MERICS China Podcast

April 30, 2019Over the last year, the Chinese government has been tightening its grip on labor activism across the country. In the southern industrial hub of Shenzhen, factory workers of a welding machinery company were arrested after trying to form their own union in July 2018. Many of them remain in custody until today. But crackdowns on labor activists do not seem to discourage workers and empl...

April 16, 2019China’s advances in research and development range from its ambitious space program to controversial experiments with gene editing. Yet scientific cooperating with China can also offer benefits and opportunities for Europe and its scientists. But how to spot the risks and where to draw red lines? Merics director Frank Pieke, co-author of a recent study on Europe-China cooperation in...

April 8, 2019China spends a lot to develop digital technologies. For Beijing, digitization is as a unique opportunity to upgrade its industries, increase social control, and become a global leader in digital technologies, says MERICS researcher Kristin-Shi-Kupfer. In a new study that she co-authored with MERICS research associate Mareike Ohlberg, she argues that China’s digital ambitions are mainl...

27. März 2019Die Veröffentlichung des BDI-Grundsatzpapiers zum künftigen Umgang der deutschen Wirtschaft mit China hat seit Januar für heftige Kontroversen gesorgt. Dem DIHK gingen die Forderung nach einem härteren Kurs gegenüber China teilweise zu weit, andere hätten sich noch klarere Worte gewünscht. Bei einem gemeinsamem Lunch-Talk von MERICS und Global Bridges am 28. Februar 2019 diskutierte d...

22. März 2019China baut derzeit systematisch einen digitalen Überwachungsstaat auf und verpasst der Einparteien-Diktatur damit ein digitales Update, sagt der langjährige China-Korrespondent und Buchautor Kai Strittmatter. Die KPC China nutze dabei das tiefverwurzelte Misstrauen in der Gesellschaft für ihre Herrschaftszwecke. Warum Strittmatter trotzdem gern in China gearbeitet hat und das chinesis...

March 19, 2019Chinese President Xi Jinping heads to Europe this week, with his state visit to Italy (March 21 to 24) attracting a lot of attention. That’s because the Italian coalition government is expected to endorse the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s ambitious global trade and infrastructure program. Rome’s move comes at a time when elsewhere in the EU concerns about BRI are growing an...

Chinese direct investment in Europe has continued to decline in 2018, according to a new report by MERICS and Rhodium Group. The slowdown in FDI comes amid heated debates in Europe about Chinese influence and growing awareness that some investments from China - for instance in high tech sectors or infrastructure - might need closer scrutiny. Agatha Kratz, Associate Director at Rhodium Group in Par...

February 22, 2019Film fans still wonder why Zhang Yimou’s “One Second” was withdrawn from the Berlin Film Festival. The official explanation that “technical reasons” were to blame only fueled speculation that Chinese censors objected to the film’s debut. Leading Chinese film scholar Ying Zhu, who teaches in New York and Hong Kong, discusses Zhang Yimou’s case in the new MERICS Experts podcast. For...

January 28, 2019China wants to become the global leader in Artificial Intelligence (AI) by 2030 and therefore pumps huge amounts of funding into AI research and development. But how realistic are China’s ambitions? How advanced is China in AI? Its facial recognition technology already ranks among the world’s best, says Jeffrey Ding of the University of Oxford, but in many other areas China still l...

January 11, 2019China’s policies in the north-western region of Xinjiang have come under international criticism in recent months, especially the detention of tens if not hundreds of thousands Muslim Uighurs. The Chinese government says the re-education camps and other surveillance measures in Xinjiang are part of a campaign to fight terrorism and religious extremism. But the independent researche...

13. Dezember 2018Chinas Transformation vom verarmten Bauernstaat zur zweitgrößten Volkswirtschaft der Welt hat viele Grundannahmen auf den Kopf gestellt: Ein rigides Einparteiensystem und eine dynamische Wirtschaftsentwicklung stehen nicht zwangsläufig im Widerspruch; wirtschaftlicher Aufstieg und mehr Wohlstand führen nicht automatisch zu einer politischen Öffnung. Die KP China ist anpassungsfähi...

November 28, 2018US President Trump and the Chinese leader Xi Jinping are expected to meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina over the weekend. But there is little hope that the two leaders will announce an end to the Sino-American trade war, says Hong Kong-based economist Alicia García Herrero. She says at most China and the US could agree on a truce to gain more time to disentangle...

November 22, 2018In the past 15 years, China has made considerable progress in setting up a comprehensive health care system. Today, over 92 percent of Chinese have basic health insurance. But huge challenges remain notably in rural areas. While people in urban centers often have access to modern facilities and well-trained doctors, rural residents still struggle to get basic care such as vaccines...

13. November 2018„Fehlende Marktöffnung, nationalistische Industriepolitik, mangelnde Kooperationsbereitschaft, marktverzerrende Subventionen“ – wenn es um Chinas Wirtschaftspolitik geht, spart der grüne Europaabgeordnete Reinhard Bütikofer nicht mit Kritik. Im Handelsstreit zwischen China und den USA dürfe sich Europa gleichwohl nicht „liebesdienerisch“ den USA an den Hals werfen, warnt er. Die E...

6. November 2018Ob digitale Bezahlsystem oder Künstliche Intelligenz – China drückt bei der Digitalisierung mächtig aufs Tempo. Aufstrebende IT-Firmen aus China drängen längst auf den Weltmarkt und setzen europäische High-Tech-Unternehmen zunehmend unter Druck. Warum ist „Silicon China“ so erfolgreich? Droht Europa bei der digitalen Revolution den Anschluss zu verpassen? Darüber diskutierte Claudi...

18. Oktober 2018Offiziell ist die Zahl der Armen in China in den letzten fünf Jahren um 68 Millionen gesunken. Bei der Bekämpfung der absoluten Armut hat die Volksrepublik also gewaltige Fortschritte gemacht. Sie setzt dabei auf Infrastrukturmaßnahmen, auf das Engagement von Betrieben und auf den Einsatz von IT. Aber, sagt Matthias Stepan, Leiter des Programms Innenpolitik beim MERICS, die soziale...

October 2, 2018When Xi Jinping first launched the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the idea of improving trade and transport links between China, Asia and Europe was received favourably in many European countries. Especially central and south-eastern European governments were keen on Chinese infrastructure investments. Five years on, the mood has somewhat changed. There are concerns over “debt dipl...

26. September 2018Die neue Seidenstraße, auch als Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) bekannt, wird von manchen als das größte Infrastrukturprogramm seit dem Marshallplan bezeichnet. Vor fünf Jahren wurde sie im September 2013 von Staats- und Parteichef Xi Jinping in Kasachstan angekündigt. Was steckt hinter dem Vorhaben und wie hat es sich entwickelt? Was für Projekte wurden umgesetzt? Und wer profiti...

September 10, 2018For years, many China observers believed that the Chinese Communist Party would eventually crumble under the contradictions between a Leninist political system and a dynamic society. “But we were all proved wrong”, says Frank N. Pieke, the new head of MERICS. The Chinese Communist Party is more modern, more powerful and confident than ever, he says. Yet, Xi Jinping, who likes to...

June 22, 2018For Hollywood China is a huge market it cannot afford to ignore. But closer co-operation with the Chinese movie industry has not always gone well: Expensive co-productions like “The Great Wall” flopped at box offices worldwide in 2016. More recently, a series of high profile deals hit snags. Yet Hollywood is still keen on China and willing to go a long way to please Chinese censors by...

June 15, 2018Internet censorship in China has evolved from just blocking websites into an elaborate system of information control, says Fu King-wa, Associate Professor at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre of the University of Hong Kong. Fu has developed projects that track what has been deleted on the Chinese web. His assessment of the current situation is bleak: The space for public express...

June 5, 2018Chinese schools are notorious for their rote learning and endless tests and exams. But the Chinese government wants to change that – at least, the authorities want to introduce more creativity into the classrooms. That’s no easy undertaking, says MERICS Visiting Academic Fellow Didi Kirsten Tatlow, who for many years reported from China for the New York Times. China’s notion of creativ...

29. Mai 2018Als Johnny Erling 1975 erstmals nach China ging, regierte Mao Zedong noch das Land. Über vier Jahrzehnte später ist Erling immer noch in China und berichtet für „Die Welt“ und den österreichischen „Standard“. In der MERICS China Lounge am 3. Mai berichtete Erling im Gespräch mit Claudia Wessling, Leiterin der Kommunikation am MERICS, wie er Anfang der 80er Jahre am Pekinger Marx-Engels...

22. Mai 2018Beim Besuch von Kanzlerin Merkel in China (23.-25. Mai) steht neben den politischen Gesprächen auch ein Besuch in der Metropole Shenzhen auf dem Programm, die sich derzeit zu einem Zentrum innovativer Technologien in Bereichen wie E-Mobilität und Künstlicher Intelligenz entwickelt. Dort könnten sich neue Felder für die deutsch-chinesische Zusammenarbeit auftun, sagt Mikko Huotari, Leit...

May 11, 2018When China’s law on non-governmental organizations went into effect in early 2017, observers worried that many international NGOs would pull out as a result. Almost 18 months on, the picture is mixed as Jessica Batke of ChinaFile has found out. As part of ChinaFile’s NGO Project, she tracks the experiences with the new law and says some 350 groups have managed to register with the auth...