2023 Issue 20

This week leaders of the Group of Seven met in Hiroshima and managing an increasingly aggressive Chinese Communist Party was high on the agenda. 

Before leaving for Japan, German Chancellor Scholz pushed through a controversial deal on the port of Hamburg which will give Beijing even greater control over critical German infrastructure.  Despite more than a year of soul-searching over harmful economic dependencies on Moscow, Berlin seems unable to avoid a similar trap set by the Chinese Communist Party. 

In related reporting, the business environment for foreign companies continues to degrade as the rule of law is further dismantled in Hong Kong, more Chinese economic espionage cases are revealed, the PRC suffers from 20% youth unemployment, and the Party cracks down on embassies and international organizations that spread “propaganda” in the PRC.