Contents: IMEC: Geopolitik mit Wirtschaftskorridoren +++ G20 und das Tauziehen um den Globalen Süden +++ Just another BRICS in the Wall +++ Update: Ten years of BRI: Guests by surprise +++ Danke, Flugbereitschaft! +++ Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) Under Scrutiny +++ Kritische Menschenrechtsbilanz kritischer Mineralien +++ Historisches Referendum in Ecuador +++ Eisenerz aus Westafrika statt aus Australien +++ Readings: Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2023 +++ A Decade of the Belt and Road Initiative +++ Quote: Africa’s rising clout
Category Archives: General
Newsletter 7/2023
Contents: Und Chinas nächste Marinebasis ist …. +++ Vor dem BRICS-Gipfel … +++ Water cannon incident: Threatening “peace and security” +++ 1.000.000.000.000 US-Dollar für Belt&Road +++ Belt&Road in Kambodscha: Groß und teuer +++ Ciao China: Giorgia Meloni sucht die Ausfahrt +++ Readings: Auf der Suche nach Chinas Marinestützpunkten +++ Quote: NATO’s Expansion
BRI 10 years after: Low mood to celebrate
The Chinese government will probably not be able to avoid paying tribute to the 10th anniversary of the kick-off of the Belt&Road Initiative, then called OBOR, by State and Party leader Xi Jinping in Kazakhstan and Indonesia in 2013. While it remained unclear for some time how this tribute would work out, there are now indications that there may be a 3rd Belt&Road Forum for International Cooperation this autumn. However, if this should materialize despite the narrow time frame by now, it will probably be difficult to top the influx of delegations from all over the world experienced at the first two meetings in 2017 and 2019. Because the times they have changed for Belt&Road.
Newsletter 6/2023
Contents: Deutsche China-Strategie: “Wasch mir den Pelz,…!” +++ Wird Indonesien Chinas ‘Ruhrgebiet’? +++ BRI 10 years after: Geringe Feierlaune +++ Mapping global infrastructure +++ Chinesischer Grüngürtel in Zentralasien (und anderswo) +++ Lithium: Claims abstecken in Lateinamerika +++ China’s overseas economic and trade cooperation zones +++ A Guide to Chinese Commercial Banks +++ Quote: Im Netz der „Einflussoperationen“
China’s soft belly
At home, China’s President Xi Jinping may be the big man. Under his leadership, the government and the Central Committee seem to have the internal factions in the Chinese Communist Party and self-willed provincial governors, public resentment and the various economic problems more or less under their control. But there can be no denying that Corona has also rocked China.
Coronavirus infects Belt&Road too
In mid-March 2020, China’s President Xi Jinping used the delivery of medical equipment and the dispatch of doctors to Italy to bring the close cooperation on a “Silk Road of Health” agreed with the World Health Organization (WHO) three years earlier into the media spotlight. . Beijing is in need of positive news, as the Covid-19 crisis is being used by US President Donald Trump and others to undermine China’s international reputation.
China’s Chernobyl?
The Corona crisis may well be “China’s Chernobyl”, suggested a columnist in the journal ‘The Diplomat’. Will China face a similar fate as the Soviet Union did five years after the nuclear disaster in the Ukraine? The Corona crisis is a serious challenge for the Beijing government. It is jeopardising its ambitions to transform the People’s Republic into a full-fledged world power by 2049, the 100th anniversary of its founding.
The Role of the State in China’s Belt and Road Initiative
It is not unusual that in huge infrastructure projects the state plays a crucial role in framing and implementation, often in varying forms of cooperation with private companies. Because of its distinctive regime character and relation with Chinese enterprises, the role that the Chinese state plays in the implementation of the ambitious infrastructure initiative BRI seems to be clearly different from similar initiatives.