Since the enactment of the China Cyber Security Law in 2016, the Chinese leadership has continuously further differentiated China’s cybersecurity and data protection regime. Today, more than 180 laws, technical standards, and administrative measures regulate the usage of data and the preservation of cyber resilience. These legislative acts have far-reaching implications for German companies doing business in and with China.

China is pursuing the issue of standardization with ambition. A separate program has been announced for the end of this year: China Standards 2035, and initial conclusions can already be drawn about its direction. But what would be the consequences of another standardization system?

In the past, the China-related work of the BDI has concentrated, first and foremost, on issues affecting German companies in China. In a strategic position paper published in January, the BDI shifts its focus to the long-term challenges that arise from the competition between economic systems.

The BDI office in Beijing opened in September 2016, thereby providing German industry with a representation in the Middle Kingdom. Since January 2019, Stefan Gätzner serves as head of the representative office. We asked him about the role that the office plays and the challenges it currently faces.

China is increasingly playing the role of defender of free world trade, albeit without having distinguished itself as a driving force for a liberal global trade regime. The confrontation between the US government and China poses various risks for German industry.

Chinese company takeovers in Germany are currently being hotly debated. As such, the responses from Berlin and Brussels are politically motivated. For its part, German industry rejects protectionist measures.