In an important op-ed this week, Green Party member and German foreign policy titan Jurgen Trittin addressed the issue of China  head-on with all of the ambivalence that colors the debate over China in Europe. Tritten calls the “new China” a dazzling synthesis of responsive governance (the Sichaun Earthquake) and startling repression (Tibet in March). This month at the Olympics, both of these faces of China will be on display for the world to see.

While his approach to China seems to accord it a level of international standing that the Middle Kingdom has not yet earned, Trittin has staked a valiant position in one regard. On the eve of the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, he has called for a more unified China Concept in Such a consensus like the one that currently exists in Germany’s mainstream parties vis-à-vis the United States.

After all, Germany and Europe cannot remain successful players on the world stage without engaging China with the same level of comprehensiveness that they currently engage the United States. For the Europe of tomorrow, the Eurasian Relationship with Europe, China and Russia at its heart will be as important as the Transatlantic Relationship has been for the past 60 years.  

The time for a comprehensive China Concept for Germany has arrived but Trittin’s overly-conciliatory remarks fail to acknowledge that direct and frank discussion with China on areas of disagreement has yielded tangible results in recent months. The Chinese government has become more cooperative in recent months on Darfur as a direct result of fear of having the image of the Beijing Olympics smeared. This has also been the case in recent days regarding access of foreign media to internet sites that are forbidden viewing for the average Chinese.

In a country that places so much value on saving face, sometimes shaming is the most effective diplomatic tool the West has.

(just as powerful in Spanish)

That guiltiest of guilty media pleasures, MSNBC, has published a Republican Veepstakes that has all of the stats on potential VP nominees from “the other side” ranging from closeted homosexual and vying frontrunner, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, to closeted homosexual and long-shot contender, Texas Governor Rick Perry.

Take a look.

Your picks?

Tyson Barker works on transatlantic issues at a think tank in Washington, DC. He received his BA from Columbia University in History and German Studies in 2004 and his MA from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, in 2007. Tyson is a former Fulbright Scholar and has received research fellowships to Taiwan and China. While Tyson knows that crooked obsession with reality TV will one day get him into trouble, he just can’t turn off an ANTM marathon.  

The past three weeks of coverage of the Sichuan earthquake disaster have brought tons of attention to this humanitarian crisis and, to the great relief of the Communist government, have deflected attention from the less-than-glowing coverage of torch run for the “Genocide Olympics.”

The human interest story du jour coming out of Southern China has been the immense number of Chinese psychiatrists that descended on the province to provide counseling to the tens of thousands of traumatized quake victims whose friends and family have died or gone missing in the quake and its aftermath. Media outlets from the BBC to ABC picked up on this curious story.

100 years ago, the emergence of a psychoanalytic literati in the coffee houses of Vienna found its match in the 19th century’s rise of a “desperate housewives” class. This was an urban bourgeoisie that became known for its ennui-driven introspection and tendency to pose for Gustav Klimt paintings. This class also ushered in the modern era.

Is Beijing today’s Vienna?

Fast forward to today and look at China. China currently has 19,000 registered psychiatrists. That is half the number of American psychiatrists but the number is rising rapidly. Treating mental distress is an essential element of compressive disaster relief but the surplus of so many well-qualified mental health professionals in China is also a sign that the Chinese coastal bourgeoisie is rapidly developing, leaving China’s rural peasantry behind. And nowhere is this more obvious than in today’s Sichuan province, where Beijing and Shanghai’s psychoanalysts are confronting a social mismatch between this modern coastal elite and a pre-modern inland plebeian class. 

Tyson Barker works on transatlantic issues at a think tank in Washington, DC. He received his BA from Columbia University in History and German Studies in 2004 and his MA from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, in 2007. Tyson is a former Fulbright Scholar and has received research fellowships to Taiwan and China. While Tyson knows that crooked obsession with reality TV will one day get him into trouble, he just can’t turn off an ANTM marathon.  

As if the Barcelona Process and the European Neighborhood Policy weren’t enough, our favorite hyperprésident, Nicholas Sarkozy, has been trumpeting his Mediterranean Union (MU) as the new foreign policy frontier for (some members of) the European Union. But as of this week, the much vaunted Union méditerranéenne, the centerpiece of the upcoming EU French presidency of the EU, has some competition for the European foreign policy spotlight.

On Monday, May 26, Foreign Ministers Radoslaw Sikorski of Poland and Carl Bildt of Sweden jointly presented a grand proposal for a so-called “Eastern Initiative” aimed at improving the EU’s relations with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and particularly Ukraine.

This has left Euro-observers (particularly this one) scratching their heads. Why would the Poles and the Swedes deliberately try to take the wind from the sails of the French presidency? Is this pay-back for having been initially left out of the equation of countries that would be included in the Mediterranean Union? What could have inspired such a direct affront to the French grand strategy of turning Europe’s attention southward?

The answer might lie in Berlin.