China’s powerful foreign policy emissary, Wang Yi, was supposed to meet Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during his flying visit to Moscow. But then Vladimir Putin received him in person at the Kremlin. The Chinese leadership may not have expected this meeting either.
For Putin, the meeting was a clever move: Shortly before the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the war czar can once again show off the solidarity between Beijing and Moscow, as Christiane Kuehl explains. Meanwhile, it is unknown whether the two also discussed the peace plan for Ukraine put forward by Wang.
At the beginning of January, a report by MDR about the Chinese battery manufacturer CATL caused a stir. The police had carried out a “raid” on the construction site of the CATL plant in Thuringia, it said. The public broadcaster reported of “illegal residence”, “forged entry documents” and “undercover investigations”.
The result: With its choice of words, MDR caused much ado about nothing. It was a matter of routine checks, as the responsible main customs office confirmed to our author Christian Domke Seidel, and there were no undercover investigations or anything of the sort. And the fact that Chinese employees had fled from the officials during previous checks, as reported by MDR, is also unknown to customs. The MDR journalists did not seem to like the fact that the CATL plant mainly employs highly qualified specialists from China who bring high-tech to central Germany.
Russian President Vladimir Putin received China’s chief diplomat Wang Yi at the Kremlin. Official pictures show both shaking hands next to Putin’s long white table. Other pictures show them sitting across from each other in conversation at a normal human distance.
These are images that testify to closeness, quite different from before the Russian invasion. Back then, in early 2022, for example, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron had to take their seats at the head of the table, six meters away from Putin, who was sitting at the other end.
China’s leader Xi Jinping will visit Russia, Putin said. And he said the two countries’ relations have advanced to “new frontiers”. Cooperation is very important for Russia, he said. Wang told Putin that China-Russia relations “cannot be influenced by third parties” – a tip toward the United States.
The rest of the meeting then took place behind closed doors, and so little was revealed. There was no press conference. What remains of the meeting is primarily symbolism. The fact that Putin met the lower-ranking Wang Yi testifies to a genuine appreciation of Chinese friendship.
Whether consciously or not, Wang’s trip to his Moscow friends showed that the geopolitical fronts in the world continue to appear clear. US President Joe Biden had made a surprise trip to Kyiv just two days earlier, emphatically demonstrating his solidarity with the battered country shortly before the anniversary of the Russian attack on Ukraine.
How, in the face of such symbolism, Wang’s surprise announcement of a peace initiative at the Munich Security Conference can catch on is unclear. “We will present something. And that is the Chinese position on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis,” according to Wang. Whether China’s foreign policy czar has now explained these ideas to Putin or even sought feedback is unclear. In any case, Xi is said to have prepared a “peace speech” on Ukraine for Friday. Here too, however, the details remain unclear.
The problem: A genuine mediator must maintain contacts with both sides and enjoy the trust of both sides. This is not the case in the Ukraine war. While China and Russia have organized regular face-to-face meetings of high-ranking politicians since the beginning of the war, Beijing has not even spoken to Kyiv on the phone. Xi, on the other hand, has spoken with Putin four times since the outbreak of the war. It would be a sensation if Wang Yi suddenly appeared in Kyiv.
Pro-Russian pseudo-neutrality is not enough, and so skepticism prevailed in Munich. To be sure, China has not yet released details of the peace plan. But Wang said the proposal would include demands to preserve territorial integrity, protect nuclear facilities and reject the use of biochemical weapons.
Ukraine has also reacted cautiously so far, even though Kyiv does not seem to have completely written off Chinese support. It has resumed contact with Beijing, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a recent interview. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told a news conference Tuesday that Wang Yi had shared “some elements” of the plan with him, but Ukraine had not yet seen a full concept. He did not provide details but stressed that Ukraine’s own peace proposal remains its “top priority”.
Zelenskiy’s 10-point peace plan includes the return of Ukrainian territory, the withdrawal of Russian troops from all of Ukraine, as well as a guarantee of nuclear safety and ensuring Ukrainian grain exports. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also stressed that a Russian troop withdrawal from Ukraine must be a condition for any peace agreement.
However, according to Reuters, there is also concern in Western governments that a Chinese plan could also amplify voices against, for example, arms supplies. “The expectation is that it is an attempt to divide the world and Europe,” the agency quoted a diplomat in Munich as saying. But that could also be a recipe for its swift failure.
In Moscow, at least, nothing was heard of all this for the time being. Wang publicly left it at the general: “Together we support multi-polarity and the democratization of international relations,” he told Putin. “This fully meets the course of time and history; it also meets the interests of the majority of countries.”
This speaks to the hope that, in the end, a global majority will follow a Sino-Russian narrative rather than the West. Speaking to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Wang also said he looked forward to concluding new agreements with Russia. He did not say what those might be.
Wang had already exchanged views with the influential National Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev on Tuesday. Patrushev assured Wang that China is at the forefront of Russian foreign policy and has Russia’s support on the issue of Taiwan. Both states must stand together vis-à-vis the West, the Putin confidant said: “The West is acting against both of us.” So far, so familiar.
There was also little enlightenment on the deliveries of “lethal assistance” from China to Russia, feared by the USA. China was considering supplying such “lethal assistance” to Russia, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had warned during the Munich Security Conference – and seemed to be purposefully launching intelligence. He would soon present evidence, Blinken said. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg echoed the US warnings as early as Tuesday, saying, “We are increasingly concerned that China will arm Russia.” For EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell, arms deliveries from China to Russia would cross the EU’s “red line”.
“It is the US, not China, that is endlessly shipping weapons to the battlefield,” Beijing’s foreign office spokesman Wang Wenbin said succinctly in response. He urged the US to stop “spreading false information”. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov indirectly rejected Blinken’s accusations when asked by reporters Wednesday. After all, he said, China had already rejected them. “There is nothing to add to that.” Confidence in such assurances is likely to be manageable in the West. By Friday, at least, more may be known about China’s peace plan.
Thuringia was able to attract a showcase economic project to the region in the form of the Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL) battery plant. The group is investing €1.8 billion, receiving just €7.5 million in subsidies and will employ around 2,000 people by the end of 2023. Production started at the beginning of February. All this will take place under the umbrella of Contemporary Amperex Technology Thuringia GmbH (CATT). Initial expansion plans are also already in place; demand for battery cells is high. Germany’s industry urgently needs batteries. CATL technology is world-class.
However, it did not go completely without incidental noise. On Jan. 11, a major inspection took place at the construction site. The main customs office checked the papers of 424 people. This is customary at regular intervals on construction sites – especially on this scale. The background to this is that different skilled workers have to be hired for the various construction phases. Different subcontractors are employed to lay the foundations than to erect the halls or lay the cables. Accordingly, the main customs office carries out checks depending on the progress of the construction work, like on Jan. 11, 2023.
Problems arose because the public broadcaster MDR had turned a “routine check” into a “raid” in its reporting, which went online at the same time as the start of the check. This had been necessary because “undercover investigations”, which had been running “for months”, had revealed suspicious facts. During a control in October 2022, “50 Chinese had fled the area in the direction of the adjacent fields,” according to MDR.
The main customs office contradicts this statement in an interview with Table.Media. The results of the inspection alone – only one employee of a subcontractor was found to have committed irregularities – show that there was no undercover investigation. Although there was also a routine check last year, the main customs office was unaware that employees had fled. There was no reason for further investigations.
In October, however, there were several violations of the applicable residence regulations, as Stephan Krauß, spokesman at the Ministry for Economic Affairs in Thuringia, tells Table.Media. At that time, CATT had introduced a monitoring system to avoid work permit problems in the future.
The biggest problem has been Covid, according to Krauß. Often, employees whose work permits had expired were unable to leave the country because there were simply no flights. Here, in turn, there were complaints from CATT because visa processing took too long, he said. In principle, however, the government and CATT are working closely and transparently together on these problems, as Krauß emphasizes. Undercover investigations or even raids are not necessary.
A company spokeswoman also emphasized this to Table.Media. “We have made extensive and systematic efforts to comply with all applicable occupational safety and residence regulations in Germany.”
With the introduction of monitoring, this is now working without any problems, which is not a matter of course. After all, 400 Chinese employees currently work at the plant in Thuringia. “To ensure that the plant can operate successfully in the initial phase, we are currently sending high-ranking employees from the technology and management department from headquarters to Europe to train the new local employees on site,” says the company spokesperson.
One challenge, however, is finding enough housing in neighboring Arnstadt and the surrounding villages. But that is not the only one. To ensure that employees don’t get too homesick, CATL tries hard to spread Chinese flair. There are events such as the Chinese New Year or the Moon Festival. With local cuisine, of course. “We have an international canteen with German and Chinese cuisine,” says the spokeswoman. “The Chinese food is prepared by a Chinese chef.”
Nevertheless, in the medium term, the number of Chinese expats is expected to decrease. “As soon as the recruitment and training of local employees has made progress, our factory will be dominated by local employees,” the company spokesperson said. How long that will take is still unclear. Currently, only 1,000 employees work at the plant. Next year, the plant is expected to be fully utilized and produce 14 gigawatt hours of storage capacity annually. That’s enough for 185,000 to 350,000 EVs. However, a permit for an expansion to 24 gigawatt hours has already been submitted.
“I love the Rhineland, but there is hardly a more exciting place in the world than China at the moment,” says Maximilian Butek, Chief Representative of the AHK in Shanghai. It was not planned that the 39-year-old – who never wanted to leave the Rhineland – would travel so far and for so long.
Butek studied business administration in Bielefeld and founded a student consultancy during his studies. After graduating, he was recruited by Deutsche Telekom for a two-year project. At the time, he felt that he still lacked experience in Asia to continue his job search.
Particularly in order to become better acquainted with the economic dynamics of Southeast Asia, Butek joined the AHK in Thailand in 2010, where he headed the local consulting department until 2012. Once he had joined the network of foreign chambers of commerce, he moved on in two-year cycles: first to the Baltic States, then to South Africa and Ghana, and finally to Guangzhou in China.
Since 2020, Maximilian Butek heads the AHK in Shanghai, which is one of the largest in the world, with around 140 employees and 5,000 members. 70 percent of the AHK members in China are located in the region around the Yangtze River Delta.
Their main concerns are increasing uncertainty and a lack of predictability, says Butek. The Chinese government needs to rebuild trust. Until recently, companies were still concerned about zero-Covid and travel restrictions. In the medium term, however, there are also the feared recession in Europe and the geopolitical disputes between the USA and China. In the long term, on the other hand, demographic change in China threatens to lead to dwindling consumption and labor shortages.
Despite everything, it still makes sense for German companies to get involved in China, explains the head of the Shanghai AHK. “China was long seen as an extended workbench, then as an important market, and now you have to be in China to pick up the trends for tomorrow.” In terms of quality and reliability, Germany is still the leader, but there is still a lot to learn, especially from the Chinese speed and creativity to invent new business models.
In addition, Butek says it’s also worthwhile for German companies to send their talent to China for three to five years so that they understand that “Germany isn’t everything and the German approach may not always be the best.” For companies that want to succeed in China, he recommends bringing their German values, management and processes and combining them with Chinese strengths.
The AHK can act as an interpreter and mediate between the German and Chinese sides. Particularly in the last three years, however, it is felt that more and more people are talking past each other instead of with each other, complains the Rhinelander. “But if you stop talking, you can’t change anything.” Clemens Ruben
This toilet is 2,400 years old!!! The broken parts of the toilet, as well as a bent flush pipe, were already unearthed last summer by a research team among ancient palace ruins at the Yueyang archaeological site in downtown Xi’an, according to Chinese state media. The toilet was said to have been located inside the palace. The pipe led to a pit outside.
China’s powerful foreign policy emissary, Wang Yi, was supposed to meet Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during his flying visit to Moscow. But then Vladimir Putin received him in person at the Kremlin. The Chinese leadership may not have expected this meeting either.
For Putin, the meeting was a clever move: Shortly before the anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the war czar can once again show off the solidarity between Beijing and Moscow, as Christiane Kuehl explains. Meanwhile, it is unknown whether the two also discussed the peace plan for Ukraine put forward by Wang.
At the beginning of January, a report by MDR about the Chinese battery manufacturer CATL caused a stir. The police had carried out a “raid” on the construction site of the CATL plant in Thuringia, it said. The public broadcaster reported of “illegal residence”, “forged entry documents” and “undercover investigations”.
The result: With its choice of words, MDR caused much ado about nothing. It was a matter of routine checks, as the responsible main customs office confirmed to our author Christian Domke Seidel, and there were no undercover investigations or anything of the sort. And the fact that Chinese employees had fled from the officials during previous checks, as reported by MDR, is also unknown to customs. The MDR journalists did not seem to like the fact that the CATL plant mainly employs highly qualified specialists from China who bring high-tech to central Germany.
Russian President Vladimir Putin received China’s chief diplomat Wang Yi at the Kremlin. Official pictures show both shaking hands next to Putin’s long white table. Other pictures show them sitting across from each other in conversation at a normal human distance.
These are images that testify to closeness, quite different from before the Russian invasion. Back then, in early 2022, for example, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron had to take their seats at the head of the table, six meters away from Putin, who was sitting at the other end.
China’s leader Xi Jinping will visit Russia, Putin said. And he said the two countries’ relations have advanced to “new frontiers”. Cooperation is very important for Russia, he said. Wang told Putin that China-Russia relations “cannot be influenced by third parties” – a tip toward the United States.
The rest of the meeting then took place behind closed doors, and so little was revealed. There was no press conference. What remains of the meeting is primarily symbolism. The fact that Putin met the lower-ranking Wang Yi testifies to a genuine appreciation of Chinese friendship.
Whether consciously or not, Wang’s trip to his Moscow friends showed that the geopolitical fronts in the world continue to appear clear. US President Joe Biden had made a surprise trip to Kyiv just two days earlier, emphatically demonstrating his solidarity with the battered country shortly before the anniversary of the Russian attack on Ukraine.
How, in the face of such symbolism, Wang’s surprise announcement of a peace initiative at the Munich Security Conference can catch on is unclear. “We will present something. And that is the Chinese position on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis,” according to Wang. Whether China’s foreign policy czar has now explained these ideas to Putin or even sought feedback is unclear. In any case, Xi is said to have prepared a “peace speech” on Ukraine for Friday. Here too, however, the details remain unclear.
The problem: A genuine mediator must maintain contacts with both sides and enjoy the trust of both sides. This is not the case in the Ukraine war. While China and Russia have organized regular face-to-face meetings of high-ranking politicians since the beginning of the war, Beijing has not even spoken to Kyiv on the phone. Xi, on the other hand, has spoken with Putin four times since the outbreak of the war. It would be a sensation if Wang Yi suddenly appeared in Kyiv.
Pro-Russian pseudo-neutrality is not enough, and so skepticism prevailed in Munich. To be sure, China has not yet released details of the peace plan. But Wang said the proposal would include demands to preserve territorial integrity, protect nuclear facilities and reject the use of biochemical weapons.
Ukraine has also reacted cautiously so far, even though Kyiv does not seem to have completely written off Chinese support. It has resumed contact with Beijing, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a recent interview. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told a news conference Tuesday that Wang Yi had shared “some elements” of the plan with him, but Ukraine had not yet seen a full concept. He did not provide details but stressed that Ukraine’s own peace proposal remains its “top priority”.
Zelenskiy’s 10-point peace plan includes the return of Ukrainian territory, the withdrawal of Russian troops from all of Ukraine, as well as a guarantee of nuclear safety and ensuring Ukrainian grain exports. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also stressed that a Russian troop withdrawal from Ukraine must be a condition for any peace agreement.
However, according to Reuters, there is also concern in Western governments that a Chinese plan could also amplify voices against, for example, arms supplies. “The expectation is that it is an attempt to divide the world and Europe,” the agency quoted a diplomat in Munich as saying. But that could also be a recipe for its swift failure.
In Moscow, at least, nothing was heard of all this for the time being. Wang publicly left it at the general: “Together we support multi-polarity and the democratization of international relations,” he told Putin. “This fully meets the course of time and history; it also meets the interests of the majority of countries.”
This speaks to the hope that, in the end, a global majority will follow a Sino-Russian narrative rather than the West. Speaking to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Wang also said he looked forward to concluding new agreements with Russia. He did not say what those might be.
Wang had already exchanged views with the influential National Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev on Tuesday. Patrushev assured Wang that China is at the forefront of Russian foreign policy and has Russia’s support on the issue of Taiwan. Both states must stand together vis-à-vis the West, the Putin confidant said: “The West is acting against both of us.” So far, so familiar.
There was also little enlightenment on the deliveries of “lethal assistance” from China to Russia, feared by the USA. China was considering supplying such “lethal assistance” to Russia, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had warned during the Munich Security Conference – and seemed to be purposefully launching intelligence. He would soon present evidence, Blinken said. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg echoed the US warnings as early as Tuesday, saying, “We are increasingly concerned that China will arm Russia.” For EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell, arms deliveries from China to Russia would cross the EU’s “red line”.
“It is the US, not China, that is endlessly shipping weapons to the battlefield,” Beijing’s foreign office spokesman Wang Wenbin said succinctly in response. He urged the US to stop “spreading false information”. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov indirectly rejected Blinken’s accusations when asked by reporters Wednesday. After all, he said, China had already rejected them. “There is nothing to add to that.” Confidence in such assurances is likely to be manageable in the West. By Friday, at least, more may be known about China’s peace plan.
Thuringia was able to attract a showcase economic project to the region in the form of the Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL) battery plant. The group is investing €1.8 billion, receiving just €7.5 million in subsidies and will employ around 2,000 people by the end of 2023. Production started at the beginning of February. All this will take place under the umbrella of Contemporary Amperex Technology Thuringia GmbH (CATT). Initial expansion plans are also already in place; demand for battery cells is high. Germany’s industry urgently needs batteries. CATL technology is world-class.
However, it did not go completely without incidental noise. On Jan. 11, a major inspection took place at the construction site. The main customs office checked the papers of 424 people. This is customary at regular intervals on construction sites – especially on this scale. The background to this is that different skilled workers have to be hired for the various construction phases. Different subcontractors are employed to lay the foundations than to erect the halls or lay the cables. Accordingly, the main customs office carries out checks depending on the progress of the construction work, like on Jan. 11, 2023.
Problems arose because the public broadcaster MDR had turned a “routine check” into a “raid” in its reporting, which went online at the same time as the start of the check. This had been necessary because “undercover investigations”, which had been running “for months”, had revealed suspicious facts. During a control in October 2022, “50 Chinese had fled the area in the direction of the adjacent fields,” according to MDR.
The main customs office contradicts this statement in an interview with Table.Media. The results of the inspection alone – only one employee of a subcontractor was found to have committed irregularities – show that there was no undercover investigation. Although there was also a routine check last year, the main customs office was unaware that employees had fled. There was no reason for further investigations.
In October, however, there were several violations of the applicable residence regulations, as Stephan Krauß, spokesman at the Ministry for Economic Affairs in Thuringia, tells Table.Media. At that time, CATT had introduced a monitoring system to avoid work permit problems in the future.
The biggest problem has been Covid, according to Krauß. Often, employees whose work permits had expired were unable to leave the country because there were simply no flights. Here, in turn, there were complaints from CATT because visa processing took too long, he said. In principle, however, the government and CATT are working closely and transparently together on these problems, as Krauß emphasizes. Undercover investigations or even raids are not necessary.
A company spokeswoman also emphasized this to Table.Media. “We have made extensive and systematic efforts to comply with all applicable occupational safety and residence regulations in Germany.”
With the introduction of monitoring, this is now working without any problems, which is not a matter of course. After all, 400 Chinese employees currently work at the plant in Thuringia. “To ensure that the plant can operate successfully in the initial phase, we are currently sending high-ranking employees from the technology and management department from headquarters to Europe to train the new local employees on site,” says the company spokesperson.
One challenge, however, is finding enough housing in neighboring Arnstadt and the surrounding villages. But that is not the only one. To ensure that employees don’t get too homesick, CATL tries hard to spread Chinese flair. There are events such as the Chinese New Year or the Moon Festival. With local cuisine, of course. “We have an international canteen with German and Chinese cuisine,” says the spokeswoman. “The Chinese food is prepared by a Chinese chef.”
Nevertheless, in the medium term, the number of Chinese expats is expected to decrease. “As soon as the recruitment and training of local employees has made progress, our factory will be dominated by local employees,” the company spokesperson said. How long that will take is still unclear. Currently, only 1,000 employees work at the plant. Next year, the plant is expected to be fully utilized and produce 14 gigawatt hours of storage capacity annually. That’s enough for 185,000 to 350,000 EVs. However, a permit for an expansion to 24 gigawatt hours has already been submitted.
“I love the Rhineland, but there is hardly a more exciting place in the world than China at the moment,” says Maximilian Butek, Chief Representative of the AHK in Shanghai. It was not planned that the 39-year-old – who never wanted to leave the Rhineland – would travel so far and for so long.
Butek studied business administration in Bielefeld and founded a student consultancy during his studies. After graduating, he was recruited by Deutsche Telekom for a two-year project. At the time, he felt that he still lacked experience in Asia to continue his job search.
Particularly in order to become better acquainted with the economic dynamics of Southeast Asia, Butek joined the AHK in Thailand in 2010, where he headed the local consulting department until 2012. Once he had joined the network of foreign chambers of commerce, he moved on in two-year cycles: first to the Baltic States, then to South Africa and Ghana, and finally to Guangzhou in China.
Since 2020, Maximilian Butek heads the AHK in Shanghai, which is one of the largest in the world, with around 140 employees and 5,000 members. 70 percent of the AHK members in China are located in the region around the Yangtze River Delta.
Their main concerns are increasing uncertainty and a lack of predictability, says Butek. The Chinese government needs to rebuild trust. Until recently, companies were still concerned about zero-Covid and travel restrictions. In the medium term, however, there are also the feared recession in Europe and the geopolitical disputes between the USA and China. In the long term, on the other hand, demographic change in China threatens to lead to dwindling consumption and labor shortages.
Despite everything, it still makes sense for German companies to get involved in China, explains the head of the Shanghai AHK. “China was long seen as an extended workbench, then as an important market, and now you have to be in China to pick up the trends for tomorrow.” In terms of quality and reliability, Germany is still the leader, but there is still a lot to learn, especially from the Chinese speed and creativity to invent new business models.
In addition, Butek says it’s also worthwhile for German companies to send their talent to China for three to five years so that they understand that “Germany isn’t everything and the German approach may not always be the best.” For companies that want to succeed in China, he recommends bringing their German values, management and processes and combining them with Chinese strengths.
The AHK can act as an interpreter and mediate between the German and Chinese sides. Particularly in the last three years, however, it is felt that more and more people are talking past each other instead of with each other, complains the Rhinelander. “But if you stop talking, you can’t change anything.” Clemens Ruben
This toilet is 2,400 years old!!! The broken parts of the toilet, as well as a bent flush pipe, were already unearthed last summer by a research team among ancient palace ruins at the Yueyang archaeological site in downtown Xi’an, according to Chinese state media. The toilet was said to have been located inside the palace. The pipe led to a pit outside.
