China’s 25 most powerful officials, including only one woman, gathered in the palace of the once-imperial Zhongnanhai Park, in the heart of Beijing. Party leader Xi Jinping had summoned his Politburo and its Standing Committee to the lakeside compound, which was turned into the CP’s headquarters in 1949. China’s inner circle convened until late in […]
China’s ship to the West has sailed. I wonder how often have I heard this phrase from German politicians or business leaders in the past 45 years I was involved with the People’s Republic? Society has allowed itself to be taken over by the charms of the capitalist dream, be it in fashion, pop music, […]
China received considerable foreign assistance in building up its own economy. Beijing benefited particularly from the Senior Experts Service (SES), which was established in 1983 as a foundation of German industry for international cooperation. Until 2019, it sent retired volunteer experts and executives to 160 countries some 60,000 times. China, as the number one beneficiary, […]
China’s leadership responds to the high infection risk of the Omicron variant with radical lockdowns of public life. As was once the case in Wuhan, one in four Chinese – more than 350 million people to date – were forced to isolate themselves and have been locked in for varying lengths of time in dozens […]
Called the “Ten-Thousand Mile Long Wall” (万里长城) in Chinese, the Great Wall was meant to serve as an impregnable bulwark for all dynasties to repel invaders for more than 2,000 years. It was rebuilt many times, most recently during the Ming period. In the meantime, the People’s Republic has discovered it as a national symbol […]
“Study history!” China’s sole-ruling Party leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly urged his compatriots since he took office at the end of 2012. As early as March 2013, he urged, “Take history as a mirror” (以史为镜): “Learn from the historical experience of our party and country (来龙去脉).” That is particularly important “for creating the future, because […]
Recently, while cleaning out the basement where I stored my books that I brought back from my university years in China, I came across a “Handbook of Chinese-English Vocabulary” (汉英词汇手册). It was published in December 1970 during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Its technical title already seemed unusual. With over 1,600 pages, the annotated dictionary became a […]
In 1937, Carl Crow’s amusing guidebook on doing business in the Middle Kingdom became a bestseller thanks to its title “400 Million Customers”. Australia’s Ross Terrill also managed a sales hit in 1971, calling his book “800 Million”. Whenever Beijing entices with three-digit numbers, they trigger Pavlovian reflexes even in sober contemporaries such as sports […]
China’s youth call themselves the “post-2000 born” generation (Lingling-Hou – 00后). Once spoiled as only children, they grew up privileged in times of double-digit growth and tourist travel, they were the Internet generation, and at the same time, they were mindlessly grinded through the mills of rigorous school education. While Millennials have been studied abroad […]
Exactly 30 years have passed since Deng Xiaoping’s legendary inspection tour of China’s south (南巡). In Wuhan, Shanghai, Canton, and Shenzhen, he once again took up the cudgel for an opening-up policy, which was threatened by a relapse into a planned economy. Deng’s trip spark the introduction of stock exchanges and special economic zones, encouraged […]
