Just eleven days, then the gas will run out. In the event of a sea blockade, Taiwan faces a bleak scenario. Because the island is dependent on fossil fuel imports. More than 97 percent of the energy it needs is imported.
Becoming independent through renewable energies could be a solution that would also benefit the climate. But experts dash this hope. Solar and wind power alone cannot meet the energy needs of Taiwan’s industry and population. Nuclear power would be an option, but Taiwan is on the verge of phasing it out and opposition is strong. Maximilian Arnhold outlines the situation of dependencies and opportunities.
Egypt, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Togo – the travel year of China’s Foreign Minister traditionally begins in Africa. This year, Wang Yi focused on the continent’s coastal countries, which are important for the New Silk Road due to their large ports. But, of course, the choice of these destinations also has a variety of geopolitical backgrounds, as Fabian Peltsch explains in his analysis.
As a new BRICS member, Egypt is on the itinerary for the second time in a row; its Suez Canal with a cluster of Chinese companies is likely to have pushed it up Wang Yi’s list of priorities. In Tunisia, on the other hand, Beijing benefits from the country’s tensions with the EU. Côte d’Ivoire and Togo are important gateways to Africa. There is an anti-Western sentiment in many of these countries. This also plays into Wang’s hands.
“What do we really know about the world out there? How far have we distanced ourselves from it?” Deng Xiaoping asked his Politburo these questions in 1978. He was well aware that a radical change was necessary after Mao’s ideological rule and in light of the poor economic situation. To persuade the Party elite to introduce reforms, Deng Xiaoping dispatched his Vice Premier Gu Mu to Europe. His task was to find out how countries like France and Germany were really doing. This reality check made China’s rapid rise possible. Johnny Erling describes the events and draws parallels to the present.
Wang Yi has finished his nearly one-week Africa trip. The Chinese Foreign Minister visited Egypt, Tunisia, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire. As usual, officials have not commented on why these countries were on the agenda. However, there are some clues why the focus was now on Francophone West Africa and the continent’s Mediterranean coast after Wang’s ousted predecessor Qin Gang’s visits to Ethiopia, Gabon, Angola, Benin and Egypt last year.
“Africa is where a lot of the challenges associated with the Belt and Road Initiative are clustered, especially around debt issues,” says Lauren Johnston, Associate Professor at the Centre for China Studies at the University of Sydney. This is another reason why Wang mainly visited countries with economies heavily influenced by their ports this time, says Johnston, who specializes in Sino-African relations. China focuses on trade diversion, regional integration and trade connectivity.
Egypt – the country connecting Asia, Europe and Africa – is becoming increasingly strategically important for Beijing. For the second time in a row, it was on the list of the first foreign trip of the year, which traditionally takes the Chinese Foreign Minister to Africa. This is probably partly owed to its new status as a BRICS country and its role in the Belt and Road Initiative: Egypt’s Suez Canal is an important transit point for China’s BRI. Hundreds of Chinese companies have settled in the 455 square kilometer Suez Canal Economic Zone.
China is already Egypt’s largest trading partner, albeit with a trade deficit of USD 9.6 billion in 2022. Chinese investments here increased by a staggering 317 percent between 2017 and 2022. With eight billion US dollars, China is Egypt’s fourth-largest creditor.
Furthermore, the North African country is vital in overcoming ongoing crises in the Middle East. Back in October 2023, Xi Jinping praised Egypt’s constructive role in the region. Beijing also feels the effects of attacks on important shipping routes between Asia and Europe by the Houthi militants in Yemen. However, the Chinese government has no interest in the increasing presence of Western warships there. It is crucial to avoid “adding fuel to the fire” in the Red Sea, Wang told journalists in Cairo.
China also positioned itself once again in Egypt as a voice of the Global South by offering to mediate in the Gaza crisis. Together with Egypt, China urged an immediate end “to all acts of violence, killing, and targeting of civilians and civilian establishments.” In Cairo, Wang reiterated his call for an international peace conference to establish a concrete timetable and roadmap for the implementation of a two-state solution.
Tunisia is one of the People’s Republic’s oldest partners on the continent. Coinciding with Wang’s visit, the two countries celebrated 60 years of diplomatic relations. Tunisia has been part of Beijing’s New Silk Road since 2018. Although economic ties with the highly indebted country have so far been underdeveloped, Beijing has attempted to occupy a niche that has arisen due to tensions between the French-speaking country and the EU.
Tunisia is one of the central transit countries for African refugees. This gives the country enormous negotiating power vis-à-vis the EU. In winter, Tunis rejected aid payments from Brussels, tied, among other things, to tackling migration across the Mediterranean, as “disrespectful.” The former colonial power France invests around two billion US dollars annually in the north African country. Since the outbreak of the Gaza conflict, however, anti-European and, above all, anti-French sentiment has been growing.
In Tunis, Wang emphasized that China “firmly supports Tunisia in safeguarding sovereignty, independence and national dignity.” According to Chinese state media reports, Tunisia’s authoritarian president, elected in 2019, declared that Tunisia intends to push ahead with “modernization with Tunisian characteristics” with China’s help. So far, Chinese aid has been limited to a few selected projects, such as the construction of the Melegue Dam near El Kef. A new agreement with the China International Development Cooperation Agency is now set to initiate further projects in healthcare, renewable energy and communications technology.
The countries also aim to cooperate on tourism. In October 2023, Tunisia lifted the visa requirement for Chinese tourists. Tourism is an important economic sector for the country. It accounts for around seven percent of its GDP.
The Ivory Coast and Togo are further “gateways to Africa” that China not only intends to keep open, but also to continuously open further. The African Development Bank (AfDB), Africa’s most important financial institution, is headquartered in the Ivory Coast. China accounts for almost 15 percent of the Ivory Coast’s trade. By 2023, Chinese investments totaled 7.5 billion dollars.
For example, the expansion of the port of Abidjan into a deep-sea facility was largely funded by China’s Exim Bank. A cooperation agreement was also signed with the Chinese port authority of Guangzhou. An enormous boost for the BRI: Given the growing freight traffic in West Africa, neighboring countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, which have no access to the sea, can also be more closely integrated into trade with China from here.
The Chinese Exim Bank is also active in Togo, one of Africa’s poorest countries. In 2016, it granted a loan of 67 million US dollars to modernize and expand the Gnassingbé Eyadéma International Airport in Lomé. Chinese companies have also settled around the capital’s port, one of the largest in West Africa. Togo’s plan to double its mining sector by 2025 is attracting more Chinese companies.
The Chinese also benefit from anti-Western sentiment in Togo. Many feel exploited and abandoned by the former colonial powers, despite a 70 million euro partnership with the EU for sustainable agriculture and the development of social infrastructure signed in April 2023. Thanks to its less burdened past, China’s image gain after it lifted import duties for the country and announced at the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2022 that it would waive the repayment of 23 interest-free loans for 17 African countries was much greater. The 21st century is a century of revitalization for developing countries, emphasized Wang in a conversation with Togo’s President Faure Gnassingbé. He promised that China would continue to support Africa in accelerating its independent development.
Taiwan’s energy supply is almost entirely dependent on fossil fuels: Over 97 percent of its energy requirements are imported. As an island state, Taiwan has to import these fuels – coal, oil, and gas – via the Taiwan Strait. The election victory of China-critic William Lai of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has increased concerns about reactions from Beijing. After all, a naval blockade would be fatal.
According to experts, this makes Taiwan very susceptible to disruptions. The Energy Authority, part of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, has calculated that natural gas reserves only last for eleven days and coal reserves for 39 days. Oil reserves would last for 146 days. The previous DPP government of President Tsai Ing-wen wanted to significantly expand green energy, but failed to achieve its self-imposed targets. Now it is up to her successor, Lai, who was already part of the previous government as Vice President.
In 2022, Taiwan imported 63.6 million tons of coal, mainly from Australia and Indonesia. According to the statistical annual handbook, considerable quantities of coal and gas also come from Russia – a country that would probably side with China in the event of an acute crisis and possible blockade. The People’s Republic regards the island off its southern coast as a breakaway province that must be reunited with the mainland – with military intervention if necessary.
Even China’s naval exercises around Taiwan “can functionally compromise or cut off Taiwan’s supply lines for a limited period,” writes Eugene Chausovsky, analyst at the US think tank New Lines Institute, in Foreign Policy magazine. Even a temporary blockade of the Taiwan Strait could be devastating for the island.
The country’s growing hunger for energy is likely to exacerbate the situation. Its important chip industry is already complaining about blackouts. The largest semiconductor company TSMC alone accounts for more than six percent of the country’s total energy consumption.
However, it remains doubtful whether green electricity alone can provide a way out of fossil fuel dependency and its geopolitical risk potential. The expansion of solar and wind power is behind schedule. The share of renewables in the electricity mix was actually supposed to increase to 20 percent by 2025. However, according to a Ministry of Economic Affairs report, renewables are only expected to generate around 15 percent of electricity by then. Only 8.9 percent had been achieved by the end of 2023.
There are many reasons for the slow energy transition. Sites for wind turbines or solar plants are disputed. Sometimes, the obstacles are concerns from fishers or the environmental risks of offshore wind turbines. On land, conflicts over agricultural land usually prevent ground-mounted photovoltaics. In one case, it was the territorial claims of indigenous people who had not been consulted before the start of the project.
According to energy consultant Raoul Kubitschek at engineering firm Niras, the transition faces further hurdles: “Too low electricity prices and poorly insulated, heavily air-conditioned housing.” Some foreign investors also see the danger of a possible Chinese attack.
Kubitschek heads Niras’ Taipei office, which helps foreign energy companies invest in Taiwan. “100 percent renewables are unrealistic under Taiwan’s conditions,” he says. “Taiwan has very good wind conditions due to the Taiwan Strait. Currently, 5.5 gigawatts have already been approved by 2025.” However, onshore and offshore wind and solar power alone will not be enough to meet demand. “It’s about establishing a basic supply. That means gas-fired power plants must continue to be used.”
The semiconductor industry calls for the use of nuclear power. The phase-out by 2025 is definite. Nuclear energy still accounts for 6.3 percent of electricity generation. The more pro-China national party, KMT, campaigned for the construction of new nuclear power plants to cover the country’s energy demand.
The ruling DPP, on the other hand, rejects this. They say that fuel rods would also have to be imported. This would not help Taiwan’s independent energy supply. And the issue of final storage is also unresolved in Taiwan. Kubitschek believes that the nuclear phase-out cannot be reversed anyway. Provincial politicians would refuse the construction of new nuclear power plants.
In the end, Taiwan can only put all its efforts into renewables. After all, the economy also faces growing indirect pressure. At China’s instigation, Taiwan is not part of international climate agreements because the United Nations does not recognize it as a separate state. However, Western companies want their supply chains to be supplied with green electricity, and this also applies to Taiwan. For instance, Apple calls on its suppliers to be climate-neutral by 2030. As an important chip customer, Apple certainly increases the transformation pressure on the industry, says Kubitschek. Kubitschek hopes Taiwan will “learn from mistakes,” such as in past tenders. There is a lot of potential in grid expansion, as well as in the offshore wind sector, he says.
The research for this article was conducted as part of a press trip to Taiwan by Journalist Network e. V.
China’s courage to restart its market economy in 1978 was – as we now know – also a response to a cunning question that reform architect Deng Xiaoping asked his Politburo at the end of 1978: “What do we really know about the world out there? How far have we distanced ourselves from it? What can we learn?” Forty-five years later, Beijing’s current leadership no longer considers such curiosity about the outside world opportune. It lives in its echo chamber and demands that everyone align themselves with the superpower China. Anyone who mentions the start of the reforms in 1978 is censored.
In that year – the Great Chairman Mao had been dead for less than two years – the Politburo had to convene for an unusual marathon session in the Great Hall of the People. China’s marshals and other top party officials were also in attendance. They were there to listen to the presentation by Vice Premier Gu Mu 谷牧, who had just returned from a three-week trip to five countries in Western Europe. He had traveled with a delegation of 25 government experts on topics ranging from hydraulic engineering to nuclear power – all on behalf of Deng Xiaoping, who was already the true puppet master of China at the time. Upon his return, Gu Mu first told Deng how “shocked” they were at what they had seen. Deng demanded that he tell the Politburo the same thing without embellishment.
The unforgettable meeting of China’s nomenclature with Gu Mu started at 3.30 pm and ended at 11.15 pm. According to the Communist Party annals, it was the longest and one of the most momentous meetings since Mao’s death. “My father talked for almost eight hours on 30 June 1978, answering dozens of questions,” wrote Gu Mu’s son Liu Nianyuan for the Communist Party magazine “Bainianzhao” in October 2018.
His father was 63 years old when he and his delegation visited European countries from 12 May to 7 June 1978, including France, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark and West Germany. As the first official state delegation, all doors were open to them. Belgium’s king received them for an audience, France’s prime minister welcomed them at the airport, and West Germany’s Federal President, Walter Scheel, met with them. They toured 25 major cities and over 80 factories, mines, ports, farms, universities and research institutes. Everywhere they went, politicians, company bosses and experts were ready to answer their questions: Europe was curious about the “new” Chinese after Mao and the Chinese wanted to know everything about Europe’s society and industry, about which they were “ideologically misinformed.”
It was Gu Mu’s first trip to Europe. “It shook my worldview of the West,” he said later. What he told the Politburo in eight hours also “astounded” China’s leaders. “It was like news from another planet,” wrote his son Liu. The next day, 80-year-old Nie Rongzhen, one of China’s powerful marshals, invited Gu Mu to continue and questioned him for six hours.
Deng’s plan worked. China’s economy and society were devastated after Mao’s rule. From the outset, Deng had hoped that Gu Mu’s reports would be a “healing shock” to his comrades. Before Gu Mu’s departure in late April, he had already met with him and the delegation. Deng urged them to engage in intensive open dialogue with everyone they would meet. They had to explore Europe thoroughly, note both good and bad experiences, and learn how modern Europe’s economy is, how it is managed, and what China can learn from the capitalist countries. Gu’s son wrote that Deng told his father: “Try to understand what kind of world it is out there.”
In 2004, a two-volume biography of Deng Xiaoping published by the CCP detailed his meetings with Gu Mu before and after his Europe trip. Upon his return, Deng invited him to address a special meeting of the Politburo. He was also allowed to announce that China was willing to import from the West and take in foreign loans to do so.
In his book “Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China” (Harvard 2011), renowned China expert and Deng Xiaoping biographer Eszra Vogel was the first to call Gu Mus’s trip to Europe one of the “three turning points” for Deng’s decision and turn towards China’s radical reform and opening up.
Gu Mu wrote down all the experiences his delegation had made in a 15,000-page report and spoke frankly: “Our current economic and technological level is twenty years behind that of the developed capitalist countries. In terms of per capita production output, the gap is even wider.”
The formerly classified paper became one of the basic documents distributed at the Third Plenary Session of the Party in late December 1978, when Deng convened the Central Committee. The historic week-long meeting set the course for the start of the reform and opening-up policy. The Central Committee also agreed that China had to overcome the obstacles of its ideologized superstructure, dogmatism and bureaucracy if it wanted to rebuild its economy and renew it as a market economy.
Gu Mu’s inspection report (关于访问欧洲五国的情况报告) was one of the requirements for this. It is still a treasure trove of contemporary history and was only released four decades later. An official cantonal website published the report in June 2021 as one of 100 documents that played a special role in the 100-year history of the Communist Party (1921-2021). I found the link online.
The legendary reform resolutions passed by the Third Plenum in 1978 raise hopes for the outstanding, overdue Third Plenum of the 20th Party Congress under Xi Jinping’s rule. With the slogan “Seek the truth in the facts,” Deng Xiaoping managed to step out of the shadow of the despot Mao in 1978. Today, after 45 years, Xi, who repeatedly speaks of the superiority of the socialist system, refuses to honor this. Last December, Beijing had an allusive editorial in the magazine Caixin censored.
The magazine had called for China to return to “reality-based thinking,” just as Deng had done at the 3rd Plenum in 1978. He “liberated” thinking “to ask questions that no one dared to ask before.”
Deliberately alluding to today’s situation, Caixin wrote about what happens when bureaucracy and dogmatism dominate politics: “Then nobody dares to say what is not dictated from above. To think what is not stipulated in the documents. To do something that the leaders do not pre-arrange.” (上级没有说的，不敢说; 文件没有提的，不敢想; 领导没有安排的，不敢做.)
Gu Mu’s role has been forgotten today. “If Deng Xiaoping was the chief architect of China’s reform and opening up, his aide Gu Mu was the architect of China’s special economic zones (SEZs),” was how Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post honored Gu Mu on his death in 2009. In July 1979, Deng had put him in charge of founding the four SEZs, including the famous Shenzhen. Today, Xi Jinping’s father is credited for Shenzhen.
Gu Mu successfully negotiated Beijing’s first foreign loan from Japan and arranged China’s accession to the World Bank in 1980 with Deng. Former World Bank China chief Pierre Bottelier describes this in his book “Why and How the People’s Republic of China Entered the World Bank in 1980 and Afterthoughts“, published in January.
Gu Mu also adopted Deng’s motto, “Seek the truth in the facts,” for other areas besides the economy. In the foreword to the first issue of the quarterly journal “Confucius Research,” published in 1986, he wrote that he was committed to rehabilitating China’s national saint Confucius from a time when China was a country of reforms – despite opposition from within the party. It took another eight years before China’s International Confucian Association was founded in October 1994. Gu Mu became its first president and advocated the promotion of “cultural pluralism as a necessary trend.” He managed to gain his friend, Singapore’s President Lee Kuan Yew, as honorary chairman.
Today, however, Beijing insists on and interprets something completely different; its return to tradition, culture and Confucius are unique features of Xi Jinping’s new China-centered “Global Civilization Initiative.” This is also news from another planet.
“He Cha – drinking tea” is a Chinese euphemism for a summons to the police station. The Suzhou City Public Security Bureau has obviously taken the phrase to heart. This month, it opened its own milk tea café in a police station. The Jǐngchá 警茶, a pun on the characters for police and tea, focuses primarily on its external impact and is not yet open to the public. Nevertheless, the concept seems to be working: The merchandise surrounding the store, from cups to bags, can be found everywhere in China’s social media sphere. Incidentally, the milk tea cops from Suzhou are not the only civil servants pandering to the country’s café-crazy middle class. In 2022, the state postal service opened several cafés in Fujian province.
Just eleven days, then the gas will run out. In the event of a sea blockade, Taiwan faces a bleak scenario. Because the island is dependent on fossil fuel imports. More than 97 percent of the energy it needs is imported.
Becoming independent through renewable energies could be a solution that would also benefit the climate. But experts dash this hope. Solar and wind power alone cannot meet the energy needs of Taiwan’s industry and population. Nuclear power would be an option, but Taiwan is on the verge of phasing it out and opposition is strong. Maximilian Arnhold outlines the situation of dependencies and opportunities.
Egypt, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Togo – the travel year of China’s Foreign Minister traditionally begins in Africa. This year, Wang Yi focused on the continent’s coastal countries, which are important for the New Silk Road due to their large ports. But, of course, the choice of these destinations also has a variety of geopolitical backgrounds, as Fabian Peltsch explains in his analysis.
As a new BRICS member, Egypt is on the itinerary for the second time in a row; its Suez Canal with a cluster of Chinese companies is likely to have pushed it up Wang Yi’s list of priorities. In Tunisia, on the other hand, Beijing benefits from the country’s tensions with the EU. Côte d’Ivoire and Togo are important gateways to Africa. There is an anti-Western sentiment in many of these countries. This also plays into Wang’s hands.
“What do we really know about the world out there? How far have we distanced ourselves from it?” Deng Xiaoping asked his Politburo these questions in 1978. He was well aware that a radical change was necessary after Mao’s ideological rule and in light of the poor economic situation. To persuade the Party elite to introduce reforms, Deng Xiaoping dispatched his Vice Premier Gu Mu to Europe. His task was to find out how countries like France and Germany were really doing. This reality check made China’s rapid rise possible. Johnny Erling describes the events and draws parallels to the present.
Wang Yi has finished his nearly one-week Africa trip. The Chinese Foreign Minister visited Egypt, Tunisia, Togo and Côte d’Ivoire. As usual, officials have not commented on why these countries were on the agenda. However, there are some clues why the focus was now on Francophone West Africa and the continent’s Mediterranean coast after Wang’s ousted predecessor Qin Gang’s visits to Ethiopia, Gabon, Angola, Benin and Egypt last year.
“Africa is where a lot of the challenges associated with the Belt and Road Initiative are clustered, especially around debt issues,” says Lauren Johnston, Associate Professor at the Centre for China Studies at the University of Sydney. This is another reason why Wang mainly visited countries with economies heavily influenced by their ports this time, says Johnston, who specializes in Sino-African relations. China focuses on trade diversion, regional integration and trade connectivity.
Egypt – the country connecting Asia, Europe and Africa – is becoming increasingly strategically important for Beijing. For the second time in a row, it was on the list of the first foreign trip of the year, which traditionally takes the Chinese Foreign Minister to Africa. This is probably partly owed to its new status as a BRICS country and its role in the Belt and Road Initiative: Egypt’s Suez Canal is an important transit point for China’s BRI. Hundreds of Chinese companies have settled in the 455 square kilometer Suez Canal Economic Zone.
China is already Egypt’s largest trading partner, albeit with a trade deficit of USD 9.6 billion in 2022. Chinese investments here increased by a staggering 317 percent between 2017 and 2022. With eight billion US dollars, China is Egypt’s fourth-largest creditor.
Furthermore, the North African country is vital in overcoming ongoing crises in the Middle East. Back in October 2023, Xi Jinping praised Egypt’s constructive role in the region. Beijing also feels the effects of attacks on important shipping routes between Asia and Europe by the Houthi militants in Yemen. However, the Chinese government has no interest in the increasing presence of Western warships there. It is crucial to avoid “adding fuel to the fire” in the Red Sea, Wang told journalists in Cairo.
China also positioned itself once again in Egypt as a voice of the Global South by offering to mediate in the Gaza crisis. Together with Egypt, China urged an immediate end “to all acts of violence, killing, and targeting of civilians and civilian establishments.” In Cairo, Wang reiterated his call for an international peace conference to establish a concrete timetable and roadmap for the implementation of a two-state solution.
Tunisia is one of the People’s Republic’s oldest partners on the continent. Coinciding with Wang’s visit, the two countries celebrated 60 years of diplomatic relations. Tunisia has been part of Beijing’s New Silk Road since 2018. Although economic ties with the highly indebted country have so far been underdeveloped, Beijing has attempted to occupy a niche that has arisen due to tensions between the French-speaking country and the EU.
Tunisia is one of the central transit countries for African refugees. This gives the country enormous negotiating power vis-à-vis the EU. In winter, Tunis rejected aid payments from Brussels, tied, among other things, to tackling migration across the Mediterranean, as “disrespectful.” The former colonial power France invests around two billion US dollars annually in the north African country. Since the outbreak of the Gaza conflict, however, anti-European and, above all, anti-French sentiment has been growing.
In Tunis, Wang emphasized that China “firmly supports Tunisia in safeguarding sovereignty, independence and national dignity.” According to Chinese state media reports, Tunisia’s authoritarian president, elected in 2019, declared that Tunisia intends to push ahead with “modernization with Tunisian characteristics” with China’s help. So far, Chinese aid has been limited to a few selected projects, such as the construction of the Melegue Dam near El Kef. A new agreement with the China International Development Cooperation Agency is now set to initiate further projects in healthcare, renewable energy and communications technology.
The countries also aim to cooperate on tourism. In October 2023, Tunisia lifted the visa requirement for Chinese tourists. Tourism is an important economic sector for the country. It accounts for around seven percent of its GDP.
The Ivory Coast and Togo are further “gateways to Africa” that China not only intends to keep open, but also to continuously open further. The African Development Bank (AfDB), Africa’s most important financial institution, is headquartered in the Ivory Coast. China accounts for almost 15 percent of the Ivory Coast’s trade. By 2023, Chinese investments totaled 7.5 billion dollars.
For example, the expansion of the port of Abidjan into a deep-sea facility was largely funded by China’s Exim Bank. A cooperation agreement was also signed with the Chinese port authority of Guangzhou. An enormous boost for the BRI: Given the growing freight traffic in West Africa, neighboring countries such as Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, which have no access to the sea, can also be more closely integrated into trade with China from here.
The Chinese Exim Bank is also active in Togo, one of Africa’s poorest countries. In 2016, it granted a loan of 67 million US dollars to modernize and expand the Gnassingbé Eyadéma International Airport in Lomé. Chinese companies have also settled around the capital’s port, one of the largest in West Africa. Togo’s plan to double its mining sector by 2025 is attracting more Chinese companies.
The Chinese also benefit from anti-Western sentiment in Togo. Many feel exploited and abandoned by the former colonial powers, despite a 70 million euro partnership with the EU for sustainable agriculture and the development of social infrastructure signed in April 2023. Thanks to its less burdened past, China’s image gain after it lifted import duties for the country and announced at the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in 2022 that it would waive the repayment of 23 interest-free loans for 17 African countries was much greater. The 21st century is a century of revitalization for developing countries, emphasized Wang in a conversation with Togo’s President Faure Gnassingbé. He promised that China would continue to support Africa in accelerating its independent development.
Taiwan’s energy supply is almost entirely dependent on fossil fuels: Over 97 percent of its energy requirements are imported. As an island state, Taiwan has to import these fuels – coal, oil, and gas – via the Taiwan Strait. The election victory of China-critic William Lai of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has increased concerns about reactions from Beijing. After all, a naval blockade would be fatal.
According to experts, this makes Taiwan very susceptible to disruptions. The Energy Authority, part of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, has calculated that natural gas reserves only last for eleven days and coal reserves for 39 days. Oil reserves would last for 146 days. The previous DPP government of President Tsai Ing-wen wanted to significantly expand green energy, but failed to achieve its self-imposed targets. Now it is up to her successor, Lai, who was already part of the previous government as Vice President.
In 2022, Taiwan imported 63.6 million tons of coal, mainly from Australia and Indonesia. According to the statistical annual handbook, considerable quantities of coal and gas also come from Russia – a country that would probably side with China in the event of an acute crisis and possible blockade. The People’s Republic regards the island off its southern coast as a breakaway province that must be reunited with the mainland – with military intervention if necessary.
Even China’s naval exercises around Taiwan “can functionally compromise or cut off Taiwan’s supply lines for a limited period,” writes Eugene Chausovsky, analyst at the US think tank New Lines Institute, in Foreign Policy magazine. Even a temporary blockade of the Taiwan Strait could be devastating for the island.
The country’s growing hunger for energy is likely to exacerbate the situation. Its important chip industry is already complaining about blackouts. The largest semiconductor company TSMC alone accounts for more than six percent of the country’s total energy consumption.
However, it remains doubtful whether green electricity alone can provide a way out of fossil fuel dependency and its geopolitical risk potential. The expansion of solar and wind power is behind schedule. The share of renewables in the electricity mix was actually supposed to increase to 20 percent by 2025. However, according to a Ministry of Economic Affairs report, renewables are only expected to generate around 15 percent of electricity by then. Only 8.9 percent had been achieved by the end of 2023.
There are many reasons for the slow energy transition. Sites for wind turbines or solar plants are disputed. Sometimes, the obstacles are concerns from fishers or the environmental risks of offshore wind turbines. On land, conflicts over agricultural land usually prevent ground-mounted photovoltaics. In one case, it was the territorial claims of indigenous people who had not been consulted before the start of the project.
According to energy consultant Raoul Kubitschek at engineering firm Niras, the transition faces further hurdles: “Too low electricity prices and poorly insulated, heavily air-conditioned housing.” Some foreign investors also see the danger of a possible Chinese attack.
Kubitschek heads Niras’ Taipei office, which helps foreign energy companies invest in Taiwan. “100 percent renewables are unrealistic under Taiwan’s conditions,” he says. “Taiwan has very good wind conditions due to the Taiwan Strait. Currently, 5.5 gigawatts have already been approved by 2025.” However, onshore and offshore wind and solar power alone will not be enough to meet demand. “It’s about establishing a basic supply. That means gas-fired power plants must continue to be used.”
The semiconductor industry calls for the use of nuclear power. The phase-out by 2025 is definite. Nuclear energy still accounts for 6.3 percent of electricity generation. The more pro-China national party, KMT, campaigned for the construction of new nuclear power plants to cover the country’s energy demand.
The ruling DPP, on the other hand, rejects this. They say that fuel rods would also have to be imported. This would not help Taiwan’s independent energy supply. And the issue of final storage is also unresolved in Taiwan. Kubitschek believes that the nuclear phase-out cannot be reversed anyway. Provincial politicians would refuse the construction of new nuclear power plants.
In the end, Taiwan can only put all its efforts into renewables. After all, the economy also faces growing indirect pressure. At China’s instigation, Taiwan is not part of international climate agreements because the United Nations does not recognize it as a separate state. However, Western companies want their supply chains to be supplied with green electricity, and this also applies to Taiwan. For instance, Apple calls on its suppliers to be climate-neutral by 2030. As an important chip customer, Apple certainly increases the transformation pressure on the industry, says Kubitschek. Kubitschek hopes Taiwan will “learn from mistakes,” such as in past tenders. There is a lot of potential in grid expansion, as well as in the offshore wind sector, he says.
The research for this article was conducted as part of a press trip to Taiwan by Journalist Network e. V.
China’s courage to restart its market economy in 1978 was – as we now know – also a response to a cunning question that reform architect Deng Xiaoping asked his Politburo at the end of 1978: “What do we really know about the world out there? How far have we distanced ourselves from it? What can we learn?” Forty-five years later, Beijing’s current leadership no longer considers such curiosity about the outside world opportune. It lives in its echo chamber and demands that everyone align themselves with the superpower China. Anyone who mentions the start of the reforms in 1978 is censored.
In that year – the Great Chairman Mao had been dead for less than two years – the Politburo had to convene for an unusual marathon session in the Great Hall of the People. China’s marshals and other top party officials were also in attendance. They were there to listen to the presentation by Vice Premier Gu Mu 谷牧, who had just returned from a three-week trip to five countries in Western Europe. He had traveled with a delegation of 25 government experts on topics ranging from hydraulic engineering to nuclear power – all on behalf of Deng Xiaoping, who was already the true puppet master of China at the time. Upon his return, Gu Mu first told Deng how “shocked” they were at what they had seen. Deng demanded that he tell the Politburo the same thing without embellishment.
The unforgettable meeting of China’s nomenclature with Gu Mu started at 3.30 pm and ended at 11.15 pm. According to the Communist Party annals, it was the longest and one of the most momentous meetings since Mao’s death. “My father talked for almost eight hours on 30 June 1978, answering dozens of questions,” wrote Gu Mu’s son Liu Nianyuan for the Communist Party magazine “Bainianzhao” in October 2018.
His father was 63 years old when he and his delegation visited European countries from 12 May to 7 June 1978, including France, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark and West Germany. As the first official state delegation, all doors were open to them. Belgium’s king received them for an audience, France’s prime minister welcomed them at the airport, and West Germany’s Federal President, Walter Scheel, met with them. They toured 25 major cities and over 80 factories, mines, ports, farms, universities and research institutes. Everywhere they went, politicians, company bosses and experts were ready to answer their questions: Europe was curious about the “new” Chinese after Mao and the Chinese wanted to know everything about Europe’s society and industry, about which they were “ideologically misinformed.”
It was Gu Mu’s first trip to Europe. “It shook my worldview of the West,” he said later. What he told the Politburo in eight hours also “astounded” China’s leaders. “It was like news from another planet,” wrote his son Liu. The next day, 80-year-old Nie Rongzhen, one of China’s powerful marshals, invited Gu Mu to continue and questioned him for six hours.
Deng’s plan worked. China’s economy and society were devastated after Mao’s rule. From the outset, Deng had hoped that Gu Mu’s reports would be a “healing shock” to his comrades. Before Gu Mu’s departure in late April, he had already met with him and the delegation. Deng urged them to engage in intensive open dialogue with everyone they would meet. They had to explore Europe thoroughly, note both good and bad experiences, and learn how modern Europe’s economy is, how it is managed, and what China can learn from the capitalist countries. Gu’s son wrote that Deng told his father: “Try to understand what kind of world it is out there.”
In 2004, a two-volume biography of Deng Xiaoping published by the CCP detailed his meetings with Gu Mu before and after his Europe trip. Upon his return, Deng invited him to address a special meeting of the Politburo. He was also allowed to announce that China was willing to import from the West and take in foreign loans to do so.
In his book “Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China” (Harvard 2011), renowned China expert and Deng Xiaoping biographer Eszra Vogel was the first to call Gu Mus’s trip to Europe one of the “three turning points” for Deng’s decision and turn towards China’s radical reform and opening up.
Gu Mu wrote down all the experiences his delegation had made in a 15,000-page report and spoke frankly: “Our current economic and technological level is twenty years behind that of the developed capitalist countries. In terms of per capita production output, the gap is even wider.”
The formerly classified paper became one of the basic documents distributed at the Third Plenary Session of the Party in late December 1978, when Deng convened the Central Committee. The historic week-long meeting set the course for the start of the reform and opening-up policy. The Central Committee also agreed that China had to overcome the obstacles of its ideologized superstructure, dogmatism and bureaucracy if it wanted to rebuild its economy and renew it as a market economy.
Gu Mu’s inspection report (关于访问欧洲五国的情况报告) was one of the requirements for this. It is still a treasure trove of contemporary history and was only released four decades later. An official cantonal website published the report in June 2021 as one of 100 documents that played a special role in the 100-year history of the Communist Party (1921-2021). I found the link online.
The legendary reform resolutions passed by the Third Plenum in 1978 raise hopes for the outstanding, overdue Third Plenum of the 20th Party Congress under Xi Jinping’s rule. With the slogan “Seek the truth in the facts,” Deng Xiaoping managed to step out of the shadow of the despot Mao in 1978. Today, after 45 years, Xi, who repeatedly speaks of the superiority of the socialist system, refuses to honor this. Last December, Beijing had an allusive editorial in the magazine Caixin censored.
The magazine had called for China to return to “reality-based thinking,” just as Deng had done at the 3rd Plenum in 1978. He “liberated” thinking “to ask questions that no one dared to ask before.”
Deliberately alluding to today’s situation, Caixin wrote about what happens when bureaucracy and dogmatism dominate politics: “Then nobody dares to say what is not dictated from above. To think what is not stipulated in the documents. To do something that the leaders do not pre-arrange.” (上级没有说的，不敢说; 文件没有提的，不敢想; 领导没有安排的，不敢做.)
Gu Mu’s role has been forgotten today. “If Deng Xiaoping was the chief architect of China’s reform and opening up, his aide Gu Mu was the architect of China’s special economic zones (SEZs),” was how Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post honored Gu Mu on his death in 2009. In July 1979, Deng had put him in charge of founding the four SEZs, including the famous Shenzhen. Today, Xi Jinping’s father is credited for Shenzhen.
Gu Mu successfully negotiated Beijing’s first foreign loan from Japan and arranged China’s accession to the World Bank in 1980 with Deng. Former World Bank China chief Pierre Bottelier describes this in his book “Why and How the People’s Republic of China Entered the World Bank in 1980 and Afterthoughts“, published in January.
Gu Mu also adopted Deng’s motto, “Seek the truth in the facts,” for other areas besides the economy. In the foreword to the first issue of the quarterly journal “Confucius Research,” published in 1986, he wrote that he was committed to rehabilitating China’s national saint Confucius from a time when China was a country of reforms – despite opposition from within the party. It took another eight years before China’s International Confucian Association was founded in October 1994. Gu Mu became its first president and advocated the promotion of “cultural pluralism as a necessary trend.” He managed to gain his friend, Singapore’s President Lee Kuan Yew, as honorary chairman.
Today, however, Beijing insists on and interprets something completely different; its return to tradition, culture and Confucius are unique features of Xi Jinping’s new China-centered “Global Civilization Initiative.” This is also news from another planet.
“He Cha – drinking tea” is a Chinese euphemism for a summons to the police station. The Suzhou City Public Security Bureau has obviously taken the phrase to heart. This month, it opened its own milk tea café in a police station. The Jǐngchá 警茶, a pun on the characters for police and tea, focuses primarily on its external impact and is not yet open to the public. Nevertheless, the concept seems to be working: The merchandise surrounding the store, from cups to bags, can be found everywhere in China’s social media sphere. Incidentally, the milk tea cops from Suzhou are not the only civil servants pandering to the country’s café-crazy middle class. In 2022, the state postal service opened several cafés in Fujian province.
