consent. Ultimately, both sides accused each other of lacking credibility, and an agreement before last Friday’s registration deadline no longer seemed possible. Ko then turned to the independent candidate Terry Gou and tried to convince him of a possible joint candidacy. The founder of iPhone manufacturer Foxconn is one of the country’s wealthiest men and could have given Ko’s campaign a much-needed cash injection.
When Hou Yu-ih turned up at the Ma Ying-jeou Foundation again on Thursday morning and declared his intention to wait there for Ko Wen-je, it was already clear that the two sides would not be able to reach an agreement. It was Hous’ final attempt at showing his willingness to cooperate, thereby blaming Ko alone for the failed negotiations. Instead of accepting Hous’ invitation, Ko and Terry Gou issued a counter-invitation. The three opposition presidential candidates were to meet at the Grand Hyatt in the afternoon and negotiate in public.
With Ma and Chu, Hou made his way to the hotel and the three KMT politicians took their seats on the stage. After a long wait, Ko and Gou made it clear that Eric Chu and Ma were not welcome. The talks finally reached a low point when Hou read aloud a text message from Ko saying that Gou should be given a face-saving chance to withdraw his candidacy.
At this point, any basis for cooperation between Ko and Hou, as well as between Ko and Gou, was ruined. On Friday morning, the KMT and TPP finally presented their candidates separately for the office of Vice President. The idea of a joint candidacy was dead. A short time later, Terry Gou also issued a statement in which he withdrew his candidature. The official reason: To make room for the other opposition candidates and enable a change of power.
KMT party leader Eric Chu officially issued a mobilization order at a Central Committee meeting on Friday morning, calling the entire party to rally behind candidate Hou Yu-ih. Hou then took to the microphone to announce his candidate for vice president: 73-year-old media entrepreneur Jaw Shaw-kong.
Jaw fell out with the KMT in the early 1990s and founded the “New Party.” He has been a member of the KMT again since 2021. Jaw will likely dominate the campaign content and take the offensive in the dispute with the ruling DPP. In the 1994 election campaign for the office of mayor of Taipei, Jaw called the DPP Nazis and fascists.
Jaw’s candidacy and the decision to put former Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu at the top of the party list are considered the KMT leadership’s attempt to consolidate the party’s base. However, by fielding particularly pro-China candidates such as Jaw and Han, the party will have a hard time winning over voters in the center of society. This is good news for William Lai and the DPP.
Meanwhile, Ko Wen-je introduced TPP member of parliament Cynthia Wu as his vice president. The 45-year-old comes from a wealthy family and is a successful businesswoman. Observers assume that Wu will possibly take over this role after Terry Gou dropped out as Kos’s financier. This certainly does not fit Kos’ image as a new and fresh politician.
François Godement is a historian, sinologist and France’s leading expert on relations between China and the EU. As a professor of political science, he has taught at the University of California, Sciences Po and the Inalco Asia Institute in Paris. Today, he is a consultant on China and Asia at the Institut Montaigne in Paris and a non-resident fellow in the Asia Program of the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, D.C.
74-year-old François Godement still remembers well how his passion for China first began. “As a child, I was given simplified versions of classic Chinese novels to read.” These included “The Journey to the West,” the famous 16th-century story about the journey of a Buddhist monk and the monkey king Sun Wukong. Its Buddhist philosophy inspired him even as a child.
Godement has been researching the geopolitical role of China for over 50 years, with a focus on relations with the EU since 2005. As a professor of Chinese history, he taught at the Inalco East Asia Institute in Paris, and later as a professor of political science at Sciences Po and the University of California. He believes the biggest difference between teaching in the USA and Europe lies in the resources: “I would be surprised if we had more than two percent of the library resources and staff in France that we have in the USA.” What he missed during his time teaching in California was the passionate atmosphere and the controversial discussions among the French students.
This spirit at French universities motivated him as a young student in the 1960s to expand his knowledge of China. While his left-wing Maoist fellow students in history often chose social topics for their dissertations, he studied Chinese history and learned Chinese. After a scholarship at Harvard, his view of China was shaped by a subsequent year of training in Taiwan in the 1970s.
After researching in France on famines in China, he was astounded by the successes that the Communist Party had nevertheless achieved in agriculture. “Since then, I have never underestimated that the party, as the driving force, has managed to feed the people despite all the sacrifices.” This was another reason why he took the reform efforts after Mao’s death in 1976 seriously. And he was proved right that, contrary to the assessment of his contemporaries, no left-wing course correction followed until 1989. After the first signs of an opening, the suppression of the protests on Tiananmen Square in 1989 came as a shock. “At this point, I lost hope that China would gradually develop into a more humane system.”
The fact that European governments in the mid-1990s were still mainly working with outdated assumptions and assumed that Tiananmen had been a slip-up still baffles him today. He says this was one of the reasons why he shifted his research focus after 2006 and increasingly worked at think tanks such as the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), the Montaigne Institute and the Carnegie Endowment.
In these capacities, he primarily advised companies, the French government and the EU Commission informally. “When I specialized in relations between the EU and China, I decided to no longer take the detour via the USA.” A far-sighted decision, given the USA’s unilateral approach after 2016.
He uses an anecdote to explain why he was right in his prediction of an increasing consolidation of power within the Communist Party. A high-ranking Chinese official once told him: “You still take into account the politics and existence of the Communist Party. That’s why you’re often right.” Godement laughs and continues more seriously: “Many observers look at China either from the perspective of the market or from the perspective of sociology, according to which the party is just a surviving organization.” But the party has instead remained true to itself, and its authoritarian DNA is becoming more and more prevalent.
Godement is clear that it is never wise to underestimate your counterpart. “I try to find out the truth behind a myth. Not to refute it, but to question prevailing interpretations.” Curiosity is what drives him the most. Not just when it comes to China but also personally. The Buddhist monk from “Journey to the West” would probably not see it much differently. Carlos Hanke Barajas
