Wirecard + Climate summit + Geely + Airport construction + Johnny Erling
Scholz: Wirecard commitment was routine
Geely has big plans for Zeekr
China to build over 150 airports by 2035
Xi pledges to cut coal consumption from 2025
Beijing plans massive investment in battery storage
Bundestag asks: Is what’s happening in Xinjiang a genocide?
London cuts development aid to China by 95 percent
NATO to decide on China strategy in June
Johnny Erling: China’s fine art of exerting influence
Dear reader,
If we’re being honest: We expected more from Xi Jinping’s appearance at the small climate summit of 40 heads of state and government. However, it’s not really surprising that Xi didn’t announce any earth-shattering new climate goals at the invitation of US President Joe Biden. After all, the new climate goal of the US, which is awakening from climate policy hibernation after four Trump years, outshinesany announcement by other countries. Christiane Kuehl has the details on Xi’s announcement.
When it comes to expanding the giant country’s airports, climate goals seem to be of secondary importance for the time being. Beijing sees a need to catch up, especially in smaller cities, and wants to build more than 150 new airports by 2035, as Gregor Koppenburg and Joern Petring report. The large-scale expansion of renewable energies, on the other hand, is not to be hindered by a lack of energy storage. Beijing authorities have presented new plans that will greatly advance this future market.
Olaf Scholz would have preferred to be at the climate summit yesterday instead of having to answer questions in the Wirecard Committee of Inquiry. Finn Mayer-Kuckuk was on the scene and sheds light on the minister’s statements on the events surrounding a summit meeting with Chinese Vice Premier and leading economic policymaker Liu He in 2019. Then today, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is called as a witness – she is to testify on her trip to China in September 2019.
Frank Sieren takes a closer look at the plans and the new model ofGeely subsidiary Zeekr. The car is supposed to finally make the leap into electromobility after previous lofty plans failed. Zeekr also plans to build a fast-charging network and expand internationally.
And today, Johnny Erling explains how the “emperor” Deng Xiaopingflattered the “king of the International Olympic Committee” Juan Antonio Samaranchwith asigned illustrated book. Football officials pushing around money envelopes (cue Football World Cup 2006) can still learn something from this high art of influence.
The Bundestag investigative committee on the Wirecard scandal once again looked into the events surrounding the company’s planned market entry in China on Thursday. Wirecard had planned to buy the Chinese company Allscore in 2019. Allscore wanted to process payments in China and thus become a competitor to Alipay, but did not yet have the necessary license. Wirecard, therefore, had two requests for the German government. It was supposed to lobby to make the purchase of a company from the financial sector possible in the first place. At the same time, it was supposed to press for the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) to grant the necessary business license to the new partner Allscore.
This is what the German government did – and in retrospect, it has to put up with many questions about it. Since Wirecard’s success was based solely on lies and deception. The alleged billions in profits were achieved through fictitious transactions between subsidiaries. The true source of funds was ever higher loans from banks, which in turn were justified by the fictitious growth figures. It was not until mid-2020 that the house of cards collapsed. Wirecard had to admit that billions of euros allegedly held in accounts in Singapore and Malaysia did not exist at all.
Wirecard should be a pioneer for market entry
Crucial to the criticism before the Wirecard investigation committee of the Bundestag: In 2019, numerous media reports about possible fraud at Wirecard were already running. Nevertheless, both the Ministry of Finance and the Chancellor’s Office in China stood up for the company. On Thursday, Fabio De Masi (Die Linke), a member of parliament, questioned German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz about the events surrounding a summit with Chinese Vice Premier and leading economic policymaker Liu He. Chancellor Angela Merkel was summoned to testify on Friday. She is to testify on the events during her trip to China in September 2019.
According to De Masi, Wirecard was an important topic at the German-Chinese financial market dialogue in Beijing in mid-January 2019. According to his interpretation, Wirecard was even one of the most important topics (“the jackpot”) on the German side. As a payment service provider, the company was, on the face of it, perfectly suited to be a pioneer for market entry in China. Scholz, however, portrayed the process as purely routine. According to him, Wirecard was only one of many items on the agenda and not a central topic. He does not remember discussing the case with Liu in particular. “The commitment to German companies abroad is a matter for which the entire Federal Government is on the move,” said the Minister.
Scholz: Wirecard had no particular significance
Last year, Wolfgang Schmidt, State Secretary under Scholz, already testified to the events. It had been obvious to approach Liu He about Wirecard. The opening of the Chinese financial market was one of the goals of the financial market dialogue. Wirecard was a good test of whether China was really serious about opening up. Another of the nine topics discussed was, for example, the awarding of an insurance license for Allianz.
On November 15, 2018, Chinese Vice Finance Minister Liao Mincontacted the German ambassador in China and signaled his willingness to take the various German concerns seriously. However, Wirecard had no particular significance in this, Schmidt said at the time, as Scholz does today. “Then the machine started up, there was a compilation of these petita.” On that basis, he said, came the list of concerns that were presented to Liu. “There was no basis on which we could have denied Wirecard’s request at that point,” Schmidt said. At the time, no one could have suspected anything about the fraud.
In March, the Chinese automotive group Geely announced its intention to compete with its new e-car brand Zeekr against the top dogs BYD, Li Auto, NIO, and Xpeng, but also against Tesla. The Hangzhou-based company unveiled its first model at the Shanghai auto show this week. It is scheduled to hit the market in September. The Zeekr 001 is being presented there as the “world’s first electrically powered shooting brake“, which is the name given to a very special body variant: a coupé with a hatchback, but whose tailgate is more reminiscent of a station wagon.
Interestingly, one of the best-known shooting brakes, alongside the Ferrari Daytona and the Jaguar XJ-S, is the Volvo P1800 from 1971, which was nicknamed Snow White’s Coffin because of its frameless tailgate. Volvo, in turn, is a sister brand of Zeekr in the Geely Group, whose tradition Zeekr is now cleverly following.
With its two electric motors, the electric station wagon has an output of 400 kW (544 hp) and a torque of over 700 Nm. Acceleration from 0 to 100 is said to be possible in 3.8 seconds. The top speed is 200 km/h. The range is a maximum of 700 km, depending on the equipment. Two batteries with 86 and 100 kWh storage capacity will be available in the first series. According to the company, electricity for 120 kilometers should be able to be charged in five minutes.
To make that happen nationwide, Zeekr aims to build an exclusive fast-charging network of 2200 stations and over 20,000 fast-charging points in China by the end of 2023. “In due course, we will additionally offer subscriptions and battery leasing,” a Geely spokesperson said.
New word creation to appeal to Generation Z
An automatic air suspension that can raise the vehicle floor from 11.7 to 20.5 centimeters, depending on the surface, should also make the Zeekr 001 suitable as an off-road vehicle. In addition, there are frameless automatic doors, facial recognition that recognizes the driver from afar and retrieves his personal settings, as well as software updates “over the air” via mobile network.
The name should also reflect the affinity for technology: Zeekr is a neologism of Generation Z and “geek”. Generation Z comprises people born from the late 1990s to the 2010s who have grown up in a digital world. They see electrification as the norm rather than the alternative, while “geek” represents the technology-focused nerd who has become socially acceptable in the form of tech entrepreneurs like Elon Musk.
The vehicles will be built based on Geely’s SEA (Sustainable Experience Architecture) electric platform launched in September 2020, which develops proprietary battery and electric motor technologies and which Volvo also uses for its e-mobiles. The Swedish automaker was acquired by Geely in 2010. Geely founder Li Shufu, who is also the largest single shareholder in Daimler, wants to establish Zeekr as a hip lifestyle brand.
Ambitious sales targets after 2015 flop
In China, two flagship stores, the so-called “Zeekr Experience Centers,” and 60 smaller “Zeekr Spaces” are planned for the launch, which will showcase the cars in shopping malls and other frequented locations. The vehicle, which is visually located between the Porsche Panamera and the Tesla X, was not designed in China but at the Swedish design center in Gothenburg. The vehicle is intended to show that the times of “boring electric cars have passed”, as the company explains. The model aims to combine the best of two worlds: The “high-end intelligence” and connectivity of China with the performance and driving characteristics of electric car suppliers from the West.
“We have the best resources of any automotive company, including an established supply chain and a broad industrial footprint,” says Zeekr chief executive Andy An Conghui. He still plans to sell in the fourth quarter of this year 8,000 cars sell. By 2022, with two more models, that number should reach 50,000. By comparison, Nio, the Chinese top dog, sold 47,000 cars last year.
Only five percent of the cars sold last year were battery-powered. In total, however, there are more than 68,000.
Rollercoaster ride on the stock market
International expansion is planned for the end of 2022. First in Europe, then in the US. Geely was also represented at the auto show with other models from its Polestar, Volvo, Lynk & Co, and Geometry brands. Zeekr wants to launch a new electric car every year for the next five years. It seems like a liberation blow.
Because last year Geely had to suffer a slump in profits. The company recorded a profit of around €709 million, a third less than the year before. The Geely share has been going up and then down for some time. In early November 2017, it stood at $3.53, but then slumped as low as $1.39 by May 2020 before hitting a new all-time high of $3.65 in early January this year. Currently, the stock is back to just $2.95.
Geely also recently ran into problems with its planned listing on Shanghai’s StarBoardtechnology exchange. China’s stock market authority doubted whether the company had enough high-tech for such a listing. Nevertheless, Zeekr’s CEO wants to raise moneyfor his company through its own IPO. The date has not yet been set.
Back in December, Geely Automobile Holdings formed a joint venture with battery giant CATL. Geely also plans to build a battery factory in the city of Ganzhou in Jiangxi province at a cost equivalent to around €3.87 billion. The plant is initially expected to reach an annual capacity of 12 GWh, with plans to expand to 42 GWh.
Geely CEO Li takes over board position at Zeekr
So far, however, Geely still sells mainly cars with combustion engines or hybrids. Geely founder Li had already announced an aggressive electrification strategy in 2015. At the time, he declared that by 2020, more than 90 percent of all cars sold by Geely would be electric or hybrid. To date, however, that number is only about five percent. “That doesn’t have to frustrate us much at all. We’ll just try again,” Li explains. And yet you can tell that Li is now all about the big picture: At “Zeekr Company Ltd.” he will personally take over the job of CEO.
Car Industry
Electromobility
Zeekr
China plans to build over 150 airports by 2035
The central Chinese city of Chengdu will be joining a very special club this summer: The capital of Sichuan province will then become the third city in China, after Shanghai and Beijing, to have two international airports at once. The two terminals of the new Tianfu Airport, which together cover an area of 600,000 square meters, have been ready since the end of March, and the official opening is scheduled for June.
Tianfu is not the only airport currently being built or planned in China. According to the new five-year plan, over 30 new civil airports are to be opened in the next five years alone, and civil aviation capacity is to be increased by 43 percent to two billion passengers per year.
However, what sounds like a large number is less than in the previous five-year plan, during which 43 new airports were built in China. This includes the new Beijing Daxing Airport. The work began in September 2015 – less than four years later, the “starfish” with its six characteristic sidearms leading to the aircraft was ready. 200,000 cubic meters of steel and 100,000 cubic meters of concrete were used for the new airport.
A lot of experience in construction
The fact that new airports are being built so quickly in China is partly due to a great deal of experience in construction. After all, there are now 241 certified airports in China, more than anywhere else in the world. It is often the same state-owned companies that are responsible for the construction. The planners remove obstacles more rigorously than would be possible in Western democracies. Even before work began on the airport in Beijing, bulldozers arrived to make room. Dozens of villages were razed to the ground. The residents were compensated, but they had no choice in the matter.
While in the past decade, the main focus was to meet the sharp increase in demand for air travel as quickly as possible, now it will be more about refining the airline network. Thus, in the future, the growth rate of large airports will decrease, while the construction of smaller feeder airports will increase, as reported by the state-owned Global Times.
Regional airports in focus
Regional airports are planned in medium-sized cities such as Shuozhou in Shanxi Province, Jiaxing (Zhejiang), Ruijin (Jiangxi), and Aral (Xinjiang). According to the China Aeronautical Administration (CAAC), more short-haul flights will be offered to remote regions where ground transportation proves difficult, such as mountainous areas where express train routes are difficult to implement.
To make it easier for people in such regions to fly in the future, regional airlines that operate flights between small and medium-sized airports with a passenger volume of less than 2 million are to receive higher subsidies. But investment is also continuing on China’s already well-developed east coast.
Major hubs, including Shanghai Pudong International Airport, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, and Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport, are to be expanded. New airports will be built in Xiamen, East China’s Fujian province, and Hohhot in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in northern China. Around 40 airports in China are to be able to handle international flights in the next five years.
However, this will by no means be the end of the expansion of China’s airline network, as a draft of a new national infrastructure plan for the next 15 years published in February makes clear. According to this plan, there are to be as many as 400 airports in China by 2035, which means that on average, around ten new airports would have to be built every year. Other transport routes are also to be massively expanded. Beijing aims to increase the national high-speed train network to 70,000 kilometers by 2035 – a further increase of 84 percent from the estimated 38,000 kilometers at the end of last year. The length of the country’s entire railway network is to increase to 200,000 kilometers in 15 years, 37 percent more than at present. The national network of expressways is to grow to 460,000 kilometers.
COVID low already overcome
So far, the plans to expand air traffic have not taken into account any possible changes in travel behavior as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, initial figures suggest that Chinese people’s enthusiasm for flying has not suffered much. According to official figures, 47.7 million people traveled again in March – more than before the pandemic in March 2019. After the airlines had recently granted high discounts for months, ticket prices are increasingly approaching the level before the pandemic.
The next big wave of travel is just around the corner, with the Chinese travel booking platform Ctrip estimating that around 200 million tourists will travel during the upcoming holidays around May 1st. According to the forecast, hotel booking volume has increased by 43 percent compared to 2019. So many airports are likely to be busy in the coming days. Gregor Koppenburg/Joern Petring
Chinese Communist Party
Domestic policy of the CP China
News
Xi pledges to cut coal consumption from 2025
China’s President Xi Jinping has pledged at the virtual climate summit to gradually reduce coal consumption from 2025. “During the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), we will strictly control the growth of coal consumption,” Xi also promised. With this, the president made his expected comments on the issue of coal – which is China’s biggest climate problem (as reported by China.Table), including in the foreign policy. Xi spoke vaguely of a “Green Belt and Road” initiative, as the New Silk Road is officially called in China. China is accused of funding coal projects abroad. Xi did not give details on any of these pledges. So the world has to be prepared for China’s coal consumption to rise for another four years. The target, however, is in line with heavy industry: The emissions peak for steel and aluminum, for example, is also to be reached in 2025.
Xi expressed his support for multilateral cooperation on climate change through various UN initiatives, including the Paris Agreement. Like other representatives of developing countries, however, Xi insisted on the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities“.
The US had announced shortly before the opening of the summit that it would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52 percent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. President Joe Biden wants to take the lead on global climate policy. “The cost of doing nothing is getting higher,” Biden warned at the start of the summit. He called for a joint show of strength and sees the “world’s largest economies” in particular as having a duty. This is a formula that specifically includes China. China and USA are the largest emitters of greenhouse gases.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for coal and oil to no longer be subsidised. The burning of coal must be phased out in industrialized countries by 2030, he said. Guterres also criticized many countries for reserving too small a share of funds for climate protection measures in their pandemic reconstruction plans. China, as an emerging economy, may well feel addressed by Guterres – his stimulus plan promoted traditional infrastructure, including coal-fired power and heavy industry, as it always has.
Several of the 40 heads of state and government present at the summit announced new climate targets. Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced Japan would cut its emissions by 46 percent by 2030 compared to 2013. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada would cut its emissions by 40 to 45 percent by 2030 instead of the 30 percent it had previously targeted. By 2050, Canada aims to be carbon neutral. And even Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, who has so far not attracted attention as a climate protector, announced that he wants to achieve climate neutrality as early as 2050 rather than 2060. By 2030, Bolsonaro wants to eliminate illegal logging and halve emissions. Shortly before, the EU had decided to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030 compared to 1990.
The Paris climate agreement stipulates that the signatory states must revise their climate targets every five years. All partners are to do this officially at the World Climate Conference in Glasgow in November 2021. China would therefore have time until then to make further progress. Biden placed Xi at the top of the list of speakers: He was the first foreign head of state to speak after Guterres. This is a signal of goodwill – as well as of China’s importance for climate protection. ck
Coal power
Klima
New Silk Road
Sustainability
China plans massive investment in battery storage
According to Caixin, China plans to increase its battery storage capacity to 65 gigawatts by 2025, nearly doubling its current capacity, according to a plan released by the National Development and Reform Commission. According to the plan, the market for large-scale battery storage will grow exponentially in the coming years as more and more storage capacity for surplus solar and wind energy becomes necessary and the cost of lithium-ion batteries plummets. “Energy storage is the perfect complement in a massive expansion of solar and wind energy,” Caixin quotes an industry expert as saying.
So far, China has relied mainly on pumped storage power plants for energy storage technologies, where water with surplus energy is pumped to higher elevations to drain it during energy lulls and generate energy. Such power plants account for nearly 90 percent of storage capacity in China, according to Caixin. Pumped storage was consequently excluded from the new plan. The new plans would suit domestic battery makers such as CATL and BYD, which have adapted to the rising demand for energy storage, Caixin said.
According to the plan, battery storage is a key component in achieving Beijing’s climate targets. In order to achieve the high targets, the authorities plan to push ahead with technological development in battery storage. nib
Batteries
Renewable energies
Bundestag asks: Is what’s happening in Xinjiang genocide?
The Human Rights Committee of the German Bundestag will again address the issue of Xinjiang on May 17 (starting at 5 p.m.). The committee wants to discuss whether reports and documents on arbitrary mass detentions, torture, and birth control from the Muslim-majority autonomous region in northwest China justify the label genocide. Experts will be consulted in a public hearing to help parliamentarians form a judgment. In the past, the committee had already informed itself several times about the events in the region. The last time was in November last year. The hearing at that time drew sharp protest from the Chinese embassy.
“As the responsible spokespersons of our respective parliamentary groups in the German Bundestag, we see a responsibility to deal with these allegations in parliament,” representatives of the governing coalition as well as of the Greens and the FDP announced in a joint statement. They said they were very pleased to take into account “the particular complexity and seriousness of the accusations” against the Chinese government. Recently, the human rights organization Human Rights Watch had come to the conclusion that the Chinese Communist Party was committing “crimes against humanity” in Xinjiang. Already a few weeks ago, an international group of researchers, backed by numerous politicians, had published a study called “The Uyghur Genocide“, in which they assessed Chinese actions in accordance with the UN Convention on Human Rights of 1948.
In recent weeks, the Canadian and Dutch parliaments have passed resolutions calling the human rights violations in Xinjiang “genocide“. Yesterday, the British parliament followed suit and also classified the actions in the region as genocide in a resolution. The US government also officially speaks of genocide. A decision on whether the German Bundestag will also formulate a resolution, as it once did on Turkey’s genocide of the Armenians, will probably emerge in the weeks following the hearing in the Human Rights Committee. The chairwoman of the committee, Gyde Jensen (FDP), had stated that it was “understandable to her that in the meantime governments and parliaments have come to the conclusion that this action can be called genocide”. grz
Genocide
Germany
Human Rights Watch
Xinjiang
London cuts development aid to China by 95 percent
Britain has announced a massive cut in its aid budget for programs in China. The British Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office plans to cut its financial support for programs in the People’s Republic by 95 percent, according to a written parliamentary statement by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announcing Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) for 2021 and 2022. According to the statement, only about £900,000 (about €1 million) has been budgeted for human rights initiatives in China. The Foreign Ministry did not say which programs were to be affected by the cut.
This year, some additional funds would be added, which had already been contractually assured in advance, Raab said, according to a media report. In China, only initiatives to promote “open societies and human rights” will be funded in the future, Raab said, according to the report. The financial aid is now to flow in a different direction: According to the report, Raab said that the UK’s money should be used “as a force for good in Africa” and strategically also more in the Indo-Pacific.
This week, the UK announced a general cut in its financial aid. Instead of the usual 0.7 percent of the UK’s gross national income, only 0.5 percent will be used for ODA due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related difficulties. Since the UK’s exit from the EU, the UK has taken a more critical stance towards China than before. ari
Finance
NATO to decide on China strategy in June
NATO will vote on its new approach to China in June. The meeting of leaders of NATO member countries will take place in Brussels on June 14, the defense alliance announced yesterday. “We will take decisions on our substantive and forward-looking NATO Agenda 2030 to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow,” NATO said. These include Russia, the threat of terrorism and cyber attacks, as well as the “rise of China”, the announcement said.
The NATO agenda for 2030 envisages various steps with regard to China. The People’s Republic is becoming more important as a weapons supplier, is gaining influence in individual NATO member states, and is also becoming a serious threat in the high-tech sector. At the NATO summit, the heads of state and government will vote on proposals from the Agenda 2030 paper. Among other things, a special Nato body is being discussed that would deal only with China. Critics have complained that the defense alliance has been too lax in dealing with the Chinese threat and has no common strategy. ari
Nato
Opinion
The fine art of exerting influence
By Johnny Erling
Beijing’s Panjiayuan flea market sometimes hides remarkable finds among secondhand books. A few years ago, I acquired an exclusive anniversary coffee-table book from 1990, published to celebrate the seventieth birthday of Juan Antonio Samaranch, the president of the International Olympic Committee.
The IOC chief, born in 1920, was used to being courtedeverywhere – thanks to his influence on the awarding of the Games – and to receiving lavish gifts. Beijing scored points with him with a morning gift. Its cover read in English, “A true friend of China,” and in Chinese calligraphy brushed, “Samaranch and China.” (薩馬兰奇與中國)
The calligraphy came from Deng Xiaoping. He had written it in traditional, not simplified characters. The vain Spaniard was deeply moved. The Emperor of China had personally paid his birthday greetings to the King of the IOC.
Such small gestures belong to the highest school of Chinese lobbying. In many parlors of prominent German travelers to China, characters written by high officials hang on the walls on silk scrolls. The phenomenon is irreversible. I have not yet heard of any Chinese who would hang up a handwritten motto or name of a foreigner at home.
Beijing has long had more to offer than just characters. The official recognition of being an “old friend” has paid off for dozens of high-ranking former top politicians, from Henry Kissinger and Tony Blair to Gerhard Schröder. With consulting firms, as lecture travelers or door openers, they profit from booming business in China. At the same time, China has learned, alongside such advocates, to exert much more direct influenceworldwide. Like Moscow, it is also interfering in US affairs. Former New York Times correspondent David Barboza titled his recent research on the subject: “The New Influencers“.
With Samaranch, who served as IOC chief from 1980 to 2001, Beijing pulled out all the stops, awarded him medals, built him a museum. He had not only engineered China’s return to the IOC in 1984 after 32 years of playing only a fence-sitting role. Samaranch also helped Beijing’s sprint to bid for the Summer Olympics: During the bidding for the 2000 Games, Beijing’s mayor, Chen Xitong, welcomed Samaranch with the words, “You are our god.” As a footnote to history, it should be noted that Chen was later sentenced to 16 years in prison, but not for trying to corrupt Samaranch, but for allegedly taking bribes himself.
Beijing was the favorite when the IOC decided in September 1993 whether to award the Games for 2000. But it failed. Samaranch read out the narrow final result: Sydney won by 45 votes to 43. China had brought the defeat on itself, Shanghai’s political biographer Ye Yonglie told me. He learned from his research in North Korea that the decisive no-vote came from Pyongyang. North Korea’s leaders were furious because the People’s Republic had established diplomatic relations with South Korea in August 1992. China’s censors deleted Ye’s explosive revelation from his book, “The Real North Korea”, published in Shanghai in March 2008.
After the setback in 1993, China managed to win the Summer Games for 2008 at the second attempt in 2001. Years later, Beijing achieved another coup. It also became the first capital in the world to host the 2022 Winter Games. The IOC didn’t mind that Beijing had no skiing or ice-skating traditions other than skating. Nor did it take offense at the fact that the city only won because all its rivals except Kazakhstan’s Almatyhadwithdrawn their bids.
State leader Xi Jinping promised IOC chief Thomas Bach, walking in Samaranch’s footsteps, Winter Games “that are as clean and pure (corruption-wise) as ice and snow”. That came across as unintentionally funny because Beijing and northern China are so dry in winter that all snow must be artificially produced. Most importantly, Xi ensnared the IOC chief with his promise to turn nearly 30 million Chinese fans of winter sports into an army of some 300 million ice and snow enthusiasts by 2022 and the People’s Republic into the world’s largest winter sports market.
Many foreigners areeasily susceptible to China’s influencebecause theyproject idealized notions onto the People’s Republic. This repeatedly leads to misunderstandings that could fill books. One is still prevalent today, revealed by former chief interpreter Charles W. Freeman, who traveled to China with US President Richard Nixon in 1972. In a conversation about world political events, then-Premier Zhou Enlai replied to the question of how he assessed the French Revolution with a phrase that has become famous: “It is still too early to be able to judge its consequences.” To this day, many contemporaries regard his saying as an expression of how wisely and over long periods of time the millennia-old cultural people of China think before passing judgment.
Translator Freeman revealed in 2011 what Zhou Enlai really meant. He was not talking about the French Revolution of 1789 in February 1972, but the one in May 1968, when students took to the barricades in Paris. Freeman wrote that he could not have corrected the misunderstanding in 1972. “It was just what people wanted to hear and believe.”
Culture
Deng Xiaoping
Society
Thomas Bach
Dessert
Wild vines have “conquered” this overpass in Chengdu, Sichuan Province.
Beijing plans massive investment in battery storage
Bundestag asks: Is what’s happening in Xinjiang a genocide?
London cuts development aid to China by 95 percent
NATO to decide on China strategy in June
Johnny Erling: China’s fine art of exerting influence
Dear reader,
If we’re being honest: We expected more from Xi Jinping’s appearance at the small climate summit of 40 heads of state and government. However, it’s not really surprising that Xi didn’t announce any earth-shattering new climate goals at the invitation of US President Joe Biden. After all, the new climate goal of the US, which is awakening from climate policy hibernation after four Trump years, outshinesany announcement by other countries. Christiane Kuehl has the details on Xi’s announcement.
When it comes to expanding the giant country’s airports, climate goals seem to be of secondary importance for the time being. Beijing sees a need to catch up, especially in smaller cities, and wants to build more than 150 new airports by 2035, as Gregor Koppenburg and Joern Petring report. The large-scale expansion of renewable energies, on the other hand, is not to be hindered by a lack of energy storage. Beijing authorities have presented new plans that will greatly advance this future market.
Olaf Scholz would have preferred to be at the climate summit yesterday instead of having to answer questions in the Wirecard Committee of Inquiry. Finn Mayer-Kuckuk was on the scene and sheds light on the minister’s statements on the events surrounding a summit meeting with Chinese Vice Premier and leading economic policymaker Liu He in 2019. Then today, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is called as a witness – she is to testify on her trip to China in September 2019.
Frank Sieren takes a closer look at the plans and the new model ofGeely subsidiary Zeekr. The car is supposed to finally make the leap into electromobility after previous lofty plans failed. Zeekr also plans to build a fast-charging network and expand internationally.
And today, Johnny Erling explains how the “emperor” Deng Xiaopingflattered the “king of the International Olympic Committee” Juan Antonio Samaranchwith asigned illustrated book. Football officials pushing around money envelopes (cue Football World Cup 2006) can still learn something from this high art of influence.
The Bundestag investigative committee on the Wirecard scandal once again looked into the events surrounding the company’s planned market entry in China on Thursday. Wirecard had planned to buy the Chinese company Allscore in 2019. Allscore wanted to process payments in China and thus become a competitor to Alipay, but did not yet have the necessary license. Wirecard, therefore, had two requests for the German government. It was supposed to lobby to make the purchase of a company from the financial sector possible in the first place. At the same time, it was supposed to press for the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) to grant the necessary business license to the new partner Allscore.
This is what the German government did – and in retrospect, it has to put up with many questions about it. Since Wirecard’s success was based solely on lies and deception. The alleged billions in profits were achieved through fictitious transactions between subsidiaries. The true source of funds was ever higher loans from banks, which in turn were justified by the fictitious growth figures. It was not until mid-2020 that the house of cards collapsed. Wirecard had to admit that billions of euros allegedly held in accounts in Singapore and Malaysia did not exist at all.
Wirecard should be a pioneer for market entry
Crucial to the criticism before the Wirecard investigation committee of the Bundestag: In 2019, numerous media reports about possible fraud at Wirecard were already running. Nevertheless, both the Ministry of Finance and the Chancellor’s Office in China stood up for the company. On Thursday, Fabio De Masi (Die Linke), a member of parliament, questioned German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz about the events surrounding a summit with Chinese Vice Premier and leading economic policymaker Liu He. Chancellor Angela Merkel was summoned to testify on Friday. She is to testify on the events during her trip to China in September 2019.
According to De Masi, Wirecard was an important topic at the German-Chinese financial market dialogue in Beijing in mid-January 2019. According to his interpretation, Wirecard was even one of the most important topics (“the jackpot”) on the German side. As a payment service provider, the company was, on the face of it, perfectly suited to be a pioneer for market entry in China. Scholz, however, portrayed the process as purely routine. According to him, Wirecard was only one of many items on the agenda and not a central topic. He does not remember discussing the case with Liu in particular. “The commitment to German companies abroad is a matter for which the entire Federal Government is on the move,” said the Minister.
Scholz: Wirecard had no particular significance
Last year, Wolfgang Schmidt, State Secretary under Scholz, already testified to the events. It had been obvious to approach Liu He about Wirecard. The opening of the Chinese financial market was one of the goals of the financial market dialogue. Wirecard was a good test of whether China was really serious about opening up. Another of the nine topics discussed was, for example, the awarding of an insurance license for Allianz.
On November 15, 2018, Chinese Vice Finance Minister Liao Mincontacted the German ambassador in China and signaled his willingness to take the various German concerns seriously. However, Wirecard had no particular significance in this, Schmidt said at the time, as Scholz does today. “Then the machine started up, there was a compilation of these petita.” On that basis, he said, came the list of concerns that were presented to Liu. “There was no basis on which we could have denied Wirecard’s request at that point,” Schmidt said. At the time, no one could have suspected anything about the fraud.
In March, the Chinese automotive group Geely announced its intention to compete with its new e-car brand Zeekr against the top dogs BYD, Li Auto, NIO, and Xpeng, but also against Tesla. The Hangzhou-based company unveiled its first model at the Shanghai auto show this week. It is scheduled to hit the market in September. The Zeekr 001 is being presented there as the “world’s first electrically powered shooting brake“, which is the name given to a very special body variant: a coupé with a hatchback, but whose tailgate is more reminiscent of a station wagon.
Interestingly, one of the best-known shooting brakes, alongside the Ferrari Daytona and the Jaguar XJ-S, is the Volvo P1800 from 1971, which was nicknamed Snow White’s Coffin because of its frameless tailgate. Volvo, in turn, is a sister brand of Zeekr in the Geely Group, whose tradition Zeekr is now cleverly following.
With its two electric motors, the electric station wagon has an output of 400 kW (544 hp) and a torque of over 700 Nm. Acceleration from 0 to 100 is said to be possible in 3.8 seconds. The top speed is 200 km/h. The range is a maximum of 700 km, depending on the equipment. Two batteries with 86 and 100 kWh storage capacity will be available in the first series. According to the company, electricity for 120 kilometers should be able to be charged in five minutes.
To make that happen nationwide, Zeekr aims to build an exclusive fast-charging network of 2200 stations and over 20,000 fast-charging points in China by the end of 2023. “In due course, we will additionally offer subscriptions and battery leasing,” a Geely spokesperson said.
New word creation to appeal to Generation Z
An automatic air suspension that can raise the vehicle floor from 11.7 to 20.5 centimeters, depending on the surface, should also make the Zeekr 001 suitable as an off-road vehicle. In addition, there are frameless automatic doors, facial recognition that recognizes the driver from afar and retrieves his personal settings, as well as software updates “over the air” via mobile network.
The name should also reflect the affinity for technology: Zeekr is a neologism of Generation Z and “geek”. Generation Z comprises people born from the late 1990s to the 2010s who have grown up in a digital world. They see electrification as the norm rather than the alternative, while “geek” represents the technology-focused nerd who has become socially acceptable in the form of tech entrepreneurs like Elon Musk.
The vehicles will be built based on Geely’s SEA (Sustainable Experience Architecture) electric platform launched in September 2020, which develops proprietary battery and electric motor technologies and which Volvo also uses for its e-mobiles. The Swedish automaker was acquired by Geely in 2010. Geely founder Li Shufu, who is also the largest single shareholder in Daimler, wants to establish Zeekr as a hip lifestyle brand.
Ambitious sales targets after 2015 flop
In China, two flagship stores, the so-called “Zeekr Experience Centers,” and 60 smaller “Zeekr Spaces” are planned for the launch, which will showcase the cars in shopping malls and other frequented locations. The vehicle, which is visually located between the Porsche Panamera and the Tesla X, was not designed in China but at the Swedish design center in Gothenburg. The vehicle is intended to show that the times of “boring electric cars have passed”, as the company explains. The model aims to combine the best of two worlds: The “high-end intelligence” and connectivity of China with the performance and driving characteristics of electric car suppliers from the West.
“We have the best resources of any automotive company, including an established supply chain and a broad industrial footprint,” says Zeekr chief executive Andy An Conghui. He still plans to sell in the fourth quarter of this year 8,000 cars sell. By 2022, with two more models, that number should reach 50,000. By comparison, Nio, the Chinese top dog, sold 47,000 cars last year.
Only five percent of the cars sold last year were battery-powered. In total, however, there are more than 68,000.
Rollercoaster ride on the stock market
International expansion is planned for the end of 2022. First in Europe, then in the US. Geely was also represented at the auto show with other models from its Polestar, Volvo, Lynk & Co, and Geometry brands. Zeekr wants to launch a new electric car every year for the next five years. It seems like a liberation blow.
Because last year Geely had to suffer a slump in profits. The company recorded a profit of around €709 million, a third less than the year before. The Geely share has been going up and then down for some time. In early November 2017, it stood at $3.53, but then slumped as low as $1.39 by May 2020 before hitting a new all-time high of $3.65 in early January this year. Currently, the stock is back to just $2.95.
Geely also recently ran into problems with its planned listing on Shanghai’s StarBoardtechnology exchange. China’s stock market authority doubted whether the company had enough high-tech for such a listing. Nevertheless, Zeekr’s CEO wants to raise moneyfor his company through its own IPO. The date has not yet been set.
Back in December, Geely Automobile Holdings formed a joint venture with battery giant CATL. Geely also plans to build a battery factory in the city of Ganzhou in Jiangxi province at a cost equivalent to around €3.87 billion. The plant is initially expected to reach an annual capacity of 12 GWh, with plans to expand to 42 GWh.
Geely CEO Li takes over board position at Zeekr
So far, however, Geely still sells mainly cars with combustion engines or hybrids. Geely founder Li had already announced an aggressive electrification strategy in 2015. At the time, he declared that by 2020, more than 90 percent of all cars sold by Geely would be electric or hybrid. To date, however, that number is only about five percent. “That doesn’t have to frustrate us much at all. We’ll just try again,” Li explains. And yet you can tell that Li is now all about the big picture: At “Zeekr Company Ltd.” he will personally take over the job of CEO.
Car Industry
Electromobility
Zeekr
China plans to build over 150 airports by 2035
The central Chinese city of Chengdu will be joining a very special club this summer: The capital of Sichuan province will then become the third city in China, after Shanghai and Beijing, to have two international airports at once. The two terminals of the new Tianfu Airport, which together cover an area of 600,000 square meters, have been ready since the end of March, and the official opening is scheduled for June.
Tianfu is not the only airport currently being built or planned in China. According to the new five-year plan, over 30 new civil airports are to be opened in the next five years alone, and civil aviation capacity is to be increased by 43 percent to two billion passengers per year.
However, what sounds like a large number is less than in the previous five-year plan, during which 43 new airports were built in China. This includes the new Beijing Daxing Airport. The work began in September 2015 – less than four years later, the “starfish” with its six characteristic sidearms leading to the aircraft was ready. 200,000 cubic meters of steel and 100,000 cubic meters of concrete were used for the new airport.
A lot of experience in construction
The fact that new airports are being built so quickly in China is partly due to a great deal of experience in construction. After all, there are now 241 certified airports in China, more than anywhere else in the world. It is often the same state-owned companies that are responsible for the construction. The planners remove obstacles more rigorously than would be possible in Western democracies. Even before work began on the airport in Beijing, bulldozers arrived to make room. Dozens of villages were razed to the ground. The residents were compensated, but they had no choice in the matter.
While in the past decade, the main focus was to meet the sharp increase in demand for air travel as quickly as possible, now it will be more about refining the airline network. Thus, in the future, the growth rate of large airports will decrease, while the construction of smaller feeder airports will increase, as reported by the state-owned Global Times.
Regional airports in focus
Regional airports are planned in medium-sized cities such as Shuozhou in Shanxi Province, Jiaxing (Zhejiang), Ruijin (Jiangxi), and Aral (Xinjiang). According to the China Aeronautical Administration (CAAC), more short-haul flights will be offered to remote regions where ground transportation proves difficult, such as mountainous areas where express train routes are difficult to implement.
To make it easier for people in such regions to fly in the future, regional airlines that operate flights between small and medium-sized airports with a passenger volume of less than 2 million are to receive higher subsidies. But investment is also continuing on China’s already well-developed east coast.
Major hubs, including Shanghai Pudong International Airport, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport, and Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport, are to be expanded. New airports will be built in Xiamen, East China’s Fujian province, and Hohhot in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in northern China. Around 40 airports in China are to be able to handle international flights in the next five years.
However, this will by no means be the end of the expansion of China’s airline network, as a draft of a new national infrastructure plan for the next 15 years published in February makes clear. According to this plan, there are to be as many as 400 airports in China by 2035, which means that on average, around ten new airports would have to be built every year. Other transport routes are also to be massively expanded. Beijing aims to increase the national high-speed train network to 70,000 kilometers by 2035 – a further increase of 84 percent from the estimated 38,000 kilometers at the end of last year. The length of the country’s entire railway network is to increase to 200,000 kilometers in 15 years, 37 percent more than at present. The national network of expressways is to grow to 460,000 kilometers.
COVID low already overcome
So far, the plans to expand air traffic have not taken into account any possible changes in travel behavior as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, initial figures suggest that Chinese people’s enthusiasm for flying has not suffered much. According to official figures, 47.7 million people traveled again in March – more than before the pandemic in March 2019. After the airlines had recently granted high discounts for months, ticket prices are increasingly approaching the level before the pandemic.
The next big wave of travel is just around the corner, with the Chinese travel booking platform Ctrip estimating that around 200 million tourists will travel during the upcoming holidays around May 1st. According to the forecast, hotel booking volume has increased by 43 percent compared to 2019. So many airports are likely to be busy in the coming days. Gregor Koppenburg/Joern Petring
Chinese Communist Party
Domestic policy of the CP China
News
Xi pledges to cut coal consumption from 2025
China’s President Xi Jinping has pledged at the virtual climate summit to gradually reduce coal consumption from 2025. “During the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), we will strictly control the growth of coal consumption,” Xi also promised. With this, the president made his expected comments on the issue of coal – which is China’s biggest climate problem (as reported by China.Table), including in the foreign policy. Xi spoke vaguely of a “Green Belt and Road” initiative, as the New Silk Road is officially called in China. China is accused of funding coal projects abroad. Xi did not give details on any of these pledges. So the world has to be prepared for China’s coal consumption to rise for another four years. The target, however, is in line with heavy industry: The emissions peak for steel and aluminum, for example, is also to be reached in 2025.
Xi expressed his support for multilateral cooperation on climate change through various UN initiatives, including the Paris Agreement. Like other representatives of developing countries, however, Xi insisted on the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities“.
The US had announced shortly before the opening of the summit that it would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52 percent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. President Joe Biden wants to take the lead on global climate policy. “The cost of doing nothing is getting higher,” Biden warned at the start of the summit. He called for a joint show of strength and sees the “world’s largest economies” in particular as having a duty. This is a formula that specifically includes China. China and USA are the largest emitters of greenhouse gases.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for coal and oil to no longer be subsidised. The burning of coal must be phased out in industrialized countries by 2030, he said. Guterres also criticized many countries for reserving too small a share of funds for climate protection measures in their pandemic reconstruction plans. China, as an emerging economy, may well feel addressed by Guterres – his stimulus plan promoted traditional infrastructure, including coal-fired power and heavy industry, as it always has.
Several of the 40 heads of state and government present at the summit announced new climate targets. Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced Japan would cut its emissions by 46 percent by 2030 compared to 2013. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada would cut its emissions by 40 to 45 percent by 2030 instead of the 30 percent it had previously targeted. By 2050, Canada aims to be carbon neutral. And even Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, who has so far not attracted attention as a climate protector, announced that he wants to achieve climate neutrality as early as 2050 rather than 2060. By 2030, Bolsonaro wants to eliminate illegal logging and halve emissions. Shortly before, the EU had decided to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 55 percent by 2030 compared to 1990.
The Paris climate agreement stipulates that the signatory states must revise their climate targets every five years. All partners are to do this officially at the World Climate Conference in Glasgow in November 2021. China would therefore have time until then to make further progress. Biden placed Xi at the top of the list of speakers: He was the first foreign head of state to speak after Guterres. This is a signal of goodwill – as well as of China’s importance for climate protection. ck
Coal power
Klima
New Silk Road
Sustainability
China plans massive investment in battery storage
According to Caixin, China plans to increase its battery storage capacity to 65 gigawatts by 2025, nearly doubling its current capacity, according to a plan released by the National Development and Reform Commission. According to the plan, the market for large-scale battery storage will grow exponentially in the coming years as more and more storage capacity for surplus solar and wind energy becomes necessary and the cost of lithium-ion batteries plummets. “Energy storage is the perfect complement in a massive expansion of solar and wind energy,” Caixin quotes an industry expert as saying.
So far, China has relied mainly on pumped storage power plants for energy storage technologies, where water with surplus energy is pumped to higher elevations to drain it during energy lulls and generate energy. Such power plants account for nearly 90 percent of storage capacity in China, according to Caixin. Pumped storage was consequently excluded from the new plan. The new plans would suit domestic battery makers such as CATL and BYD, which have adapted to the rising demand for energy storage, Caixin said.
According to the plan, battery storage is a key component in achieving Beijing’s climate targets. In order to achieve the high targets, the authorities plan to push ahead with technological development in battery storage. nib
Batteries
Renewable energies
Bundestag asks: Is what’s happening in Xinjiang genocide?
The Human Rights Committee of the German Bundestag will again address the issue of Xinjiang on May 17 (starting at 5 p.m.). The committee wants to discuss whether reports and documents on arbitrary mass detentions, torture, and birth control from the Muslim-majority autonomous region in northwest China justify the label genocide. Experts will be consulted in a public hearing to help parliamentarians form a judgment. In the past, the committee had already informed itself several times about the events in the region. The last time was in November last year. The hearing at that time drew sharp protest from the Chinese embassy.
“As the responsible spokespersons of our respective parliamentary groups in the German Bundestag, we see a responsibility to deal with these allegations in parliament,” representatives of the governing coalition as well as of the Greens and the FDP announced in a joint statement. They said they were very pleased to take into account “the particular complexity and seriousness of the accusations” against the Chinese government. Recently, the human rights organization Human Rights Watch had come to the conclusion that the Chinese Communist Party was committing “crimes against humanity” in Xinjiang. Already a few weeks ago, an international group of researchers, backed by numerous politicians, had published a study called “The Uyghur Genocide“, in which they assessed Chinese actions in accordance with the UN Convention on Human Rights of 1948.
In recent weeks, the Canadian and Dutch parliaments have passed resolutions calling the human rights violations in Xinjiang “genocide“. Yesterday, the British parliament followed suit and also classified the actions in the region as genocide in a resolution. The US government also officially speaks of genocide. A decision on whether the German Bundestag will also formulate a resolution, as it once did on Turkey’s genocide of the Armenians, will probably emerge in the weeks following the hearing in the Human Rights Committee. The chairwoman of the committee, Gyde Jensen (FDP), had stated that it was “understandable to her that in the meantime governments and parliaments have come to the conclusion that this action can be called genocide”. grz
Genocide
Germany
Human Rights Watch
Xinjiang
London cuts development aid to China by 95 percent
Britain has announced a massive cut in its aid budget for programs in China. The British Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office plans to cut its financial support for programs in the People’s Republic by 95 percent, according to a written parliamentary statement by Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab announcing Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) for 2021 and 2022. According to the statement, only about £900,000 (about €1 million) has been budgeted for human rights initiatives in China. The Foreign Ministry did not say which programs were to be affected by the cut.
This year, some additional funds would be added, which had already been contractually assured in advance, Raab said, according to a media report. In China, only initiatives to promote “open societies and human rights” will be funded in the future, Raab said, according to the report. The financial aid is now to flow in a different direction: According to the report, Raab said that the UK’s money should be used “as a force for good in Africa” and strategically also more in the Indo-Pacific.
This week, the UK announced a general cut in its financial aid. Instead of the usual 0.7 percent of the UK’s gross national income, only 0.5 percent will be used for ODA due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related difficulties. Since the UK’s exit from the EU, the UK has taken a more critical stance towards China than before. ari
Finance
NATO to decide on China strategy in June
NATO will vote on its new approach to China in June. The meeting of leaders of NATO member countries will take place in Brussels on June 14, the defense alliance announced yesterday. “We will take decisions on our substantive and forward-looking NATO Agenda 2030 to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow,” NATO said. These include Russia, the threat of terrorism and cyber attacks, as well as the “rise of China”, the announcement said.
The NATO agenda for 2030 envisages various steps with regard to China. The People’s Republic is becoming more important as a weapons supplier, is gaining influence in individual NATO member states, and is also becoming a serious threat in the high-tech sector. At the NATO summit, the heads of state and government will vote on proposals from the Agenda 2030 paper. Among other things, a special Nato body is being discussed that would deal only with China. Critics have complained that the defense alliance has been too lax in dealing with the Chinese threat and has no common strategy. ari
Nato
Opinion
The fine art of exerting influence
By Johnny Erling
Beijing’s Panjiayuan flea market sometimes hides remarkable finds among secondhand books. A few years ago, I acquired an exclusive anniversary coffee-table book from 1990, published to celebrate the seventieth birthday of Juan Antonio Samaranch, the president of the International Olympic Committee.
The IOC chief, born in 1920, was used to being courtedeverywhere – thanks to his influence on the awarding of the Games – and to receiving lavish gifts. Beijing scored points with him with a morning gift. Its cover read in English, “A true friend of China,” and in Chinese calligraphy brushed, “Samaranch and China.” (薩馬兰奇與中國)
The calligraphy came from Deng Xiaoping. He had written it in traditional, not simplified characters. The vain Spaniard was deeply moved. The Emperor of China had personally paid his birthday greetings to the King of the IOC.
Such small gestures belong to the highest school of Chinese lobbying. In many parlors of prominent German travelers to China, characters written by high officials hang on the walls on silk scrolls. The phenomenon is irreversible. I have not yet heard of any Chinese who would hang up a handwritten motto or name of a foreigner at home.
Beijing has long had more to offer than just characters. The official recognition of being an “old friend” has paid off for dozens of high-ranking former top politicians, from Henry Kissinger and Tony Blair to Gerhard Schröder. With consulting firms, as lecture travelers or door openers, they profit from booming business in China. At the same time, China has learned, alongside such advocates, to exert much more direct influenceworldwide. Like Moscow, it is also interfering in US affairs. Former New York Times correspondent David Barboza titled his recent research on the subject: “The New Influencers“.
With Samaranch, who served as IOC chief from 1980 to 2001, Beijing pulled out all the stops, awarded him medals, built him a museum. He had not only engineered China’s return to the IOC in 1984 after 32 years of playing only a fence-sitting role. Samaranch also helped Beijing’s sprint to bid for the Summer Olympics: During the bidding for the 2000 Games, Beijing’s mayor, Chen Xitong, welcomed Samaranch with the words, “You are our god.” As a footnote to history, it should be noted that Chen was later sentenced to 16 years in prison, but not for trying to corrupt Samaranch, but for allegedly taking bribes himself.
Beijing was the favorite when the IOC decided in September 1993 whether to award the Games for 2000. But it failed. Samaranch read out the narrow final result: Sydney won by 45 votes to 43. China had brought the defeat on itself, Shanghai’s political biographer Ye Yonglie told me. He learned from his research in North Korea that the decisive no-vote came from Pyongyang. North Korea’s leaders were furious because the People’s Republic had established diplomatic relations with South Korea in August 1992. China’s censors deleted Ye’s explosive revelation from his book, “The Real North Korea”, published in Shanghai in March 2008.
After the setback in 1993, China managed to win the Summer Games for 2008 at the second attempt in 2001. Years later, Beijing achieved another coup. It also became the first capital in the world to host the 2022 Winter Games. The IOC didn’t mind that Beijing had no skiing or ice-skating traditions other than skating. Nor did it take offense at the fact that the city only won because all its rivals except Kazakhstan’s Almatyhadwithdrawn their bids.
State leader Xi Jinping promised IOC chief Thomas Bach, walking in Samaranch’s footsteps, Winter Games “that are as clean and pure (corruption-wise) as ice and snow”. That came across as unintentionally funny because Beijing and northern China are so dry in winter that all snow must be artificially produced. Most importantly, Xi ensnared the IOC chief with his promise to turn nearly 30 million Chinese fans of winter sports into an army of some 300 million ice and snow enthusiasts by 2022 and the People’s Republic into the world’s largest winter sports market.
Many foreigners areeasily susceptible to China’s influencebecause theyproject idealized notions onto the People’s Republic. This repeatedly leads to misunderstandings that could fill books. One is still prevalent today, revealed by former chief interpreter Charles W. Freeman, who traveled to China with US President Richard Nixon in 1972. In a conversation about world political events, then-Premier Zhou Enlai replied to the question of how he assessed the French Revolution with a phrase that has become famous: “It is still too early to be able to judge its consequences.” To this day, many contemporaries regard his saying as an expression of how wisely and over long periods of time the millennia-old cultural people of China think before passing judgment.
Translator Freeman revealed in 2011 what Zhou Enlai really meant. He was not talking about the French Revolution of 1789 in February 1972, but the one in May 1968, when students took to the barricades in Paris. Freeman wrote that he could not have corrected the misunderstanding in 1972. “It was just what people wanted to hear and believe.”
Culture
Deng Xiaoping
Society
Thomas Bach
Dessert
Wild vines have “conquered” this overpass in Chengdu, Sichuan Province.
