Andreas Fulda 🇺🇦 🇹🇼 Profile picture
Jun 22, 2021 17 tweets 9 min read Read on X
Former 🇩🇪 Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has published a highly problematic op-ed in @china_table.

Based on a critique of a supposedly 🇺🇸 initiated Cold War 2.0 - more about this later - he makes the case for unconditional 🇨🇳 engagement.

A short 🧵/1 table.media/china/standpun…
Fischer's analogy to Cold War 1.0 is a red herring. The threat which the Chinese Communist Party poses to peace within and outside 🇨🇳 can not be directly compared to the former USSR. It is a different kettle of fish. What I find worrisome is how Fischer misrepresents the CCP /2
Fischer describes 🇨🇳 as "a market economy under Leninist auspices". This "hybrid character" supposedly explains China's "success story" and its ability to overtake the 🇺🇸 technologically and economically by 2030. The many costs of China's political system do not feature at all /3
Fischer seems unaware of the increasingly predatory nature of the Chinese party-state, with rampant rent seeking and systemic corruption in state & society; business; food industry; education; health care; journalism etc. Neither does me mention Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan /4
But Fischer does not concern himself with the way China is governed. He views 🇨🇳 exclusively through the prism of US-China great power rivalry. He ridicules any attempts to either change or contain CCP-led China and suggests unconditional cooperation as a simplistic solution /5
Fischer justifies unconditional China engagement with reference to climate change & pandemic mitigation. China's over-reliance on and investment in coal isn't mentioned, neither does he seem concerned about the initial cover-up of Covid-19 in Wuhan. He is completely uncritical /6
Fischer could have discussed the systemic competition between democracies & autocracies independently from US-China great power rivalry. This would have required him to critically assess the relationship between 🇩🇪 and 🇨🇳. But he does not comment on this crucial relationship /7
Fischer's silence on Sino-German relations is odd. While he mentions "economic dependencies" on China's market he fails to offer remedies. But doesn't Made in China 2025 directly challenge 🇩🇪's Industry 4.0? Doesn't Covid-19 show the weakness of global supply chains? @Der_BDI /8
And what are Fischer's views on the Chinese Communist Party's hybrid interference in 🇩🇪? What we are witnessing is what Mikael Wigell @MWigell calls a "'wedge strategy' (...) a policy of dividing a target country or coalition, thereby weakening its
counterbalancing potential" /9
We can already see that the CCP's globalised censorship regime leads to self-censorship. 🇩🇪 culture, academia, media & publishing (the CAMP sectors) are all vulnerable to hybrid interference by state and non-state actors under CCP control. Is Fischer unaware of these threats? /10
Former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer has a special responsibility to inform the public about threats to our democratic system. His op-ed in @China_table is not only ill-informed but also obfuscates the challenge at hand. This undermines our #democratic #deterrence /11
In my @china_table op-ed from 6 April 2021 I argued for a paradigm shift in German China policy (see Twitter 🧵 below). In the following I will add specific policy recommendation for Germany's economic and political relationship with CCP-led China /12
To reduce 🇩🇪 dependency on 🇨🇳's market we need partial decoupling and reshoring of key industries, e.g. pharmaceutical manufacturing. German companies in key sectors like education, health, energy, water, transport & communication should be protected from Chinese takeovers /13
And to dissuade the Chinese Communist Party's hybrid interference in Germany we should heed the advice by @MWigell and develop "counter-measures against the hybrid influencing toolbox of clandestine diplomacy, geo-economics and disinformation" /14 fiia.fi/en/publication…
As @MWigell rightly points out "liberal democratic values (...) can be turned into strengths and tools for a credible deterrence response against hybrid aggressors, all the while making our Western democracies more robust and resilient." /15
Wigell recommends a two-pronged democratic deterrence strategy which relies on "deterrence by denial: improving democratic resilience" and "deterrence by punishment: discovering democratic compellence". They both require a whole-of-society approach & the drawing of red lines /16
Let me conclude. Fischer's op-ed in @china_table is emblematic of the very superficial China discourse among members of Germany's political establishment, both past and present. His musings are also largely divorced from the real-world challenges we face with CCP-led China /End

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More from @AMFChina

Aug 7
There is no other way to put it: this article is an example of a dysfunctional and moralised discourse about threat frames in public policy. It's high time for us to move towards an evidence-based approach towards geopolitical risk management. A short🧵/1 carnegieendowment.org/research/2025/…
Efforts by politicians to 'persuade through fear appeals' are criticised. Drawing on McCarthy ('Red Scare') and George W. Bush ('Global War on Terror') the costs of 'instrumentalizing threats' are highlighted. The article then pivots to the case of China, but fails to convince /2 Image
While I appreciate that the author is most likely motivated by a desire to advance constructive 🇨🇳 engagement, I find it irritating that the overall argument is littered with logical fallacies. While they could be unintentional, they weaken the persuasiveness of the article /3
Read 11 tweets
Aug 3
"Hexenjagd auf Akademiker"? Bei solcher Rhetorik werde ich hellhörig. Sowohl der Diskurs zu 🇷🇺 als auch 🇨🇳 gilt als stark polarisiert. Ich habe mir also mal das Gespräch zwischen Mangott und Lottaz angehört. Ein🧵basierend auf Lakoffs Theorie zu framing /1 Image
Die Sprachforschung kann uns dabei helfen, die Rhetorik im Gespräch einzuordnen: Metaphern prägen laut George Lakoff unsere jeweilige Weltsicht. Bei Konservativen gelte beispielsweise das 'strict father' frame, bei Progressiven hingegen das frame des 'nurturant parent' /2 Image
In der Außenpolitik können die beiden Metaphern allerdings auch kombiniert werden. Eine pro 🇺🇦 Position kann das 'strict father' frame (Putin als Aggressor) mit 'nurturant parent' frame (Ukraines Souveränität muss gewahrt werden) verbinden. Wie machen das Mangott und Lottaz? /3
Read 10 tweets
Jul 22
Are you a 🕊️ dove or 🦅 hawk on dealing with the Chinese Communist Party? The polarisation between engagement / peaceful co-existence vs. containment / confrontation dominates western 🇨🇳 debates. But can we reframe the metaphors for a smarter middle ground? A short 🧵/1 Image
In my book 'Germany and China' I have argued that a middle ground between competing policy images exists, understood as a 'mixture of empirical information and emotive appeals' (Pal, 2014). This middle ground is marginalised as both camps use frames which seem non-compatible /2 Image
Image
First example: When 🕊️ doves push dialogue and cooperation with 🇨🇳 on climate change, 🦅 hawks scoff: Aren't they trapped by the CCP's restricted, politically managed communication channels, risking cooptation? How could we reframe this for more critical China engagement? /3
Read 10 tweets
Jun 20
Wadephuls Mantra einer “Außenpolitik aus einem Guss” soll harmonisch, einheitlich oder nahtlos wirken, als wäre diese Politik in einem einzigen, ununterbrochenen Prozess entstanden. Tatsächlich ist die 🇩🇪 Außenpolitik durch Zielkonflikte gekennzeichnet /1 spiegel.de/politik/deutsc…
Dieser Slogan erinnert mich an meine Arbeit in der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit (EZ). Das BMZ sprach in den Nullerjahren auch immer von “EZ aus einem Guss”. Dem Entwicklungsministerium war vor 20 Jahren bereits die politische Steuerung der Vorfeld-Organisation GTZ entglitten /2
Wenn ich heute “Außenpolitik aus einem Guss” höre zeigt mir das, dass sich strukturell nichts verbessert hat. Das BMZ hätte längst in das AA integriert werden müssen. Geschehen ist nichts. Und jetzt kaschiert das AA den Bedeutungsverlust ggü. dem Kanzleramt mit solchen Slogans /3
Read 4 tweets
May 26
Martin Schulz, Vorsitzender der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, lobte 2021 in einem Brief die Kommunistische Partei Chinas. Lob bekam die Partei dafür, mit angeblich 'konventionellen Mitteln' Covid-19 'weitestgehend wirksam' eingedämmt zu haben. Ein kurzer🧵/1 bild.de/politik/inland…Image
Image
Die Vertuschung der ersten Fälle in Wuhan, Zwangsinternierungen von Erkrankten während der strikten Null-Covid-Strategie, die Verhinderung einer unabhängigen Untersuchung des Covid-19-Ausbruchs: für den FES-Vorsitzenden anscheinend keine Rede wert /2 bbc.co.uk/news/world-asi…Image
Was erklärt den Fehltritt von #Schulz? Sein Brief lässt sich mit der Forschung von Robert Jervis erklären. Jervis erklärt, wie kognitive Verzerrungen und psychologische Mechanismen die Wahrnehmung von Entscheidungsträgern in der internationalen Politik beeinflussen können /3 Image
Read 11 tweets
May 25
Spannender Artikel von @DietmarPichler1 zur #Propaganda der KP Chinas, mit meinen Einschätzungen 👇

Pichler: Ohne Namen zu nennen: wie schätzen Sie die Positionen der Sinologen und anderer China Experten ein, auch wenn es um China und den russischen Angriffskrieg geht? /1 🇨🇳🇷🇺 Image
Fulda: Während viele Sinologen sich in ihrer Forschung auf kulturelle oder historische Themen konzentrieren, gibt es einige wenige China-Experten, die sich publizistisch oder in Standpunkten auch zur Rolle Chinas in der Geopolitik äussern. /2
Dabei sind mir in letzter Zeit einige Redefiguren aufgefallen, die ich für problematisch halte. Die Kommunistische Partei Chinas wird von ihnen als strategisch wichtiger Gesprächspartner aufgewertet... /3
Read 15 tweets

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