In late 2019, residents of the German town of Arnstadt awoke to find diggers breaking ground on a new factory at the site of a defunct solar panel plant. Stretching over 23 hectares (around 100 football fields), the $2 billion plant was Germany’s first large scale battery ‘Gigafactory’ with the capacity to pump out enough batteries for hundreds of thousands of electric cars every year.
Germany invented the internal combustion engine in 1876 and makes the finest luxury cars in the world. The car industry helped power Germany’s post-war Wirtschaftswunder with brands such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi becoming symbols of reliability and engineering expertise.
Aerial view of Contemporary Amperex Technology Thuringia GmbH (CATT), in Arnstadt, Thuringia, Germany. Credit: CATL via LinkedIn
But the Arnstadt factory was not being built by a German carmaker. Instead it was being financed and constructed by a little-known Chinese company founded only eight yea
Exclusive longform investigative journalism, Q&As, news and analysis, and data on Chinese business elites and corporations. We publish China scoops you won't find anywhere else.
A weekly curated reading list on China from David Barboza, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Shanghai correspondent for The New York Times.
A daily roundup of China finance, business and economics headlines.
We offer discounts for groups, institutions and students. Go to our Subscriptions page for details.
Why is one of Taiwan's largest media groups — Want Want China Times Media Group — spreading anti-U.S. rhetoric? Largely because its billionaire owner, Tsai Eng-meng, is known to sympathize with the Chinese Communist Party and favors unification with the mainland. Now, with Taiwan gearing up for a critical presidential election, Want Want’s efforts are picking up and helping to normalize CCP talking points.
A look at ZPMC: how it came to dominate ports around the world; its role in Chinese foreign policy; and the consequences of its links to the Chinese state.
The author and academic talks about how trade has actually changed over the last 40 years; why China's rise is linked to Asia's regionalization; and why international supply chains are efficient and resilient.