First, the Covid pandemic, then the war in Ukraine – global supply chains are under a lot of pressure these days. So it comes as no surprise that more and more governments have begun to consider decoupling the global economy. The German government currently also notes that it is too dependent on China. For this reason, there are increasing calls for the re-nationalization of certain supply chains.
Economic expert Achim Wambach sees nothing to be gained from such a policy. Interviewed by Felix Lee, the Head of the ZEW Economic Research Institute explains why the exact opposite would be the solution. Wambach’s recommendation: more free trade. There are many regions in the world that still have a phase of high economic growth ahead of them and where German companies could position themselves very well. Another advantage over China is that not all of these countries are autocracies.
After all, the strict Covid policy of the leadership in Beijing is only the latest example of how autocratic China can be: Be it streets, apartments, parcels, parks or restaurants – everything that has a surface is being disinfected lately. Even people. So our team in Beijing set out to see how effective the pungent mixtures of ethanol, 1-propanol or 2-propanol truly are in the fight against Covid: Are China’s masked disinfection troops a miracle cure for Covid or mere hygiene theatrics?
Mr. Wambach, Shanghai’s lockdown to fight the pandemic was supposed to last four days. Now it’s been more than two months – while life in the rest of the world is returning to normal. How big is the damage to the German economy?
China’s lockdowns will have a massive impact on global supply chains. While we won’t see a sudden shock in the next few weeks, we will be faced with increasingly long delays in shipping times. In addition, prices are likely to rise further as a result. Financial market experts, whom we regularly survey, do expect the situation in China to improve slightly over the next six months. But at a low rate. After all, the problems will not be over with the end of the Covid measures. It will take months before trade is back to normal.
Russia’s campaign against Ukraine shows us once again how risky it is to get too involved with an authoritarian country. Shouldn’t Russia be a lesson to us when it comes to China as well?
There are several recent studies that look at what we would face if we stopped trade with China. We’re talking about a decrease of about one to four percent of gross domestic product. The Chinese and European economies are highly intertwined.
That doesn’t sound so bad.
But it would be. Around ten percent of German exports go to China. Many sales and procurement channels would have to be changed in the event of sharp conflicts. The loss for affected companies would be significantly higher. Then there are the investments made by German companies in the country itself. If their local production were to be impaired, this would at least affect their company value. Stopping business in China is feasible, but it would hurt the German economy a lot. At the moment, however, I do not see such a development. Large German companies continue to invest in China. It is rather small companies that are reconsidering their China business due to the many security regulations.
Understandable, isn’t it?
Certainly, after recent experience, we should now take a closer look at the areas in which we have become too dependent on certain countries and where we can build new supply chains. These are the lessons we have learned from the Russian conflict. And this is a question that every major company involved in China is now asking itself. For most of them, however, it is a question of detaching themselves from the dependencies, not from China per se.
Hasn’t China long since put the screws on some companies? VW and Daimler generate more than half of their revenue in the People’s Republic.
It would be wrong if VW were to say now: We’re getting out completely. Trade may not have led to the change that was once hoped for. But the intensive exchange has already brought a certain stability to relations. I think Volkswagen and other companies will now determine exactly how vulnerable they are should the West impose broader sanctions on China at some point.
How exactly?
I recommend that companies work with stress scenarios. Every company should run through all possible risks. For example, hardly anyone considered Russia to be a risk. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have this gas dependency. There is also too much dependence on a few countries for other raw materials, such as rare minerals or computer chips.
So to what conclusions can be drawn from such findings?
German companies should again re-focus on other geographical regions: India and South America, for example, and also North America in VW’s case. This does not mean, however, that all machines in China should come to a standstill for VW. I urge that we continue trading, but that we consistently reduce dependencies. However, it is not enough that only companies practice risk management. As we have seen recently, there are systemic risks that companies alone cannot address. And this is where politics comes in, in the search for new sources of raw materials, for example, but also in the search for new sales markets, for example through additional trade agreements.
Instead of re-nationalization, you plead for more free trade?
At least for a more diversified trade. To avoid dependencies, you should not trade with just one partner, but with many. There are still many regions in the world that have a phase of high economic growth ahead of them and where German companies with a lot of experience in international trade would be very well positioned. And not all of them are autocracies.
Let us take the supply chain act: Even though China has made great progress in recent years in complying with environmental and social standards, it will likely be difficult for German companies to ensure compliance along all supply chains. China lacks independent inspection bodies.
German companies already had to disclose what standards they comply with. In this respect, the issue is not new for them. I think the German Supply Chain Act is a good compromise. It is relatively cautious in terms of requirements and the depth to which the supply chain can be monitored. But the European equivalent is coming soon, which will be much stricter. This poses greater problems for some German companies.
The United States is urging its allies to make a choice: China or the USA. Germany appears indecisive on the issue.
When it came down to it, Germany always made a decision. And it has always decided in favor of the United States. That was the case with the sanctions against Iran, and it is currently the case with Russia. The US market is too important for that, and as our most important NATO partner, the US is also the relevant protecting power. For me, this raises the question of what such a request by the US means in the end? American companies are also active in China. And they have no plans to leave the country either. I think the US is primarily concerned with security-related technologies. And the Germans have long since sided with the US on that.
Is there no risk of retaliation?
The spiral of sanctions and counter-sanctions is well known. If we exclude telecommunications companies in Europe, we can expect China to react similarly.
Will it stay that way?
I believe so. If China’s leadership overreacts and also bans the supply of machines, cars and pharmaceuticals from Europe, this would severely restrict the supply of its own people. I assume that counter-sanctions will be dosed.
Achim Wambach has been President of ZEW, the Leibniz Center for European Economic Research, since 2016. He holds a Ph.D. in physics and is a Professor of Economics at the University of Mannheim.
Whether it’s roads, homes, packages and letters from abroad, or even just people. China’s authorities have concluded that pretty much anything with a surface can transmit the Coronavirus. That is why everything is being sprayed like there is no tomorrow. Social networks are full of videos and photos showing entire battalions of pandemic workers in white protective gear marching through the streets, fogging roadways, sidewalks and every lamppost that comes their way with their spray guns.
But while China’s disinfection troops caused amusement at first, the mood has now taken a massive turn. Authorities have begun to impose forced sanitization not only in public places, but also in private homes. In Shanghai and other parts of the country, reports of angry apartment owners being sent to quarantine centers are mounting. In their absence, cleaners invaded their homes, leaving furniture and floors soaked in disinfectant.
Images of people who have been lined up and then fired upon with disinfectant have also caused an uproar. Many firefighters in Shanghai no longer perform their actual duties, but have long since become an integral part of the disinfection squads that move from apartment to apartment. And disinfection robots are deployed at train stations and airports.
Experts note that all these efforts are one thing above all else: A huge waste of resources. Several studies show that the chance of transmission of the virus via contaminated surfaces is extremely low. On the other hand, disinfection could present a risk to health and the environment.
The US Department of Health and Human Services estimates that contact with a surface contaminated with Covid-19 results in infection in only 1 in 10,000 cases. A two-year study published in April in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology estimates the odds as low as 1 in 100,000.
Given such numbers, most observers agree that the authorities have other motivations at heart. The images are intended to “boost public confidence in government action,” Hong Kong professor Nicholas Thomas told US television network CNN. Many China observers call this spray campaign nothing more than “hygiene theatrics” that have nothing to do with meaningful preventive measures. The intention is to show the people that the government does not sit idly by.
Still, some researchers consider the strict measures to be sensible. Disinfecting surfaces is irrelevant to most countries’ strategies, says Leo Poon, a researcher at Hong Kong University’s School of Public Health. But China, which is pursuing an elimination strategy, has little choice.
The risk of transmission is extremely low. However, any single infection would potentially trigger a new wave. China’s chief epidemiologist, Wu Zunyou, recently said that while the likelihood of infection from contaminated surfaces is low, it remains possible with repeated exposure.
The World Health Organization, on the other hand, takes a clear position. In outdoor areas, large-scale fumigation is “not recommended,” according to the WHO’s official guidelines. Streets and sidewalks are not infection routes for the virus. Spraying disinfectants could be “harmful to health” and cause eye, respiratory or skin irritation.
But disinfection measures make sense in the right places: at home, in the office, in schools or gyms. Here, it is recommended to regularly disinfect so-called high-touch surfaces. The WHO cites door and window handles, kitchen countertops, bathroom surfaces, toilets and faucets as examples. Joern Petring/Gregor Koppenburg
The European Union has expressed “regret” over the trip of UN human rights envoy Michelle Bachelet. Bachelet did not have full access to persecuted groups, individuals and detention centers during her visit to Xinjiang last week, European External Action Service (EEAS) spokeswoman Nabila Massrali lamented in Brussels on Monday.
Massrali pointed to extensive “credible reports about systematic human rights violations in Xinjiang” and said “independent monitoring, fact-finding and investigations” are the only ways to properly evaluate the situation in China’s Western province.
“While taking note of the non-investigative nature of the visit, we regret that the high commissioner’s access to independent civil society organizations, human rights defenders and detention centers was limited, and that this did not allow her to assess the full scale of political re-education camps in Xinjiang,” Massrali said.
Meanwhile, Beijing has praised Bachelet’s six-day visit as a great success. It was the UN human rights chief’s first visit to China since 2005 (China.Table reported). “It needs to be pointed out that certain Western countries, out of ulterior motives, went to great lengths to disrupt and undercut the High Commissioner’s visit,” Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu said Saturday. “Their plot didn’t succeed.” Bachelet also defended her trip to China (China.Table reported).
As the South China Morning Post newspaper reported, the EU is expected to receive a full report on the trip next week. rad
Christoph Rehage is a hiker, travel blogger and author. For 15 years, he hikes across Asia and Eastern Europe. And he records his experiences. His first book, “The Longest Way,” tells of the mosaic of a multi-layered China and the curse of wanting to keep walking, whatever happens.
The journey began on November 9, 2007, on his 26th birthday. Rehage had previously spent two years studying in Beijing. He wanted to return to Germany on foot. It was the beginning of a journey to find himself, which still hasn’t come to an end. He only takes the plane or train to Germany when there are urgent personal reasons – family matters, doctor’s appointments, book tours. Once those are done, it’s back to where the trip was interrupted.
China has always fascinated him, he says: “The food culture was great, the people incredibly creative, hospitable, helpful.” And the longer he walked, the more he got to know the country and all its contradictions.
Wherever he went, the man was welcomed with open arms. While his beard kept growing, he stayed with families, slept in fields, in temples, or in the backroom of a restaurant. While hiking, he got the chance to intensively talk to monks, police officers or sex workers who crossed his path. He could perhaps have met these people on well-trodden tourist paths, but the opportunity for deep exchange would hardly have arisen.
Rehage experienced the cosmopolitanism of the Chinese on the one hand, and their caution in their own country on the other, at first hand. “I always had the feeling that there was something tragic about China, that the people there trusted each other less than they trusted me.”
In 2010, Rehage first came into conflict with the local and social surveillance that ordinary Chinese have to live with every day, when he got into a fight with the local police in Kuytun and Wusu. “My passport was taken away, and I had to stay in a hotel for a few days. At that time, I realized: They always know where I am.” Control and authoritarianism have steadily gotten worse since 2010, he believes. “When I first arrived in Beijing in 2005, people were still talking openly. That’s completely gone.”
When his books made him a public figure in China in 2012, he felt this more than ever. “I suddenly had glimpses behind the scenes that you don’t get as a tourist. I got the feeling there are a lot of tag-alongs in China who don’t like the system themselves.” He has long adhered to the red line of censorship. But when Xi Jinping came to power, it became more and more restrictive. “I could not, and I did not want to stay silent any longer. That’s why I started talking.” About Taiwan, genocides, “everything they didn’t want to hear.” But things that were on Rehage’s mind.
Nowadays, Rehage’s channels are blocked in China due to his political opinions. He is no longer in contact with most of his acquaintances there. “I don’t want to put them in danger.” Three of his friends, whom he talks about in the book, have died. Another – he later learned – spent two years in an internment camp in Xinjiang. “I always carry China in my heart, but the bridges are burning behind me.”
As ambivalent as his relationship with China is his relationship with running. He would like to arrive somewhere, he says, “but so far I’ve always had to leave again. After China, he wandered through Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Turkey and Georgia. Neither the pandemic nor a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis has stopped him from continuing to walk for long. At the moment, Rehage is in Serbia. You can follow his journey on Instagram.
But by now he is looking forward to finishing his journey soon and arriving in Germany. But at the same time, he says, he’s afraid of it. “I’m afraid that the satisfaction won’t set in, and I’ll have to move on again.” But perhaps he will end up settling down in Georgia. “It was the first country where I felt like there is freedom here.” Lisa Marie Jordan
China’s first free-floating deep-sea wind turbine, named Fuyao, is being towed into position by a tugboat. Fuyao is located off the coast of Guangdong province, where the water depth averages 65 meters, and is equipped with a typhoon-resistant 6.2-megawatt wind turbine.
First, the Covid pandemic, then the war in Ukraine – global supply chains are under a lot of pressure these days. So it comes as no surprise that more and more governments have begun to consider decoupling the global economy. The German government currently also notes that it is too dependent on China. For this reason, there are increasing calls for the re-nationalization of certain supply chains.
Economic expert Achim Wambach sees nothing to be gained from such a policy. Interviewed by Felix Lee, the Head of the ZEW Economic Research Institute explains why the exact opposite would be the solution. Wambach’s recommendation: more free trade. There are many regions in the world that still have a phase of high economic growth ahead of them and where German companies could position themselves very well. Another advantage over China is that not all of these countries are autocracies.
After all, the strict Covid policy of the leadership in Beijing is only the latest example of how autocratic China can be: Be it streets, apartments, parcels, parks or restaurants – everything that has a surface is being disinfected lately. Even people. So our team in Beijing set out to see how effective the pungent mixtures of ethanol, 1-propanol or 2-propanol truly are in the fight against Covid: Are China’s masked disinfection troops a miracle cure for Covid or mere hygiene theatrics?
Mr. Wambach, Shanghai’s lockdown to fight the pandemic was supposed to last four days. Now it’s been more than two months – while life in the rest of the world is returning to normal. How big is the damage to the German economy?
China’s lockdowns will have a massive impact on global supply chains. While we won’t see a sudden shock in the next few weeks, we will be faced with increasingly long delays in shipping times. In addition, prices are likely to rise further as a result. Financial market experts, whom we regularly survey, do expect the situation in China to improve slightly over the next six months. But at a low rate. After all, the problems will not be over with the end of the Covid measures. It will take months before trade is back to normal.
Russia’s campaign against Ukraine shows us once again how risky it is to get too involved with an authoritarian country. Shouldn’t Russia be a lesson to us when it comes to China as well?
There are several recent studies that look at what we would face if we stopped trade with China. We’re talking about a decrease of about one to four percent of gross domestic product. The Chinese and European economies are highly intertwined.
That doesn’t sound so bad.
But it would be. Around ten percent of German exports go to China. Many sales and procurement channels would have to be changed in the event of sharp conflicts. The loss for affected companies would be significantly higher. Then there are the investments made by German companies in the country itself. If their local production were to be impaired, this would at least affect their company value. Stopping business in China is feasible, but it would hurt the German economy a lot. At the moment, however, I do not see such a development. Large German companies continue to invest in China. It is rather small companies that are reconsidering their China business due to the many security regulations.
Understandable, isn’t it?
Certainly, after recent experience, we should now take a closer look at the areas in which we have become too dependent on certain countries and where we can build new supply chains. These are the lessons we have learned from the Russian conflict. And this is a question that every major company involved in China is now asking itself. For most of them, however, it is a question of detaching themselves from the dependencies, not from China per se.
Hasn’t China long since put the screws on some companies? VW and Daimler generate more than half of their revenue in the People’s Republic.
It would be wrong if VW were to say now: We’re getting out completely. Trade may not have led to the change that was once hoped for. But the intensive exchange has already brought a certain stability to relations. I think Volkswagen and other companies will now determine exactly how vulnerable they are should the West impose broader sanctions on China at some point.
How exactly?
I recommend that companies work with stress scenarios. Every company should run through all possible risks. For example, hardly anyone considered Russia to be a risk. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have this gas dependency. There is also too much dependence on a few countries for other raw materials, such as rare minerals or computer chips.
So to what conclusions can be drawn from such findings?
German companies should again re-focus on other geographical regions: India and South America, for example, and also North America in VW’s case. This does not mean, however, that all machines in China should come to a standstill for VW. I urge that we continue trading, but that we consistently reduce dependencies. However, it is not enough that only companies practice risk management. As we have seen recently, there are systemic risks that companies alone cannot address. And this is where politics comes in, in the search for new sources of raw materials, for example, but also in the search for new sales markets, for example through additional trade agreements.
Instead of re-nationalization, you plead for more free trade?
At least for a more diversified trade. To avoid dependencies, you should not trade with just one partner, but with many. There are still many regions in the world that have a phase of high economic growth ahead of them and where German companies with a lot of experience in international trade would be very well positioned. And not all of them are autocracies.
Let us take the supply chain act: Even though China has made great progress in recent years in complying with environmental and social standards, it will likely be difficult for German companies to ensure compliance along all supply chains. China lacks independent inspection bodies.
German companies already had to disclose what standards they comply with. In this respect, the issue is not new for them. I think the German Supply Chain Act is a good compromise. It is relatively cautious in terms of requirements and the depth to which the supply chain can be monitored. But the European equivalent is coming soon, which will be much stricter. This poses greater problems for some German companies.
The United States is urging its allies to make a choice: China or the USA. Germany appears indecisive on the issue.
When it came down to it, Germany always made a decision. And it has always decided in favor of the United States. That was the case with the sanctions against Iran, and it is currently the case with Russia. The US market is too important for that, and as our most important NATO partner, the US is also the relevant protecting power. For me, this raises the question of what such a request by the US means in the end? American companies are also active in China. And they have no plans to leave the country either. I think the US is primarily concerned with security-related technologies. And the Germans have long since sided with the US on that.
Is there no risk of retaliation?
The spiral of sanctions and counter-sanctions is well known. If we exclude telecommunications companies in Europe, we can expect China to react similarly.
Will it stay that way?
I believe so. If China’s leadership overreacts and also bans the supply of machines, cars and pharmaceuticals from Europe, this would severely restrict the supply of its own people. I assume that counter-sanctions will be dosed.
Achim Wambach has been President of ZEW, the Leibniz Center for European Economic Research, since 2016. He holds a Ph.D. in physics and is a Professor of Economics at the University of Mannheim.
Whether it’s roads, homes, packages and letters from abroad, or even just people. China’s authorities have concluded that pretty much anything with a surface can transmit the Coronavirus. That is why everything is being sprayed like there is no tomorrow. Social networks are full of videos and photos showing entire battalions of pandemic workers in white protective gear marching through the streets, fogging roadways, sidewalks and every lamppost that comes their way with their spray guns.
But while China’s disinfection troops caused amusement at first, the mood has now taken a massive turn. Authorities have begun to impose forced sanitization not only in public places, but also in private homes. In Shanghai and other parts of the country, reports of angry apartment owners being sent to quarantine centers are mounting. In their absence, cleaners invaded their homes, leaving furniture and floors soaked in disinfectant.
Images of people who have been lined up and then fired upon with disinfectant have also caused an uproar. Many firefighters in Shanghai no longer perform their actual duties, but have long since become an integral part of the disinfection squads that move from apartment to apartment. And disinfection robots are deployed at train stations and airports.
Experts note that all these efforts are one thing above all else: A huge waste of resources. Several studies show that the chance of transmission of the virus via contaminated surfaces is extremely low. On the other hand, disinfection could present a risk to health and the environment.
The US Department of Health and Human Services estimates that contact with a surface contaminated with Covid-19 results in infection in only 1 in 10,000 cases. A two-year study published in April in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology estimates the odds as low as 1 in 100,000.
Given such numbers, most observers agree that the authorities have other motivations at heart. The images are intended to “boost public confidence in government action,” Hong Kong professor Nicholas Thomas told US television network CNN. Many China observers call this spray campaign nothing more than “hygiene theatrics” that have nothing to do with meaningful preventive measures. The intention is to show the people that the government does not sit idly by.
Still, some researchers consider the strict measures to be sensible. Disinfecting surfaces is irrelevant to most countries’ strategies, says Leo Poon, a researcher at Hong Kong University’s School of Public Health. But China, which is pursuing an elimination strategy, has little choice.
The risk of transmission is extremely low. However, any single infection would potentially trigger a new wave. China’s chief epidemiologist, Wu Zunyou, recently said that while the likelihood of infection from contaminated surfaces is low, it remains possible with repeated exposure.
The World Health Organization, on the other hand, takes a clear position. In outdoor areas, large-scale fumigation is “not recommended,” according to the WHO’s official guidelines. Streets and sidewalks are not infection routes for the virus. Spraying disinfectants could be “harmful to health” and cause eye, respiratory or skin irritation.
But disinfection measures make sense in the right places: at home, in the office, in schools or gyms. Here, it is recommended to regularly disinfect so-called high-touch surfaces. The WHO cites door and window handles, kitchen countertops, bathroom surfaces, toilets and faucets as examples. Joern Petring/Gregor Koppenburg
The European Union has expressed “regret” over the trip of UN human rights envoy Michelle Bachelet. Bachelet did not have full access to persecuted groups, individuals and detention centers during her visit to Xinjiang last week, European External Action Service (EEAS) spokeswoman Nabila Massrali lamented in Brussels on Monday.
Massrali pointed to extensive “credible reports about systematic human rights violations in Xinjiang” and said “independent monitoring, fact-finding and investigations” are the only ways to properly evaluate the situation in China’s Western province.
“While taking note of the non-investigative nature of the visit, we regret that the high commissioner’s access to independent civil society organizations, human rights defenders and detention centers was limited, and that this did not allow her to assess the full scale of political re-education camps in Xinjiang,” Massrali said.
Meanwhile, Beijing has praised Bachelet’s six-day visit as a great success. It was the UN human rights chief’s first visit to China since 2005 (China.Table reported). “It needs to be pointed out that certain Western countries, out of ulterior motives, went to great lengths to disrupt and undercut the High Commissioner’s visit,” Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu said Saturday. “Their plot didn’t succeed.” Bachelet also defended her trip to China (China.Table reported).
As the South China Morning Post newspaper reported, the EU is expected to receive a full report on the trip next week. rad
Christoph Rehage is a hiker, travel blogger and author. For 15 years, he hikes across Asia and Eastern Europe. And he records his experiences. His first book, “The Longest Way,” tells of the mosaic of a multi-layered China and the curse of wanting to keep walking, whatever happens.
The journey began on November 9, 2007, on his 26th birthday. Rehage had previously spent two years studying in Beijing. He wanted to return to Germany on foot. It was the beginning of a journey to find himself, which still hasn’t come to an end. He only takes the plane or train to Germany when there are urgent personal reasons – family matters, doctor’s appointments, book tours. Once those are done, it’s back to where the trip was interrupted.
China has always fascinated him, he says: “The food culture was great, the people incredibly creative, hospitable, helpful.” And the longer he walked, the more he got to know the country and all its contradictions.
Wherever he went, the man was welcomed with open arms. While his beard kept growing, he stayed with families, slept in fields, in temples, or in the backroom of a restaurant. While hiking, he got the chance to intensively talk to monks, police officers or sex workers who crossed his path. He could perhaps have met these people on well-trodden tourist paths, but the opportunity for deep exchange would hardly have arisen.
Rehage experienced the cosmopolitanism of the Chinese on the one hand, and their caution in their own country on the other, at first hand. “I always had the feeling that there was something tragic about China, that the people there trusted each other less than they trusted me.”
In 2010, Rehage first came into conflict with the local and social surveillance that ordinary Chinese have to live with every day, when he got into a fight with the local police in Kuytun and Wusu. “My passport was taken away, and I had to stay in a hotel for a few days. At that time, I realized: They always know where I am.” Control and authoritarianism have steadily gotten worse since 2010, he believes. “When I first arrived in Beijing in 2005, people were still talking openly. That’s completely gone.”
When his books made him a public figure in China in 2012, he felt this more than ever. “I suddenly had glimpses behind the scenes that you don’t get as a tourist. I got the feeling there are a lot of tag-alongs in China who don’t like the system themselves.” He has long adhered to the red line of censorship. But when Xi Jinping came to power, it became more and more restrictive. “I could not, and I did not want to stay silent any longer. That’s why I started talking.” About Taiwan, genocides, “everything they didn’t want to hear.” But things that were on Rehage’s mind.
Nowadays, Rehage’s channels are blocked in China due to his political opinions. He is no longer in contact with most of his acquaintances there. “I don’t want to put them in danger.” Three of his friends, whom he talks about in the book, have died. Another – he later learned – spent two years in an internment camp in Xinjiang. “I always carry China in my heart, but the bridges are burning behind me.”
As ambivalent as his relationship with China is his relationship with running. He would like to arrive somewhere, he says, “but so far I’ve always had to leave again. After China, he wandered through Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Turkey and Georgia. Neither the pandemic nor a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis has stopped him from continuing to walk for long. At the moment, Rehage is in Serbia. You can follow his journey on Instagram.
But by now he is looking forward to finishing his journey soon and arriving in Germany. But at the same time, he says, he’s afraid of it. “I’m afraid that the satisfaction won’t set in, and I’ll have to move on again.” But perhaps he will end up settling down in Georgia. “It was the first country where I felt like there is freedom here.” Lisa Marie Jordan
China’s first free-floating deep-sea wind turbine, named Fuyao, is being towed into position by a tugboat. Fuyao is located off the coast of Guangdong province, where the water depth averages 65 meters, and is equipped with a typhoon-resistant 6.2-megawatt wind turbine.
