How do you sketch something that will carry college seminars and fill aisles of library shelves when you only have five minutes to speak? Perhaps by focusing on the central message. “I’m not saying much,” says Claudia Wessling from the Mercator Institute for China Studies. But: The municipalities in this country should prepare for the fact that China could contact them. It is therefore important for the cities and municipalities to know who they are actually dealing with. “China is a global player, we can’t get past it.”
How to proceed if you can’t get by – that’s a question people are asking in many places with a view to China, including Bavaria. The state parliament therefore invited nine experts to Munich this Tuesday afternoon, to the committee for federal and European affairs and regional relations. The topic: “China’s subnational diplomacy and the activities of the People’s Republic in the Free State and its municipalities”. Or, to put it very simply: Who can still see through this complicated network of relationships that links the Free State and the Middle Kingdom?
The state government does not – find the state parliament Greens, at whose instigation the hearing takes place. The day before, their European policy spokesman Florian Siekmann had announced that “more China expertise” and “more support for the municipalities in dealing with China” were needed. “So far, the Söder government has acted too naively.” It is not only in Bavaria that the question is currently being asked as to where relations with the powerful partner in the Far East should be headed. China is becoming increasingly authoritarian, and there is great concern that the conflict over Taiwan could escalate. In view of the recent experiences with Russia, one would like to avoid further dependencies, whether in Brussels, Berlin or Munich.
The fact that the dependencies have existed for a long time makes it as problematic as it is complicated. The invited experts also point this out on Tuesday – at least as far as you can understand them, the live stream from the state parliament arrives on the end devices in places without sound. Quite symptomatic of a topic for which politicians are looking for a common language and attitude. The federal government, for example, has been working on a China strategy for months, which so far can only be foreseen that it will go too far for some and not far enough for others.
What is certain is that little will happen in Bavaria without China. The country is important as a supplier and manufacturer as well as a sales market. One can also assume that they also know this in China. Nevertheless, its influence outside of the foreign trade balance is difficult to measure in numbers. For example, the Ministry of Economic Affairs does not keep statistics on how many companies in Bavaria are mostly owned by Chinese investors. However, the state government is aware of “eleven Bavarian municipalities and eight rural districts” that maintain partnerships with municipalities in China – according to a response to a Greens request from October last year. The cities of Ingolstadt (collaboration with Foshan), Passau (Liuzhou) and Dinkelsbühl (Jingjiang) as well as the districts of Rosenheim and Traunstein (both Hangzhou) are mentioned. There are also various university partnerships and associations to promote Chinese-Bavarian relations.
“Economically it would be a disaster”
Even the experts can only provide limited data material specific to Bavaria. The research focuses on continents and regions; on Chinese investments in Africa and Europe, for example, on sometimes more, sometimes less covert attempts to exert influence in individual states, on the outflow of knowledge and high tech. The hearing offers a few insights into what a typical Bavarian-Chinese exchange looks like at the municipal level. This is how Regensburg’s business advisor Stephan Barfuss describes how mutual delegation visits work. “My impression is that something like this always happens at eye level,” he says. “Controversial issues” are excluded, but the other side is often better informed “than we are about them”. And what if the exchange were reduced or even discontinued? “Economically, it would be a disaster,” says Barfuss. Thousands of jobs are at stake in Regensburg alone. Energy can be bought elsewhere in the short term, but not in sales markets.
From a Bavarian point of view, this makes the situation more rather than less complicated, as becomes clear in the hearing. Prosperity and knowledge transfer, security and human rights, research and espionage – when it comes to China, many aspects come together. Some go together, others contradict. And foreign policy – even if the prime ministers sometimes interpret it differently – is not a task for the federal states. The most pragmatic suggestion is perhaps that of the kind made by Wessling: In order to find out more about Chinese activities, more networking and exchange is generally needed. And Barfuss says: “God help us if the Chinese invade Taiwan.” That is the “worst case” for the people there. But he also sees Germany and Bavaria neither militarily nor financially prepared. “Hopefully we don’t meet here in a year and say we could have thought about that.”