Xi Jinping will land in Moscow on Monday – where he will meet the Russian President. Xi’s visit gives Vladimir Putin a bit of a leg-up again, just days after he received another signal of ostracism from the international community in the form of an arrest warrant from The Hague. The three-day Sino-Russian summit is being followed abroad with enormous interest.
However, the former head of the Munich Security Conference and renowned diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger does not expect too much from the meeting. Given the current state of US-Chinese relations, he sees no reason why Xi would deviate from his previous position in Moscow. “I therefore fear that we will unfortunately only get a replay of what Xi and Putin already celebrated in Beijing last February: their borderless partnership,” says Ischinger in an interview with Table.Media.
Nevertheless, Ischinger believes it would be a mistake for the West to simply dismiss Beijing’s paper on the Russia-Ukraine war. The leadership in Beijing is not neutral. It could certainly play a role in a potential peace process, Ischinger emphasizes.
German Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, recently sparked a debate about the Chinese mobile phone suppliers Huawei and ZTE. A Table.Media survey conducted by the research agency Civey now shows: a clear majority of German citizens would accept a lower network expansion speed in exchange for foregoing Huawei technology. The survey showed remarkable differences between voters of the Green Party and the Left Party.
How to deal with the Chinese communications equipment suppliers would theoretically also be an urgent element of the German government’s official China strategy. This strategy is still in the works in Berlin and there have already been position papers from various sides. Now the conservative CDU/CSU party has also put forward its ideas – or rather, its assessment of the current state of affairs. After all, the CDU/CSU paper entitled “Sovereignty from our own strength – key points for a new China policy” leaves much to be desired, analyzes Michael Radunski.
This Monday, China’s President Xi Jinping will travel to Moscow. What can be expected from the meeting with Vladimir Putin?
I wish I could give an optimistic prognosis. But I don’t have it, even after repeated deliberation. Given the current desolate state of US-Chinese relations, I can hardly see any reason why Xi should budge even a single millimeter in Moscow. I therefore fear that we will unfortunately only get a replay of what Xi and Putin already celebrated in Beijing last February: their borderless partnership. But I would be happy if this forecast were too pessimistic.
That would indeed be disappointing, especially since China has recently come out of the woodwork with a position paper. However, Beijing’s twelve-point plan has met with skepticism in the West. With good reason?
I considered and still consider it a strategic mistake to brush China’s paper off the table. Among the twelve points presented, I find exactly one that the West must actually reject quite categorically. That is the point where China says: Sanctions are illegal as long as they are not mandated by the United Nations Security Council. But then Russia would have to impose sanctions on itself. On all the other eleven points, I think there is enough meat on the bone to engage in talks with the Chinese side.
How? It is all very vaguely formulated.
That is true. But in diplomacy, even small steps have to be painstakingly achieved, you have to try to coax things out of your counterpart. I would say: Mr. Wang, you said a year ago that China respects the territorial integrity of Ukraine. In the event of a war in Ukraine, Russia would have to withdraw its military presence from Ukraine. Is that a sentence China can live with or not? Because if China cannot live with the sentence, then it is not true that China respects the territorial integrity of all members of the United Nations. And one more word, because China always talks about respect: China became a member of the UN in 1972. Ukraine is a founding member of the United Nations. We want to show respect to this founding member of the United Nations, don’t we?
What is the motivation behind the Chinese paper?
China is pursuing an increasingly ambitious foreign policy. Some speak of a more aggressive foreign policy. China presents itself as the champion of the Global South and as a possible mediator. China probably believes that it is not such a bad thing if this war continues for a while. After all, this war ties the US to Europe. But I also believe that China’s reputation in Europe will suffer if it only acts as a partner of the aggressor Russia. China’s European relations have obviously been damaged. So it makes sense to present a position that is formulated in such an abstract way that it only abstractly criticizes Russia and 90 percent of the Global South can agree on.
So you would take China seriously as a mediator?
Well, I would put it differently: China’s claim to present itself as a mediator – I would respect that. But given China’s positioning so far, I don’t think China can seriously be presented to the Ukrainians as a mediator. China is not truly neutral for that. But perhaps China could play a role together with others. Let’s wait for the announced Chinese talks with Zelenskiy.
Just over a week ago, however, China successfully mediated between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Do we in the West perhaps underestimate China’s global influence?
Yes, China has become politically and above all economically indispensable. Another question is whether Chinese foreign policy will be consistently blessed with success. I would be skeptical about that, and just take the keyword wolf-warrior diplomacy. There is a lot of headwind coming from everywhere.
Even in bodies like the UN General Assembly, where every country has a vote regardless of its size, we see more and more nations siding with China. Is the West’s time as a political leader ending?
No, I wouldn’t go quite that far now. But US policy has put shackles on itself through its completely polarized stance towards China. It almost seems to me as if Washington no longer has any interest whatsoever to have anything good to say about China. I find it regrettable that the domestic political opponents of the Biden administration immediately interpret any sign of goodwill as weakness. This is a millstone around the neck of the US President.
How concerning is the situation in the US?
Even the editorial board of the New York Times recently warned against blindly running into a kind of war with China. I also experienced this mainstreaming opinion, to do nothing but bash China, at the Security Conference in Munich. But we urgently need to find some kind of coexistence. No one is telling the Americans at the moment that American prosperity will depend to a large extent on economic and trade relations with China not collapsing. And we will hardly get anywhere in climate policy without China’s cooperation – the largest emitter of CO2.
The Americans are currently crippling themselves. So it is fitting that Germany has announced a “Zeitenwende” and promised more leadership. What about that?
I think it is strategically urgent for the European Union as a whole to finally get its act together. In China policy, we must speak with one voice – in Beijing, but also Washington. We must abandon the German-Chinese, Portuguese-Chinese or French-Chinese approach. From Beijing’s perspective, we are all nothing more than small states. The Chinese would like nothing more than to play divide et impera with a Europe of 27 small states.
So the EU. What needs to be done? Because you said you found enough meat in the bone of the Chinese paper.
We should enter into a deeper dialogue with Beijing on the twelve points. Example: If China repeatedly opposes the threat of deploying nuclear weapons, perhaps Beijing would support – or at least not disagree with – a sentence that very specifically calls on Russia to refrain from such threats. Such a demand can hardly be directed at Ukraine, since it has no nuclear weapons. Apart from that, we have to find answers for Day X and think ahead.
About what questions?
For example, what would happen if the weapons were to remain silent one day? What trust-building measures, if any, would be possible between Russia and Ukraine? Who would monitor the peace or ceasefire? A Russian-Ukrainian commission, the OSCE or the United Nations? Are we in agreement between Ukraine, the USA and DC or NATO? Do we have plans with alternatives? Who would be eligible for a mediation group? The issue of security guarantees and the issue of NATO membership? Don’t we finally need a unanimous position? There would be 100 issues, of which perhaps only ten will be ultimately relevant. But I would consider it grossly negligent if we did not start such precautionary homework now. This is a key task of anticipatory crisis diplomacy.
Because otherwise what happens?
The moment the weapons stop, the Americans will roll in with 1,000 pages of finished paper and ignore us Europeans, when we come up with 27 different opinions and are unable to agree. The Americans, on the other hand, will say: Here is the paper, we have already discussed this with Ukraine and will meet the Russians tomorrow. This war is happening in Europe. When it comes to the modalities of possibly overcoming or ending it, Europe cannot be left on the sidelines. That’s why I think it’s absolutely necessary to jointly think through all possible options with the USA and Ukraine in a kind of strategic contact group.
Wolfgang Ischinger is one of the most experienced diplomats in Germany. He served as State Secretary at the Federal Foreign Office and German ambassador to Washington and London. From 2008 to 2022, he chaired the Munich Security Conference.
A clear majority of adult German citizens would accept a lower network expansion speed in exchange for foregoing Huawei technology. This is the result of a poll conducted by the research company Civey on behalf of Table.Media. In the context of the security debate surrounding Huawei, German mobile phone companies such as Telekom, Vodafone and Telefónica Germany warned last week that removing Chinese components could come at the cost of network quality.
However, potential customers would apparently accept slower mobile internet access if it meant that less Chinese technology was used in the network. As many as 60 percent of respondents answered “Yes” or “tending yes” to the question: “In your opinion, should Germany forego Huawei technology despite the possible effects on the expansion speed of the 5G network?”
At the beginning of last week, German Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser sparked a new debate about the Chinese mobile phone suppliers Huawei and ZTE. She requested mobile phone network operators in an email to provide lists of all Chinese parts in German networks. If installed in critical areas, they would compromise Germany’s security, was the rationale.
The poll result is also interesting in that no one has so far managed to prove that Huawei devices have any malicious properties. The entire debate revolves around the hypothetical case of a Chinese corporation acting on behalf of its government.
Huawei is not a state-owned enterprise itself but depends to a large extent on contracts from state-owned enterprises in China. Chinese companies are also legally bound to cooperate with the security authorities. However, as things stand, it is highly doubtful that Huawei or ZTE have built a secret kill switch into their network computers or antennas.
If the German government were to force mobile phone providers to dismantle already installed components from the networks, the companies would face a massive task. It would then have to hire experts to rebuild a large part of Germany’s mobile phone antennas and find replacements for Chinese high-quality technology. Consistently carried out, this would not only slow down the ongoing expansion of the 5G network, but it could also even set it back. And Germany’s Internet is already exceptionally slow as it is.
The consultancy Strand Consult estimates that Huawei components account for 59 percent of the German 5G network. In the core network of the Deutsche Bahn railway company, it is 40 percent. According to the German government, precise, official figures are unavailable. This could be one of the reasons why Faeser is asking providers to hand over exact lists.
In any case, Huawei has long been a close partner of the German telecommunication company Telekom for the supply of excellent and affordable technology. In 2017, Telekom’s very first advanced antennas came from Huawei. As late as 2020, the Chinese supplier was considered indispensable for playing at the technological top. The old German government under Angela Merkel, therefore, sought a compromise: More control over what the devices actually do – but still an open door for the Chinese partner.
But that was all before the Zeitenwende. The assessment of strategic risks is now stricter after the Russian invasion of Ukraine – both in the government and in the public. And: anyone who can access a country’s technical infrastructure is capable of crippling it. The EU is also exerting pressure to make the networks more European and thus more secure against geopolitical risks.
The gas shortages were indeed harmless compared to a scenario of data networks collapsing. No mobile communications, no corporate network, no bank transfers, no cashless payments, no withdrawals, and no stock trading. Electricity and water supplies could also be manipulated via the networks. Life would come to a grinding halt. Before February 2022, all this sounded like a very hypothetical scenario, science fiction, almost inconceivable to truly happen. The energy war now makes it seem a bit more real.
What is striking about the current poll is that supporters of the Green Party are particularly critical of the use of Chinese technology; 81 percent of them are willing to sacrifice rapid grid expansion in exchange for not using Chinese components. The lowest level of distrust of China appears to be among supporters of the Left Party. Here, the comparative figure is 38 percent. Voters for the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) are in the midfield, close to the average.
Young respondents below the age of 29 are slightly more willing to do without Huawei (70 percent) than senior citizens (59 percent). The middle age group of 40 to 49 is least concerned about Chinese technology, as long as the network runs faster.
Huawei itself is already feeling the brunt of sanctions on several fronts. The US sanctions have not only largely cut the company off from the US market, but also from access to technology from the US and key allies. However, the company knows how to help itself. According to a report in the South China Morning Post, company engineers have already redesigned 13,000 components so that they can now operate without US imports or licenses.
To be able to use the chip of a different manufacturer on a circuit board, it usually has to be completely redesigned, even if the function is essentially the same. Engineers at Huawei in Shenzhen therefore had to redesign 4,000 circuit boards, company boss Ren Zhengfei said in a speech at Nanjing University. Ren spoke about how Huawei is overcoming US sanctions.
The CDU wants to leave no doubt about the importance of its China paper: “The rise of communist China is the central, epochal challenge of the 21st century for all states that want to preserve, strengthen and support the rule-based international order.” This is the first sentence of the CDU/CSU position paper on the pillars of a new China policy, obtained by Table.Media.
But the paper, entitled “Sovereignty from our own strength – Cornerstones for a new China policy,” leaves much to be desired. What begins so clearly and unmistakably is quickly lost in vague generalities on the following 22 pages, such as: “Because China has changed, we must also change our policy towards China. Or, “The principle of peace through trade has failed with regard to Russia, but increasingly also China.” This is all true. But what are the conclusions? As correct as it assesses the current situation, the conclusions unfortunately remain vague.
Overall, the position paper of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group primarily reflects the familiar triad of China as partner, competitor and rival. Germany must “develop a new principle of industrial policy action based on Germany and Europe also formulating and asserting clear interests”. It would therefore be necessary to enter into competition with China.
On the other hand, the paper notes, China is Germany’s largest trading partner and is also of great importance to German companies as a location for innovation and research. By investing in China, German companies strengthen their global competitiveness and also secure jobs and value creation in Germany. Here, the party emphasizes China’s role as a partner.
However, China also wants to create “a global order that is more sinocentric and hierarchical, and that gives authoritarian principles and values greater international validity. This would represent a strategic challenge for the liberal-democratic world of states. So China is also a rival.
In the following, the CDU/CSU parliamentary group notes a new China that
However, China would sometimes appear stronger from the outside than it actually is. The internal challenges would be:
China can and must therefore be approached with self-confidence. “Not least the pandemic has shown: Democracy can deliver. China has failed with its Covid policy, both virologically and economically.”
The party is calling for nothing less than a Zeitenwende in China policy, which includes:
What follows are calls for a European-coordinated China strategy, for a concept of how to respond to Chinese pressure, for a “360-degree analysis of economic dependencies,” for reciprocity as well as for close transatlantic coordination.
And so, when reading these 22 pages, one feeling above all sets in: What the CDU/CSU parliamentary group has written down here is all true. But what does this mean? Do we really want to let China decide in which areas there should be competition, or should Germany not set its own priorities? And if one wants to react to a new China, what concrete steps should be taken? Should Germany’s economy be more heavily regulated, if necessary?
But these are precisely the questions that such a paper should include. After all, strategy is a plan of action designed to be as precise as possible in order to achieve a goal, and in which one tries to take as many factors as possible into account from the very beginning. Since the CDU/CSU is the opposition, it would have the opportunity to develop its own new ideas, free from government coalition constraints.
The CDU/CSU paper is apparently only a first draft, which is still to be approved by the party leadership. Perhaps the party’s chairman, Friedrich Merz, will personally lend a hand – and flesh out the party’s plans for China.
In comparison, the China strategy of the Ministry of Economics seems much more sophisticated – but also more unpleasant, with its proposals to exclude non-European bidders in public tenders for system-relevant projects. Or that new German investment in China be subjected to scrutiny.
And so one gets the impression that the CDU/CSU has not presented a paper to put China under pressure, but rather the government coalition in Berlin. After Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Economy Minister Robert Habeck and the FDP parliamentary group, it was now the turn of the CDU/CSU to present its own China strategy, however vague it may be.
The problem: Germany as a whole urgently needs a coherent strategy. But Germany’s China strategy, of all things, is still a ways off.
Finally traveling to Taiwan again and eating “stinky tofu”. That is what Monika Li is currently dreaming of, as she says. “Unfortunately, you can’t get it in Germany, and it tastes incredible.” Li is a teacher, sinologist and translator. She first traveled to Taiwan during her studies. “This country just absorbed me,” she recalls. She was rather sullen when she boarded the plane back to Germany. Today, at the side of her Taiwanese husband, her life alternates between Taipei and Berlin.
After graduating, Li taught philosophy, German and Chinese, and since 2020 she has been translating Taiwanese literature into German. The inspiration, albeit unconsciously, came from her daughter, who was three years old at the time: “Time and again, she had my husband read to her Yu-Jan Chang’s beautifully illustrated story ‘The Blue Dress’” – Li eventually translated the book into German.
Translating is downright addicting for her, Li explains. “The exciting part is the immersion in the story, the atmosphere, the situations and emotions of the protagonists and, to a certain extent, those of the authors.” Often, she has the feeling of merging with another world, she says. Then she forgets everything that is happening around her.
But with the job also comes great challenges, the translator says. “Breaking away from Chinese wording after spending so much time and energy trying to get through it, that is often not so easy.” But Li never loses sight of her goal: She wants to make Taiwanese literature not only comprehensible, but also enjoyable for a German-speaking reading audience. What drives her? “The Taiwanese perspectives that get little attention in Germany.”
Due to the political situation, Taiwan has been in the media spotlight more often lately, but mostly only for its relationship with China – Li sees this critically. She believes that she can change this through her translation work, which gives the people of Taiwan a German voice and thus reveals the complexity of the country. It is always surprising how much political reality there is in the stories of Taiwanese writers, she says.
Recently, Li’s first book translation “At the Foot of Kavulungan” by Lung Ying-tai was published. She found the Taiwanese original in a bookstore in Taipei in 2021 and submitted it to the German publisher. “It’s a great feeling when you can then hold the German translation in your hand 17 months later.”
Li does not yet know when she will return to Taipei. But it certainly will not be long before she can eat stinky tofu and discover new books again. One of them might then find its way back across her desk to German bookstores. Svenja Napp
Here is a short Mandarin mystery quiz to kick off the week: what is a 口水战 kǒushuǐzhàn – literally, a “spit fight” or a “saliva war”? Is it:
A: a spitting contest
B: a heated debate
C: a far-too-wet French kiss
D: a pushy food battle at the buffet
When a heated argument boils up so that not fists are flying but lots of saliva dribbles are, people in China really do talk about a “saliva war” 口水战 kǒushuǐzhàn (sometimes also “saliva fight” 口水仗 kǒushuǐzhàng). The expression is made up of 口水 kǒushuǐ “spit, saliva” (literally actually “mouth water”) and 战 zhàn for “war, battle”. So, while the words cross in a verbal battle in our language, in Mandarin metaphor spit particles do. So answer B was the correct answer.
Those who now wet their fingers with spit and continue to flip through the Chinese dictionary will also find even more salivary vocabulary with surprising meanings. For example, the “saliva song” (口水歌 kǒushuǐgē). It is the – not particularly hygienic – expression for having a song stuck in your head. In the KTV culture country of China, such popular songs apparently make people’s mouths water just thinking about singing along (流口水 liú kǒushuǐ).
When you first discover the dish “Saliva Chicken” (口水鸡 kǒushuǐjī) on the menu in a Chinese restaurant, it probably will not make your mouth water at first. But it should! Because this is a tasty culinary classic of Sichuan cuisine that has made it to nationwide fame. The highlight of the dish is the numbingly hot decoction of Sichuan pepper and all kinds of other spices in which the poultry is braised and which lends the dish its special mala note. 麻辣 málà is known to be an extra-hot flavoring with Sichuan pepper (花椒 huājiāo) popular in some parts of China. Not for the faint of heart or palate.
Apart from “mouth water”, the Mandarin dictionary also includes a number of other watery words that are easy to memorize. For example, “fragrance water” (香水 xiāngshuǐ – Chinese for perfume), “glue water” (胶水 jiāoshuǐ – liquid glue), “sugar water” (糖水 tángshuǐ – syrup), the “salary water” (薪水 xīnshuǐ – salary) flushed into the bank account at the end of the month, and the “ink water” (墨水 mòshuǐ – Chinese ink).
By the way, you can also drink the latter in China – at least figuratively. 喝墨水 hē mòshuǐ “drinking ink” is a synonym for “going to school“. Those who “sip Western ink” (喝洋墨水 hē yáng-mòshuǐ) are studying in a foreign country. And now, before you become completely confused by all the water vocabulary, or as the Chinese would say “have a head full of foggy water” (一头雾水 yītóu-wùshuǐ “to be confused/bewildered“), let us return to the topic we started with: saliva.
Perhaps one or two of you picked answer A, the spitting contest. Because some Europeans imagine themselves as witnesses of such a contest when they first come into contact with China’s spitting culture. In some regions and social circles, it is still customary (particularly among Y-chromosome owners, it should be noted) to dispose of excess bodily secretions from the nose and throat not in a handkerchief, but by spitting – in Chinese, this is called 吐口水 tǔ kǒushuǐ (“spitting saliva“) or 吐痰 tǔtán (“spitting mucus“).
Sometimes this happens with such force that acoustically sensitive foreigners sometimes flinch. However, ENT doctors advise the following: pulling up one’s nose is actually healthier than blowing one’s nose vigorously and frequently, since the latter favors sinus and middle ear infections. So from a medical perspective, it is better to sniff instead of blow, so the Chinese are right.
However, if the unusual spitting noise in China makes your skin crawl, please do not immediately go into the offensive and start a masterly “saliva war”. Remember that people in China are also not particularly fond of the sound of a European nose-blowing and of carrying around snot rags stuffed in jacket and trouser pockets for hours. After all, everyone has their own quirks. So stay calm, be tolerant, and do not let yourself get worked up. And if things get a bit too loud for you, just plug the music app into your ear. Maybe your saliva song is playing right now.
Verena Menzel runs the online language school New Chinese in Beijing.
Xi Jinping will land in Moscow on Monday – where he will meet the Russian President. Xi’s visit gives Vladimir Putin a bit of a leg-up again, just days after he received another signal of ostracism from the international community in the form of an arrest warrant from The Hague. The three-day Sino-Russian summit is being followed abroad with enormous interest.
However, the former head of the Munich Security Conference and renowned diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger does not expect too much from the meeting. Given the current state of US-Chinese relations, he sees no reason why Xi would deviate from his previous position in Moscow. “I therefore fear that we will unfortunately only get a replay of what Xi and Putin already celebrated in Beijing last February: their borderless partnership,” says Ischinger in an interview with Table.Media.
Nevertheless, Ischinger believes it would be a mistake for the West to simply dismiss Beijing’s paper on the Russia-Ukraine war. The leadership in Beijing is not neutral. It could certainly play a role in a potential peace process, Ischinger emphasizes.
German Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, recently sparked a debate about the Chinese mobile phone suppliers Huawei and ZTE. A Table.Media survey conducted by the research agency Civey now shows: a clear majority of German citizens would accept a lower network expansion speed in exchange for foregoing Huawei technology. The survey showed remarkable differences between voters of the Green Party and the Left Party.
How to deal with the Chinese communications equipment suppliers would theoretically also be an urgent element of the German government’s official China strategy. This strategy is still in the works in Berlin and there have already been position papers from various sides. Now the conservative CDU/CSU party has also put forward its ideas – or rather, its assessment of the current state of affairs. After all, the CDU/CSU paper entitled “Sovereignty from our own strength – key points for a new China policy” leaves much to be desired, analyzes Michael Radunski.
This Monday, China’s President Xi Jinping will travel to Moscow. What can be expected from the meeting with Vladimir Putin?
I wish I could give an optimistic prognosis. But I don’t have it, even after repeated deliberation. Given the current desolate state of US-Chinese relations, I can hardly see any reason why Xi should budge even a single millimeter in Moscow. I therefore fear that we will unfortunately only get a replay of what Xi and Putin already celebrated in Beijing last February: their borderless partnership. But I would be happy if this forecast were too pessimistic.
That would indeed be disappointing, especially since China has recently come out of the woodwork with a position paper. However, Beijing’s twelve-point plan has met with skepticism in the West. With good reason?
I considered and still consider it a strategic mistake to brush China’s paper off the table. Among the twelve points presented, I find exactly one that the West must actually reject quite categorically. That is the point where China says: Sanctions are illegal as long as they are not mandated by the United Nations Security Council. But then Russia would have to impose sanctions on itself. On all the other eleven points, I think there is enough meat on the bone to engage in talks with the Chinese side.
How? It is all very vaguely formulated.
That is true. But in diplomacy, even small steps have to be painstakingly achieved, you have to try to coax things out of your counterpart. I would say: Mr. Wang, you said a year ago that China respects the territorial integrity of Ukraine. In the event of a war in Ukraine, Russia would have to withdraw its military presence from Ukraine. Is that a sentence China can live with or not? Because if China cannot live with the sentence, then it is not true that China respects the territorial integrity of all members of the United Nations. And one more word, because China always talks about respect: China became a member of the UN in 1972. Ukraine is a founding member of the United Nations. We want to show respect to this founding member of the United Nations, don’t we?
What is the motivation behind the Chinese paper?
China is pursuing an increasingly ambitious foreign policy. Some speak of a more aggressive foreign policy. China presents itself as the champion of the Global South and as a possible mediator. China probably believes that it is not such a bad thing if this war continues for a while. After all, this war ties the US to Europe. But I also believe that China’s reputation in Europe will suffer if it only acts as a partner of the aggressor Russia. China’s European relations have obviously been damaged. So it makes sense to present a position that is formulated in such an abstract way that it only abstractly criticizes Russia and 90 percent of the Global South can agree on.
So you would take China seriously as a mediator?
Well, I would put it differently: China’s claim to present itself as a mediator – I would respect that. But given China’s positioning so far, I don’t think China can seriously be presented to the Ukrainians as a mediator. China is not truly neutral for that. But perhaps China could play a role together with others. Let’s wait for the announced Chinese talks with Zelenskiy.
Just over a week ago, however, China successfully mediated between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Do we in the West perhaps underestimate China’s global influence?
Yes, China has become politically and above all economically indispensable. Another question is whether Chinese foreign policy will be consistently blessed with success. I would be skeptical about that, and just take the keyword wolf-warrior diplomacy. There is a lot of headwind coming from everywhere.
Even in bodies like the UN General Assembly, where every country has a vote regardless of its size, we see more and more nations siding with China. Is the West’s time as a political leader ending?
No, I wouldn’t go quite that far now. But US policy has put shackles on itself through its completely polarized stance towards China. It almost seems to me as if Washington no longer has any interest whatsoever to have anything good to say about China. I find it regrettable that the domestic political opponents of the Biden administration immediately interpret any sign of goodwill as weakness. This is a millstone around the neck of the US President.
How concerning is the situation in the US?
Even the editorial board of the New York Times recently warned against blindly running into a kind of war with China. I also experienced this mainstreaming opinion, to do nothing but bash China, at the Security Conference in Munich. But we urgently need to find some kind of coexistence. No one is telling the Americans at the moment that American prosperity will depend to a large extent on economic and trade relations with China not collapsing. And we will hardly get anywhere in climate policy without China’s cooperation – the largest emitter of CO2.
The Americans are currently crippling themselves. So it is fitting that Germany has announced a “Zeitenwende” and promised more leadership. What about that?
I think it is strategically urgent for the European Union as a whole to finally get its act together. In China policy, we must speak with one voice – in Beijing, but also Washington. We must abandon the German-Chinese, Portuguese-Chinese or French-Chinese approach. From Beijing’s perspective, we are all nothing more than small states. The Chinese would like nothing more than to play divide et impera with a Europe of 27 small states.
So the EU. What needs to be done? Because you said you found enough meat in the bone of the Chinese paper.
We should enter into a deeper dialogue with Beijing on the twelve points. Example: If China repeatedly opposes the threat of deploying nuclear weapons, perhaps Beijing would support – or at least not disagree with – a sentence that very specifically calls on Russia to refrain from such threats. Such a demand can hardly be directed at Ukraine, since it has no nuclear weapons. Apart from that, we have to find answers for Day X and think ahead.
About what questions?
For example, what would happen if the weapons were to remain silent one day? What trust-building measures, if any, would be possible between Russia and Ukraine? Who would monitor the peace or ceasefire? A Russian-Ukrainian commission, the OSCE or the United Nations? Are we in agreement between Ukraine, the USA and DC or NATO? Do we have plans with alternatives? Who would be eligible for a mediation group? The issue of security guarantees and the issue of NATO membership? Don’t we finally need a unanimous position? There would be 100 issues, of which perhaps only ten will be ultimately relevant. But I would consider it grossly negligent if we did not start such precautionary homework now. This is a key task of anticipatory crisis diplomacy.
Because otherwise what happens?
The moment the weapons stop, the Americans will roll in with 1,000 pages of finished paper and ignore us Europeans, when we come up with 27 different opinions and are unable to agree. The Americans, on the other hand, will say: Here is the paper, we have already discussed this with Ukraine and will meet the Russians tomorrow. This war is happening in Europe. When it comes to the modalities of possibly overcoming or ending it, Europe cannot be left on the sidelines. That’s why I think it’s absolutely necessary to jointly think through all possible options with the USA and Ukraine in a kind of strategic contact group.
Wolfgang Ischinger is one of the most experienced diplomats in Germany. He served as State Secretary at the Federal Foreign Office and German ambassador to Washington and London. From 2008 to 2022, he chaired the Munich Security Conference.
A clear majority of adult German citizens would accept a lower network expansion speed in exchange for foregoing Huawei technology. This is the result of a poll conducted by the research company Civey on behalf of Table.Media. In the context of the security debate surrounding Huawei, German mobile phone companies such as Telekom, Vodafone and Telefónica Germany warned last week that removing Chinese components could come at the cost of network quality.
However, potential customers would apparently accept slower mobile internet access if it meant that less Chinese technology was used in the network. As many as 60 percent of respondents answered “Yes” or “tending yes” to the question: “In your opinion, should Germany forego Huawei technology despite the possible effects on the expansion speed of the 5G network?”
At the beginning of last week, German Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser sparked a new debate about the Chinese mobile phone suppliers Huawei and ZTE. She requested mobile phone network operators in an email to provide lists of all Chinese parts in German networks. If installed in critical areas, they would compromise Germany’s security, was the rationale.
The poll result is also interesting in that no one has so far managed to prove that Huawei devices have any malicious properties. The entire debate revolves around the hypothetical case of a Chinese corporation acting on behalf of its government.
Huawei is not a state-owned enterprise itself but depends to a large extent on contracts from state-owned enterprises in China. Chinese companies are also legally bound to cooperate with the security authorities. However, as things stand, it is highly doubtful that Huawei or ZTE have built a secret kill switch into their network computers or antennas.
If the German government were to force mobile phone providers to dismantle already installed components from the networks, the companies would face a massive task. It would then have to hire experts to rebuild a large part of Germany’s mobile phone antennas and find replacements for Chinese high-quality technology. Consistently carried out, this would not only slow down the ongoing expansion of the 5G network, but it could also even set it back. And Germany’s Internet is already exceptionally slow as it is.
The consultancy Strand Consult estimates that Huawei components account for 59 percent of the German 5G network. In the core network of the Deutsche Bahn railway company, it is 40 percent. According to the German government, precise, official figures are unavailable. This could be one of the reasons why Faeser is asking providers to hand over exact lists.
In any case, Huawei has long been a close partner of the German telecommunication company Telekom for the supply of excellent and affordable technology. In 2017, Telekom’s very first advanced antennas came from Huawei. As late as 2020, the Chinese supplier was considered indispensable for playing at the technological top. The old German government under Angela Merkel, therefore, sought a compromise: More control over what the devices actually do – but still an open door for the Chinese partner.
But that was all before the Zeitenwende. The assessment of strategic risks is now stricter after the Russian invasion of Ukraine – both in the government and in the public. And: anyone who can access a country’s technical infrastructure is capable of crippling it. The EU is also exerting pressure to make the networks more European and thus more secure against geopolitical risks.
The gas shortages were indeed harmless compared to a scenario of data networks collapsing. No mobile communications, no corporate network, no bank transfers, no cashless payments, no withdrawals, and no stock trading. Electricity and water supplies could also be manipulated via the networks. Life would come to a grinding halt. Before February 2022, all this sounded like a very hypothetical scenario, science fiction, almost inconceivable to truly happen. The energy war now makes it seem a bit more real.
What is striking about the current poll is that supporters of the Green Party are particularly critical of the use of Chinese technology; 81 percent of them are willing to sacrifice rapid grid expansion in exchange for not using Chinese components. The lowest level of distrust of China appears to be among supporters of the Left Party. Here, the comparative figure is 38 percent. Voters for the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) are in the midfield, close to the average.
Young respondents below the age of 29 are slightly more willing to do without Huawei (70 percent) than senior citizens (59 percent). The middle age group of 40 to 49 is least concerned about Chinese technology, as long as the network runs faster.
Huawei itself is already feeling the brunt of sanctions on several fronts. The US sanctions have not only largely cut the company off from the US market, but also from access to technology from the US and key allies. However, the company knows how to help itself. According to a report in the South China Morning Post, company engineers have already redesigned 13,000 components so that they can now operate without US imports or licenses.
To be able to use the chip of a different manufacturer on a circuit board, it usually has to be completely redesigned, even if the function is essentially the same. Engineers at Huawei in Shenzhen therefore had to redesign 4,000 circuit boards, company boss Ren Zhengfei said in a speech at Nanjing University. Ren spoke about how Huawei is overcoming US sanctions.
The CDU wants to leave no doubt about the importance of its China paper: “The rise of communist China is the central, epochal challenge of the 21st century for all states that want to preserve, strengthen and support the rule-based international order.” This is the first sentence of the CDU/CSU position paper on the pillars of a new China policy, obtained by Table.Media.
But the paper, entitled “Sovereignty from our own strength – Cornerstones for a new China policy,” leaves much to be desired. What begins so clearly and unmistakably is quickly lost in vague generalities on the following 22 pages, such as: “Because China has changed, we must also change our policy towards China. Or, “The principle of peace through trade has failed with regard to Russia, but increasingly also China.” This is all true. But what are the conclusions? As correct as it assesses the current situation, the conclusions unfortunately remain vague.
Overall, the position paper of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group primarily reflects the familiar triad of China as partner, competitor and rival. Germany must “develop a new principle of industrial policy action based on Germany and Europe also formulating and asserting clear interests”. It would therefore be necessary to enter into competition with China.
On the other hand, the paper notes, China is Germany’s largest trading partner and is also of great importance to German companies as a location for innovation and research. By investing in China, German companies strengthen their global competitiveness and also secure jobs and value creation in Germany. Here, the party emphasizes China’s role as a partner.
However, China also wants to create “a global order that is more sinocentric and hierarchical, and that gives authoritarian principles and values greater international validity. This would represent a strategic challenge for the liberal-democratic world of states. So China is also a rival.
In the following, the CDU/CSU parliamentary group notes a new China that
However, China would sometimes appear stronger from the outside than it actually is. The internal challenges would be:
China can and must therefore be approached with self-confidence. “Not least the pandemic has shown: Democracy can deliver. China has failed with its Covid policy, both virologically and economically.”
The party is calling for nothing less than a Zeitenwende in China policy, which includes:
What follows are calls for a European-coordinated China strategy, for a concept of how to respond to Chinese pressure, for a “360-degree analysis of economic dependencies,” for reciprocity as well as for close transatlantic coordination.
And so, when reading these 22 pages, one feeling above all sets in: What the CDU/CSU parliamentary group has written down here is all true. But what does this mean? Do we really want to let China decide in which areas there should be competition, or should Germany not set its own priorities? And if one wants to react to a new China, what concrete steps should be taken? Should Germany’s economy be more heavily regulated, if necessary?
But these are precisely the questions that such a paper should include. After all, strategy is a plan of action designed to be as precise as possible in order to achieve a goal, and in which one tries to take as many factors as possible into account from the very beginning. Since the CDU/CSU is the opposition, it would have the opportunity to develop its own new ideas, free from government coalition constraints.
The CDU/CSU paper is apparently only a first draft, which is still to be approved by the party leadership. Perhaps the party’s chairman, Friedrich Merz, will personally lend a hand – and flesh out the party’s plans for China.
In comparison, the China strategy of the Ministry of Economics seems much more sophisticated – but also more unpleasant, with its proposals to exclude non-European bidders in public tenders for system-relevant projects. Or that new German investment in China be subjected to scrutiny.
And so one gets the impression that the CDU/CSU has not presented a paper to put China under pressure, but rather the government coalition in Berlin. After Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Economy Minister Robert Habeck and the FDP parliamentary group, it was now the turn of the CDU/CSU to present its own China strategy, however vague it may be.
The problem: Germany as a whole urgently needs a coherent strategy. But Germany’s China strategy, of all things, is still a ways off.
Finally traveling to Taiwan again and eating “stinky tofu”. That is what Monika Li is currently dreaming of, as she says. “Unfortunately, you can’t get it in Germany, and it tastes incredible.” Li is a teacher, sinologist and translator. She first traveled to Taiwan during her studies. “This country just absorbed me,” she recalls. She was rather sullen when she boarded the plane back to Germany. Today, at the side of her Taiwanese husband, her life alternates between Taipei and Berlin.
After graduating, Li taught philosophy, German and Chinese, and since 2020 she has been translating Taiwanese literature into German. The inspiration, albeit unconsciously, came from her daughter, who was three years old at the time: “Time and again, she had my husband read to her Yu-Jan Chang’s beautifully illustrated story ‘The Blue Dress’” – Li eventually translated the book into German.
Translating is downright addicting for her, Li explains. “The exciting part is the immersion in the story, the atmosphere, the situations and emotions of the protagonists and, to a certain extent, those of the authors.” Often, she has the feeling of merging with another world, she says. Then she forgets everything that is happening around her.
But with the job also comes great challenges, the translator says. “Breaking away from Chinese wording after spending so much time and energy trying to get through it, that is often not so easy.” But Li never loses sight of her goal: She wants to make Taiwanese literature not only comprehensible, but also enjoyable for a German-speaking reading audience. What drives her? “The Taiwanese perspectives that get little attention in Germany.”
Due to the political situation, Taiwan has been in the media spotlight more often lately, but mostly only for its relationship with China – Li sees this critically. She believes that she can change this through her translation work, which gives the people of Taiwan a German voice and thus reveals the complexity of the country. It is always surprising how much political reality there is in the stories of Taiwanese writers, she says.
Recently, Li’s first book translation “At the Foot of Kavulungan” by Lung Ying-tai was published. She found the Taiwanese original in a bookstore in Taipei in 2021 and submitted it to the German publisher. “It’s a great feeling when you can then hold the German translation in your hand 17 months later.”
Li does not yet know when she will return to Taipei. But it certainly will not be long before she can eat stinky tofu and discover new books again. One of them might then find its way back across her desk to German bookstores. Svenja Napp
Here is a short Mandarin mystery quiz to kick off the week: what is a 口水战 kǒushuǐzhàn – literally, a “spit fight” or a “saliva war”? Is it:
A: a spitting contest
B: a heated debate
C: a far-too-wet French kiss
D: a pushy food battle at the buffet
When a heated argument boils up so that not fists are flying but lots of saliva dribbles are, people in China really do talk about a “saliva war” 口水战 kǒushuǐzhàn (sometimes also “saliva fight” 口水仗 kǒushuǐzhàng). The expression is made up of 口水 kǒushuǐ “spit, saliva” (literally actually “mouth water”) and 战 zhàn for “war, battle”. So, while the words cross in a verbal battle in our language, in Mandarin metaphor spit particles do. So answer B was the correct answer.
Those who now wet their fingers with spit and continue to flip through the Chinese dictionary will also find even more salivary vocabulary with surprising meanings. For example, the “saliva song” (口水歌 kǒushuǐgē). It is the – not particularly hygienic – expression for having a song stuck in your head. In the KTV culture country of China, such popular songs apparently make people’s mouths water just thinking about singing along (流口水 liú kǒushuǐ).
When you first discover the dish “Saliva Chicken” (口水鸡 kǒushuǐjī) on the menu in a Chinese restaurant, it probably will not make your mouth water at first. But it should! Because this is a tasty culinary classic of Sichuan cuisine that has made it to nationwide fame. The highlight of the dish is the numbingly hot decoction of Sichuan pepper and all kinds of other spices in which the poultry is braised and which lends the dish its special mala note. 麻辣 málà is known to be an extra-hot flavoring with Sichuan pepper (花椒 huājiāo) popular in some parts of China. Not for the faint of heart or palate.
Apart from “mouth water”, the Mandarin dictionary also includes a number of other watery words that are easy to memorize. For example, “fragrance water” (香水 xiāngshuǐ – Chinese for perfume), “glue water” (胶水 jiāoshuǐ – liquid glue), “sugar water” (糖水 tángshuǐ – syrup), the “salary water” (薪水 xīnshuǐ – salary) flushed into the bank account at the end of the month, and the “ink water” (墨水 mòshuǐ – Chinese ink).
By the way, you can also drink the latter in China – at least figuratively. 喝墨水 hē mòshuǐ “drinking ink” is a synonym for “going to school“. Those who “sip Western ink” (喝洋墨水 hē yáng-mòshuǐ) are studying in a foreign country. And now, before you become completely confused by all the water vocabulary, or as the Chinese would say “have a head full of foggy water” (一头雾水 yītóu-wùshuǐ “to be confused/bewildered“), let us return to the topic we started with: saliva.
Perhaps one or two of you picked answer A, the spitting contest. Because some Europeans imagine themselves as witnesses of such a contest when they first come into contact with China’s spitting culture. In some regions and social circles, it is still customary (particularly among Y-chromosome owners, it should be noted) to dispose of excess bodily secretions from the nose and throat not in a handkerchief, but by spitting – in Chinese, this is called 吐口水 tǔ kǒushuǐ (“spitting saliva“) or 吐痰 tǔtán (“spitting mucus“).
Sometimes this happens with such force that acoustically sensitive foreigners sometimes flinch. However, ENT doctors advise the following: pulling up one’s nose is actually healthier than blowing one’s nose vigorously and frequently, since the latter favors sinus and middle ear infections. So from a medical perspective, it is better to sniff instead of blow, so the Chinese are right.
However, if the unusual spitting noise in China makes your skin crawl, please do not immediately go into the offensive and start a masterly “saliva war”. Remember that people in China are also not particularly fond of the sound of a European nose-blowing and of carrying around snot rags stuffed in jacket and trouser pockets for hours. After all, everyone has their own quirks. So stay calm, be tolerant, and do not let yourself get worked up. And if things get a bit too loud for you, just plug the music app into your ear. Maybe your saliva song is playing right now.
Verena Menzel runs the online language school New Chinese in Beijing.
