China

The UK’s divorce from the EU has diminished the hope of both the British and the Chinese in placing the UK as a spring board to the whole European market. Beijing is losing its newly acquired “best partner in the West”.

Change is under way for the world’s biggest coal consumer; consumption in 2014 was down. Renewables are up. Coal-fired power plants are working at less than full capacity. A chapter from the Coal Atlas.

Wei Chen dropped out of school and embarked to work at a construction site in Inner Mongolia. He stayed there for eight years: It was like living in a black-and-white film, he says – no colors, only desert.

India's prime minister Modi tries to develop relations with important countries: In Japan, he marketed India as a ‘low cost manufacturing hub’ and tries to inject new life to U.S.-India relations.

India's new prime minister Narendra Modi succesfully presented his ideas of national development on his first international summit. Its most important outcome: a common BRICS Development Banc that could challenge the global financial order.

The US and its allies have engaged in efforts to stop North Korean nuclear program at least three times, every time ending up with a sense of betrayal. Now, it has become clear that North Korea did not really have the intention to abandon its nuclear program.

China is the world leader in exports of rare earths, which are mainly used for the production of hi-tech products. The Heinrich Böll Foundation talked with Dr. Zha Daojiong, a professor at the School of International Studies of Peking University, about the important raw materials and the role of China.

The environment pays a heavy toll amid boom in demand for China's precious metals in the global market. A report from Inner Mongolia.

Dynamic growth due to the global fight against climate change has made China the world's number one producer of solar cells. 98 per centof all solar cells were exported. Not even 1 per cent was used in China itself. But Wang Sicheng of the Energy Research Institute is convinced that the focus of the Chinese solar energy industry will gradually shift from foreign to domestic markets.

China is believed to be better prepared for the consequences of the financial crisis than all other emerging countries. But how deeply has China’s economy really been affected by the crisis, and what measures are being taken by its government?

The financial crisis has exposed structural problems in the Chinese economy: Its export trade is suffering from the slump in global demand. Bejing has underwritten investments, social programs, and subsidies to stimulate domestic demand, with little regard to the long-term environmental consequences.

Some of the Offices of of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Asia describe their work in the following short films.

China has emerged as Cambodia’s leading investor and donor and an increasingly important trading partner. Will the close relationship with China help Cambodia weather the global financial crisis? Or can we expect the economic slowdown in China to spill over into the Cambodian economy?