It was an announcement that was both surprising and unsurprising. On Friday at the conclusion of the National People’s Congress, China’s Premier Li Keqiang announced his resignation from office at the end of the year. This is actually normal in the People’s Republic. Previously, two five-year terms in office were the rule for both the prime minister and the president.
But not with Xi Jinping. The state and party leader plans to be reelected for another term and can now choose a suitable prime minister. Frank Sieren takes a look at the possible successors to Li Keqiang – should Xi follow past appointment patterns. But a surprise is always possible with him.
Regardless of who becomes the next premier in Xi’s shadow, he will also face a continuing question: Taiwan’s fate has returned to the spotlight in the wake of Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Does the West’s reaction to Putin’s war tend to deter political leaders in Beijing? Or do they even feel encouraged by Russia’s invasion to attack Taiwan?
We have already looked at this topic from different angles here at China.Table. This time, the question is how to immunize the country against possible sanctions by the West. Beijing could draw conclusions from the sanctions against Russia and bolster its own resilience to ensure that trade restrictions following a potential attack on Taiwan would be less effective. China’s desire to become independent of foreign expertise in a growing number of economic sectors could receive a huge boost, writes Marcel Grzanna.
For many decades, the authoritarian political system of the People’s Republic of China had a political virtue. After two terms, that is, every ten years, both the president and his prime minister had to step down along with their teams, and two new politicians took over. “This is the last year I will be premier,” Li Keqiang confirmed on Friday. He is stepping down from his post after two terms. President Xi Jinping, on the other hand, intends to take a different path.
Typically, the successor to the president is announced after about five years. From then on, the successor keeps a close eye on the incumbent president. The incumbent’s remaining time in office should not be used to burn all bridges. Although the top political leadership was not elected by the citizens of the People’s Republic, but rather selected by the Communist Party, there was at least a new impetus at least every five years and a major one every ten years.
This sensible system was already undermined by head of state Xi back in 2018. He is now able to rule for as long as the party, which he heads, lets him. Long terms of office have advantages and disadvantages. Among Western democracies, Germany is one country whose voters chose to keep Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkel (both 16 years) in office for a long time. Xi has only ten years under his belt. Especially in such a large country, there are good reasons for longer office terms to enact major reforms. For example, Xi was and is much more effective than his predecessors in the fight against corruption.
The disadvantages, however, weigh greater. Above all, Xi begins to take on more and more autocratic traits. In the prime minister’s annual report to the National People’s Congress, the incumbent president was usually included in the ranks of his predecessors in honor of their previous accomplishments. This year, only Xi was mentioned.
This is so far from the Chinese mindset, which is much more characterized by the idea of balancing complex networks and history than the West. In Chinese culture, balance is considered a higher art, and better politics than the powerful, all-sweeping solo act. Xi seems to tend more toward the latter. This may also be the case for the selection of the new prime minister.
There is already a lot of public speculation about who might be the successor. However, things tend to turn out differently than expected. There are many indications that the new prime minister will be a loyal follower of Xi rather than a man or woman who would see himself or herself as a corrective to the president. President Xi is expected to deliberate on Li’s successor in the fall. The head of state is entitled to propose a candidate for the premier post.
Generally, a politician who became prime minister was already a simple member of the Politburo beforehand. Of the 25 Politburo members, seven already belong to the Standing Committee and are thus overqualified for new impulses. That leaves 18, nine of whom have already reached the retirement age of 68. Xi will turn 68 in June, leaving nine candidates for the post of premier, that is if Xi sticks to the traditional selection procedures. Of these nine, six have already reached an age where they will not be able to govern for the next ten years without passing the retirement age.
This leaves three candidates:
That leaves Chen and Ding. Chen spent most of his career in the booming province of Zhejiang, south of Shanghai. But he also served as Party Secretary in Guizhou province, which is still very poor. Ding is Xi’s most important figure in the party. He already worked for him in Shanghai and then followed him to Beijing.
So it could be one of the two. If Xi doesn’t have a surprise in store. And he certainly has the power to do so. Or to put it another way: The appointment of the new prime minister will, above all, demonstrate how powerful Xi Jinping is – and that, in turn, speaks for a surprising appointment that no one saw coming.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has severely damaged the credibility of autocratic regimes. Along with the Russian government, the Chinese government will probably also have to pay a price. Those in the political West who were firmly confident of Vladimir Putin’s integrity in the past will now look to Beijing with much more unease and mistrust. Voices in the West that attempt to convey China’s good intentions will have a harder time being heard.
Last week’s National People’s Congress has proven why opposition is likely to rise in the future. China’s authoritarian ruling cadres failed to condemn Russia’s war of aggression on its biggest political stage. They are only tentatively joining in the sanctions against Moscow anyway. Instead, China’s media paint a picture of the war that is supposed to create sympathy for Russia among the Chinese population.
China is trying to position itself as a mediator and appeasing power in the crisis. But how seriously should the country be taken? Observers had the feeling that the deaths in Europe were of no concern to China. But that cannot be further from the truth.
Putin’s war in Ukraine is certainly not to the benefit of the Chinese government, which is openly threatening Taiwan with forced annexation. Because as a result, Taiwan’s allies are now likely to prepare just as meticulously for a possible Chinese invasion of the island as the People’s Republic has been doing for years.
At the same time, Beijing probably has a more specific idea of when it can consider itself in a position to annex Taiwan. On the one hand, when the armed forces of the People’s Republic are capable of doing so. Taiwan’s Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng believes an invasion by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to be possible in 2025. On the other hand, China is working on the economic foundations that would secure an invasion.
Beijing is carefully studying Western sanctions against Russia to be ready with appropriate countermeasures. “China will closely monitor Western sanctions against Russia and meticulously examine how Moscow deals with them,” says political scientist Li Mingjiang of the Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore. “From this, the government wants to draw its conclusions on how to deal with such sanctions itself, which would result from a Chinese military campaign against Taiwan.”
Li believes that the highly heralded dual circulation policy may already be part of Beijing’s strategy for dealing with such a scenario. Dual Circulation is intended to strengthen China’s domestic circular flow of income and reduce its dependence on exports. This is one of the main goals of the next Five-Year Plan (China.Table reported).
Researcher Li does not believe that Russia’s example “will significantly change China’s determination to reunify.” China is aware of its greater resilience, even if sanctions against Russia “will cause Beijing to be more cautious before using violent means against Taiwan.”
Meanwhile, Andreas Fulda of the University of Nottingham believes that the Ukraine crisis made a Chinese invasion of Taiwan more likely. “With the joint statement of February 4, 2022, Xi has pledged political support to Putin for his revanchist ambitions. As a quid pro quo, he can now be sure of Putin’s support should Xi decide to militarily annex Taiwan.”
Putin had thought the US distracted and demoralized after its hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan. This assessment, however, proved to be wrong. Biden has used sound judgment in recent months to build an international coalition against Russia, the political scientist said. “Xi and his advisers may now equally succumb to the fallacy that the US is tied up in Europe because of the war in Ukraine,” believes Fulda.
Fulda believes that the high focus of power on party leader Xi Jinping is particularly dangerous for the situation’s development. “Like Putin, Xi surrounds himself almost exclusively with yes-men. This increases the risk of miscalculations. Therefore, the importance of Taiwan to the US and its allies in East Asia should be made clear to Xi at the highest level.”
One weakness of the Chinese economy is its high dependence on the US dollar. The South China Morning Post identifies this as one of the key lessons for Beijing from the Ukraine war. “The central bank has always regarded putting its foreign exchange reserves into US dollar bonds as the best way to ensure ‘safety’, but the freeze on Russia’s central bank assets could force Beijing to reconsider the policy,” the paper writes.
To accelerate preparations, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) proposed a legal obligation during the NPC that would require state institutions to align their activities with the goal of the island’s “return” to the motherland (China.Table reported). The time was called to be ripe to actively work toward “reunification”.
Marc Oliver Rieger, professor for finance at the University of Trier and director of the local Confucius Institute, sees further financial risks. “Not everything is solid in China’s finances, there are simply many bad loans and overcapacities. Regardless of a potential conflict with subsequent sanctions, there’s no guarantee that growth will continue.”
However, Rieger believes that military risk could dissuade Xi Jinping from invading. “In particular, I think the possible intervention of the US in the war, which has not been ruled out at all in the case of Taiwan, carries more weight than possible sanctions.”
When asked about his vision for mobility in Germany, Renjie Qian replies soberly: “More charging stations.” Even in new buildings, charging stations were often not included in the design, which is a real problem. Qian works as a Project Manager and Data Analyst at the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) in Duisburg, Germany. Ten years ago, he moved to Germany from his native China. He left the metropolis of Shanghai to study at a college in Linnich, a town with 13,000 residents in North Rhine-Westphalia.
“It was a culture shock,” says Qian. “I was born and raised in Shanghai, I spent my whole life there. I thought all cities were like it. The noisy streets, the stores, the commotion.” He laughs. What we call cities, to him, are villages. “Life here is more relaxed.” For his studies, Qian moved to Duisburg, to the Marxloh district, which many call a “no-go area.” “It was fabulous,” he says. And leaves it at that.
That he landed a job in the automobile industry was more of a coincidence – or “fate,” as Qian calls it. “I’m a lucky person, whenever I need help, it comes.” In this case, it was the job that came to him. Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, Director of CAR, was at the time at the University of Duisburg-Essen with his institute and was looking for a student assistant.
The fact that Qian was a Chinese native speaker played into his hands: Dudenhoeffer’s institute develops mobility studies and organizes international conventions in the mobility sector – and his team also works with Chinese companies for this purpose. Qian was hired after completing his studies and is now largely responsible for contacts with China. He sees himself as a link between the countries.
“China’s car industry has greatly developed in recent years,” Qian says. “Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have bought a Chinese car, but today, it’s different.” He sees his home country’s expertise primarily in e-mobility. “China, but also Japan and Korea, have invested a lot in the field. Germany is still lagging behind.” For too long, he says, people here have rested on the successes of combustion engines. And what can German automakers do to trump the competition now? “With software,” says Qian. And that doesn’t just mean multimedia, navigation systems and gadgets, but also engine and battery management systems.
Even though the 35-year-old sometimes misses his home, he sees his future in Germany. He likes the new, quieter life – and the fact that nature is so close to the people here. “Before I came to Germany, I had never seen a bird’s nest,” Qian says. Shanghai is now too big for him. Svenja Napp
Red carpet, two women, one dress. A wardrobe double is the ultimate celebrity nightmare at premiere parties and glamour galas. But even at private parties, in open-plan offices and on lecture hall benches, some people suffer from fashion anxiety when someone shows up wearing the same sweaters or summer dress. In Chinese, there is even an own term for such unpleasant fashion clashes, namely 撞衫 zhuàngshān – a combination of the characters 撞 zhuàng “to clash, collide” (as in 撞车 zhuàngchē “car collision”) and 衫 shān as in 衬衫 chènshān “top, blouse, shirt”.
Of course, you can not only clash with tops, but also with everything else that can be put on and worn. Especially if you have acquired some trendy “hot item” (爆款 bàokuǎn – the figurative Chinese term for a product that is selling like hot cakes).
The range of possible accidents on the sidewalk includes shoe clashes (撞鞋 zhuàngxié), trouser clashes (撞裤子 zhuàng kùzi), bag clashes (撞包 zhuàngbāo) and sunglasses clashes (撞墨镜 zhuàng mòjìng). If you are particularly unlucky, you might even experience a face clash (撞脸 zhuàngliǎn), meaning you meet someone who is the spitting image of you. And last but not least, there is the dreaded name clash – people who either have the same name (同名 tóngmíng) or whose name in Chinese is made up of different characters but is pronounced the same (同音 tóngyīn).
By the way, the Chinese have made a virtue out of necessity and unceremoniously declared lookalikes to be a fashion trend. On Taobao and other shopping platforms, twin looks have become a fashion category in their own right. If you type in the keyword “partner look” (情侣装 qínglǚzhuāng), you will not only find partner T-shirts (情侣衫 qínglǚshān) and partner sweatshirts (情侣卫衣 qínglǚ wèiyī), but also pajamas (情侣睡衣 qínglǚ shuìyī), jackets (情侣外套 qínglǚ wàitào), sneakers (情侣球鞋 qínglǚ qiúxié) and wristwatches (情侣手表 qínglǚ shǒubiǎo), even complete outfits in a couples’ look.
The trend does no longer stop at lovebirds, by the way, but has also spilled over to other target groups. In China, the partner dress is now also available as a family version (亲子装 qīnzǐzhuāng – “parent-child look”) and even as a pet version (matching couple outfits for owners and their dogs, cats, hamsters, etc.). There are no limits to creativity.
Verena Menzel runs the language school New Chinese in Beijing.
It was an announcement that was both surprising and unsurprising. On Friday at the conclusion of the National People’s Congress, China’s Premier Li Keqiang announced his resignation from office at the end of the year. This is actually normal in the People’s Republic. Previously, two five-year terms in office were the rule for both the prime minister and the president.
But not with Xi Jinping. The state and party leader plans to be reelected for another term and can now choose a suitable prime minister. Frank Sieren takes a look at the possible successors to Li Keqiang – should Xi follow past appointment patterns. But a surprise is always possible with him.
Regardless of who becomes the next premier in Xi’s shadow, he will also face a continuing question: Taiwan’s fate has returned to the spotlight in the wake of Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Does the West’s reaction to Putin’s war tend to deter political leaders in Beijing? Or do they even feel encouraged by Russia’s invasion to attack Taiwan?
We have already looked at this topic from different angles here at China.Table. This time, the question is how to immunize the country against possible sanctions by the West. Beijing could draw conclusions from the sanctions against Russia and bolster its own resilience to ensure that trade restrictions following a potential attack on Taiwan would be less effective. China’s desire to become independent of foreign expertise in a growing number of economic sectors could receive a huge boost, writes Marcel Grzanna.
For many decades, the authoritarian political system of the People’s Republic of China had a political virtue. After two terms, that is, every ten years, both the president and his prime minister had to step down along with their teams, and two new politicians took over. “This is the last year I will be premier,” Li Keqiang confirmed on Friday. He is stepping down from his post after two terms. President Xi Jinping, on the other hand, intends to take a different path.
Typically, the successor to the president is announced after about five years. From then on, the successor keeps a close eye on the incumbent president. The incumbent’s remaining time in office should not be used to burn all bridges. Although the top political leadership was not elected by the citizens of the People’s Republic, but rather selected by the Communist Party, there was at least a new impetus at least every five years and a major one every ten years.
This sensible system was already undermined by head of state Xi back in 2018. He is now able to rule for as long as the party, which he heads, lets him. Long terms of office have advantages and disadvantages. Among Western democracies, Germany is one country whose voters chose to keep Helmut Kohl and Angela Merkel (both 16 years) in office for a long time. Xi has only ten years under his belt. Especially in such a large country, there are good reasons for longer office terms to enact major reforms. For example, Xi was and is much more effective than his predecessors in the fight against corruption.
The disadvantages, however, weigh greater. Above all, Xi begins to take on more and more autocratic traits. In the prime minister’s annual report to the National People’s Congress, the incumbent president was usually included in the ranks of his predecessors in honor of their previous accomplishments. This year, only Xi was mentioned.
This is so far from the Chinese mindset, which is much more characterized by the idea of balancing complex networks and history than the West. In Chinese culture, balance is considered a higher art, and better politics than the powerful, all-sweeping solo act. Xi seems to tend more toward the latter. This may also be the case for the selection of the new prime minister.
There is already a lot of public speculation about who might be the successor. However, things tend to turn out differently than expected. There are many indications that the new prime minister will be a loyal follower of Xi rather than a man or woman who would see himself or herself as a corrective to the president. President Xi is expected to deliberate on Li’s successor in the fall. The head of state is entitled to propose a candidate for the premier post.
Generally, a politician who became prime minister was already a simple member of the Politburo beforehand. Of the 25 Politburo members, seven already belong to the Standing Committee and are thus overqualified for new impulses. That leaves 18, nine of whom have already reached the retirement age of 68. Xi will turn 68 in June, leaving nine candidates for the post of premier, that is if Xi sticks to the traditional selection procedures. Of these nine, six have already reached an age where they will not be able to govern for the next ten years without passing the retirement age.
This leaves three candidates:
That leaves Chen and Ding. Chen spent most of his career in the booming province of Zhejiang, south of Shanghai. But he also served as Party Secretary in Guizhou province, which is still very poor. Ding is Xi’s most important figure in the party. He already worked for him in Shanghai and then followed him to Beijing.
So it could be one of the two. If Xi doesn’t have a surprise in store. And he certainly has the power to do so. Or to put it another way: The appointment of the new prime minister will, above all, demonstrate how powerful Xi Jinping is – and that, in turn, speaks for a surprising appointment that no one saw coming.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has severely damaged the credibility of autocratic regimes. Along with the Russian government, the Chinese government will probably also have to pay a price. Those in the political West who were firmly confident of Vladimir Putin’s integrity in the past will now look to Beijing with much more unease and mistrust. Voices in the West that attempt to convey China’s good intentions will have a harder time being heard.
Last week’s National People’s Congress has proven why opposition is likely to rise in the future. China’s authoritarian ruling cadres failed to condemn Russia’s war of aggression on its biggest political stage. They are only tentatively joining in the sanctions against Moscow anyway. Instead, China’s media paint a picture of the war that is supposed to create sympathy for Russia among the Chinese population.
China is trying to position itself as a mediator and appeasing power in the crisis. But how seriously should the country be taken? Observers had the feeling that the deaths in Europe were of no concern to China. But that cannot be further from the truth.
Putin’s war in Ukraine is certainly not to the benefit of the Chinese government, which is openly threatening Taiwan with forced annexation. Because as a result, Taiwan’s allies are now likely to prepare just as meticulously for a possible Chinese invasion of the island as the People’s Republic has been doing for years.
At the same time, Beijing probably has a more specific idea of when it can consider itself in a position to annex Taiwan. On the one hand, when the armed forces of the People’s Republic are capable of doing so. Taiwan’s Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng believes an invasion by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to be possible in 2025. On the other hand, China is working on the economic foundations that would secure an invasion.
Beijing is carefully studying Western sanctions against Russia to be ready with appropriate countermeasures. “China will closely monitor Western sanctions against Russia and meticulously examine how Moscow deals with them,” says political scientist Li Mingjiang of the Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore. “From this, the government wants to draw its conclusions on how to deal with such sanctions itself, which would result from a Chinese military campaign against Taiwan.”
Li believes that the highly heralded dual circulation policy may already be part of Beijing’s strategy for dealing with such a scenario. Dual Circulation is intended to strengthen China’s domestic circular flow of income and reduce its dependence on exports. This is one of the main goals of the next Five-Year Plan (China.Table reported).
Researcher Li does not believe that Russia’s example “will significantly change China’s determination to reunify.” China is aware of its greater resilience, even if sanctions against Russia “will cause Beijing to be more cautious before using violent means against Taiwan.”
Meanwhile, Andreas Fulda of the University of Nottingham believes that the Ukraine crisis made a Chinese invasion of Taiwan more likely. “With the joint statement of February 4, 2022, Xi has pledged political support to Putin for his revanchist ambitions. As a quid pro quo, he can now be sure of Putin’s support should Xi decide to militarily annex Taiwan.”
Putin had thought the US distracted and demoralized after its hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan. This assessment, however, proved to be wrong. Biden has used sound judgment in recent months to build an international coalition against Russia, the political scientist said. “Xi and his advisers may now equally succumb to the fallacy that the US is tied up in Europe because of the war in Ukraine,” believes Fulda.
Fulda believes that the high focus of power on party leader Xi Jinping is particularly dangerous for the situation’s development. “Like Putin, Xi surrounds himself almost exclusively with yes-men. This increases the risk of miscalculations. Therefore, the importance of Taiwan to the US and its allies in East Asia should be made clear to Xi at the highest level.”
One weakness of the Chinese economy is its high dependence on the US dollar. The South China Morning Post identifies this as one of the key lessons for Beijing from the Ukraine war. “The central bank has always regarded putting its foreign exchange reserves into US dollar bonds as the best way to ensure ‘safety’, but the freeze on Russia’s central bank assets could force Beijing to reconsider the policy,” the paper writes.
To accelerate preparations, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) proposed a legal obligation during the NPC that would require state institutions to align their activities with the goal of the island’s “return” to the motherland (China.Table reported). The time was called to be ripe to actively work toward “reunification”.
Marc Oliver Rieger, professor for finance at the University of Trier and director of the local Confucius Institute, sees further financial risks. “Not everything is solid in China’s finances, there are simply many bad loans and overcapacities. Regardless of a potential conflict with subsequent sanctions, there’s no guarantee that growth will continue.”
However, Rieger believes that military risk could dissuade Xi Jinping from invading. “In particular, I think the possible intervention of the US in the war, which has not been ruled out at all in the case of Taiwan, carries more weight than possible sanctions.”
When asked about his vision for mobility in Germany, Renjie Qian replies soberly: “More charging stations.” Even in new buildings, charging stations were often not included in the design, which is a real problem. Qian works as a Project Manager and Data Analyst at the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) in Duisburg, Germany. Ten years ago, he moved to Germany from his native China. He left the metropolis of Shanghai to study at a college in Linnich, a town with 13,000 residents in North Rhine-Westphalia.
“It was a culture shock,” says Qian. “I was born and raised in Shanghai, I spent my whole life there. I thought all cities were like it. The noisy streets, the stores, the commotion.” He laughs. What we call cities, to him, are villages. “Life here is more relaxed.” For his studies, Qian moved to Duisburg, to the Marxloh district, which many call a “no-go area.” “It was fabulous,” he says. And leaves it at that.
That he landed a job in the automobile industry was more of a coincidence – or “fate,” as Qian calls it. “I’m a lucky person, whenever I need help, it comes.” In this case, it was the job that came to him. Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, Director of CAR, was at the time at the University of Duisburg-Essen with his institute and was looking for a student assistant.
The fact that Qian was a Chinese native speaker played into his hands: Dudenhoeffer’s institute develops mobility studies and organizes international conventions in the mobility sector – and his team also works with Chinese companies for this purpose. Qian was hired after completing his studies and is now largely responsible for contacts with China. He sees himself as a link between the countries.
“China’s car industry has greatly developed in recent years,” Qian says. “Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have bought a Chinese car, but today, it’s different.” He sees his home country’s expertise primarily in e-mobility. “China, but also Japan and Korea, have invested a lot in the field. Germany is still lagging behind.” For too long, he says, people here have rested on the successes of combustion engines. And what can German automakers do to trump the competition now? “With software,” says Qian. And that doesn’t just mean multimedia, navigation systems and gadgets, but also engine and battery management systems.
Even though the 35-year-old sometimes misses his home, he sees his future in Germany. He likes the new, quieter life – and the fact that nature is so close to the people here. “Before I came to Germany, I had never seen a bird’s nest,” Qian says. Shanghai is now too big for him. Svenja Napp
Red carpet, two women, one dress. A wardrobe double is the ultimate celebrity nightmare at premiere parties and glamour galas. But even at private parties, in open-plan offices and on lecture hall benches, some people suffer from fashion anxiety when someone shows up wearing the same sweaters or summer dress. In Chinese, there is even an own term for such unpleasant fashion clashes, namely 撞衫 zhuàngshān – a combination of the characters 撞 zhuàng “to clash, collide” (as in 撞车 zhuàngchē “car collision”) and 衫 shān as in 衬衫 chènshān “top, blouse, shirt”.
Of course, you can not only clash with tops, but also with everything else that can be put on and worn. Especially if you have acquired some trendy “hot item” (爆款 bàokuǎn – the figurative Chinese term for a product that is selling like hot cakes).
The range of possible accidents on the sidewalk includes shoe clashes (撞鞋 zhuàngxié), trouser clashes (撞裤子 zhuàng kùzi), bag clashes (撞包 zhuàngbāo) and sunglasses clashes (撞墨镜 zhuàng mòjìng). If you are particularly unlucky, you might even experience a face clash (撞脸 zhuàngliǎn), meaning you meet someone who is the spitting image of you. And last but not least, there is the dreaded name clash – people who either have the same name (同名 tóngmíng) or whose name in Chinese is made up of different characters but is pronounced the same (同音 tóngyīn).
By the way, the Chinese have made a virtue out of necessity and unceremoniously declared lookalikes to be a fashion trend. On Taobao and other shopping platforms, twin looks have become a fashion category in their own right. If you type in the keyword “partner look” (情侣装 qínglǚzhuāng), you will not only find partner T-shirts (情侣衫 qínglǚshān) and partner sweatshirts (情侣卫衣 qínglǚ wèiyī), but also pajamas (情侣睡衣 qínglǚ shuìyī), jackets (情侣外套 qínglǚ wàitào), sneakers (情侣球鞋 qínglǚ qiúxié) and wristwatches (情侣手表 qínglǚ shǒubiǎo), even complete outfits in a couples’ look.
The trend does no longer stop at lovebirds, by the way, but has also spilled over to other target groups. In China, the partner dress is now also available as a family version (亲子装 qīnzǐzhuāng – “parent-child look”) and even as a pet version (matching couple outfits for owners and their dogs, cats, hamsters, etc.). There are no limits to creativity.
Verena Menzel runs the language school New Chinese in Beijing.
