Good morning dear readers,
First Iran, now China: For the second time in a few weeks, people in an autocratic regime are rising up against policies that are ideologically motivated and perceived as inhuman. At first glance, the rebellion of the people in both states has little to do with one another and, secondly, a great deal.
In Iran, the death of a young woman in police custody was the trigger that turned pent-up resentment into open protest. In China, it was apparently the death of ten people in an apartment fire in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang, who may not have received help quickly enough due to the strict corona measures.
Hundreds took to the streets in Shanghai, Beijing and Wuhan against the ever new curfews, and hundreds of thousands expressed their frustration on social networks. Videos shouted “Down with the Communist Party! Down with Xi Jinping!” These were the largest protests in China in decades.
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What they have in common with the protests in Iran: Both cases are about the ideological stubbornness of a regime that cannot move away from the wrong path because it would then be admitting its own fallibility. It is this inability to self-correct that has brought down every dictatorship to date.
The corona numbers in China are now reaching a new record: On Monday morning, the National Health Commission registered more than 40,000 new infections in one day. China’s zero-Covid policy has evidently failed. The President of the EU Chamber of Commerce in Beijing, Jörg Wuttke, sees the country in a “catastrophic situation”. While the world is opening up and returning to “business as usual”, China is again in an uncertain situation.
Fear of a new financial crisis is growing worldwide. Following the Bundesbank, the ECB and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Singapore’s central bank is now also warning of increasing risks and “potentially dysfunctional” financing markets. Unlike in 2008, it is not the major international banks that are causing the BIS the greatest concern, but rather the unregulated financial sector. The BIS includes hedge funds and asset managers among others. This area has grown significantly in recent years.
The “Composite Indicator of Systemic Stress” (CISS), a crisis barometer developed by the ECB and made up of 15 different indicators, shows that the warnings have substance. Most recently, the CISS rose well above the level at the peak of the corona pandemic. Since the beginning of the millennium, it has only been higher during the financial and euro debt crisis.
The Bundesbank Vice President responsible for financial stability, Claudia Buch, is particularly concerned about the interaction of different risks in the financial system. These include Russia’s war against Ukraine, geopolitical risks for supply chains and the consequences of climate change. These fundamental factors have increased the risk of a recession or an abrupt rise in interest rates on the markets. Book: “Each individual risk may seem manageable, but it can become dangerous when several occur at the same time.”
Since yesterday evening, Germany has been devoting itself again to its actual national sport number one: the preliminary round arithmetic. It feels like every two years, when the national team has stumbled into the World Cup or European Championship, the calculations begin at the regular and canteen tables in the republic. The same this time: After the 1-1 draw against Spain on Sunday evening, Germany is bottom of the group with one point. On Thursday at 8 p.m. Germany meets Costa Rica and at the same time Spain meets Japan. We’re progressing to the round of 16…
- in a win against Costa Rica, if at the same time Spain wins against Japan.
- by a margin of at least two goals in a win against Costa Rica if Spain and Japan draw.
- a win by one goal if Spain and Japan draw and Japan have then scored fewer goals overall than Germany.
- in a win against Costa Rica, if Spain lose to Japan and Germany catch up on goal difference, which is currently eight goals worse than Spain.
Did you understand everything without any problems? Then you might want to talk to your employer about the position of Chief Strategy Officer.
Do you remember Claus Ruhe Madsen, the Danish furniture store operator and mayor of Rostock, who became known for his pragmatic and hands-on corona policy? Madsen has been Economics Minister in Schleswig-Holstein since June.
Yesterday the citizens of Rostock decided on his successor, and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern’s largest city is governed by a woman for the first time: The 40-year-old left-wing politician Eva-Maria Kröger prevailed in the runoff election against her competitor – the non-party Michael Ebert, who was supported by the CDU and FDP. SPD and Greens had asked their voters to vote for Kröger.
On Sunday evening, the Handelsblatt was there as a media partner when the ranking of the 101 best hotels in Germany was presented for the third time. In a short time, the ranking has become the definitive compass for the hotel industry in Germany. The list is essentially based on the aggregated guest ratings from portals such as Tripadvisor or Booking, so it offers a high degree of objectivity.
What I’m particularly pleased about as a Hamburg resident is that for the third time in a row a hotel is at the top of the rankings that is one of my personal favorite places in my hometown: The Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten, which was even able to extend the gap to the chasing group once again.
Even if the room prices in the Four Seasons are as much out of your budget as mine, I can only recommend that you drink a pot of tea in the hotel’s living room (that’s really the name of it). Enjoy the unexcited friendliness of the staff, the priceless view of the Binnenalster and feel how you feel a bit more Hanseatic with every sip.
Hotel director Ingo Peters, who started out as a page at the Four Seasons, gave a surprisingly clear recipe at the award ceremony in Europapark Rust, with which he defended his top position: “Every day we think about how we can inspire the employees, because we need them to take care of them to inspire guests.”
In the coming year we will make the competition a bit tougher: we will then extend the ranking to the entire German-speaking area. It will be interesting to see whether the Four Seasons can hold its own against a Hotel Sacher in Vienna or a Baur au Lac in Zurich.
I wish you a day worthy of five stars without hesitation.
Best regards
Her
Christian Rickens
Editor-in-Chief Handelsblatt
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