Germany has massive research cooperations with #China – often without realizing their background. Research ministry emphasized need for China expertise in 2015-2020 strategy, but even platform initiated by @BMBF_Bund contains wrong information, I report @faznet (in German) 1/
The current China strategy from @BMBF_Bund is offline since a few days - "Publication of a new strategy is not planned", the ministry told me. @maxplanckpress is currently reconsidering its approach. "China is a miracle", 15y ago Beijing repr. of @helmholtz_de said - and now? 2/
For 2019, @helmholtz_de had announced a new China strategy, but there isn't any: The topic is "now of high importance for research policy", hence there would be more consultations with ministries. Confusion everywhere - and problems #influence #dependencies #espionage #dualuse 3/
"Within the field of sinology & a large part of the German science community, most people don't have a clue how the Chinese Communist Party really functions", @AMFChina @UniofNottingham told me. Head of @merics_eu: General lack of awareness @HRK_aktuell event was astonishing. 4/
When current BMBF strategy ends later this year, a new version must take the more and more authoritarian approach of the Chinese regime into account, @KaiGehring @Die_Gruenen says. Human rights, academic freedom and ethical standards are "central and not negotiable". 5/5
