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  The Long March: Planned Chinatown Raises Hackles in Rural Germany

The Long March Planned Chinatown Raises Hackles in Rural Germany

By Markus Feldenkirchen in Oranienburg, Germany

Part 3: 'When Someone Has Been Bitten by a Snake, He Is Afraid of it'

City officials were gradually becoming annoyed with the Chinese businessman's informal friendliness. They were also surprised that Mr. Ren had never responded to the three-page letter.

Then there was another meeting at the Oranienburg Palace. Laesicke had invited Mr. and Mrs. Ren to his office. The project had stalled, and both sides were now disappointed in each other.

Mr. Ren was disappointed because he believed that the price of the property was too high, and because building is so complicated in Germany. The city was disappointed because Mr. Ren hadn't done his homework. He hadn't even specified a planning company. Because of these disagreements, the mayor asked Paul Lösse of p4, a planning company, to attend the meeting. He also researched techniques for negotiating with the Chinese. It's important to use metaphors, he says today.

The purpose of the meeting was to clear up the controversial issues.

Lösse had brought along a projector ot show his presentation on the wall. The words "Project Chinatown" and a Chinese character were at the top of each page. After a while, Mr. Ren said "excuse me" and interrupted the presentation. He seemed irritated. He said that he didn't understand what Mr. Lösse was doing there, and why a planning company and this presentation were necessary in the first place.

"The character up there, what's it supposed to mean?" Ren asked.

"Umm," Lösse stammered, "I specifically asked my staff to search for a suitable Chinese character. Umm, I thought it meant 'success'."

"That's nonsense," said Mr. Ren. "We don't even have that character."

Then he ended the presentation and said that perhaps he would be in touch, and that he now wanted to speak with the mayor and the director of the city planning office alone. Lösse packed up his projector and left.

The Difference of Doing Business in a Democracy

Mr. Ren told them that he needed clarity for his investors. He said that when this type of project is on the table in China, the government states clearly how it plans to support the project, and then it guarantees the project's success. Ren told the German officials that he needed concrete answers from the State of Brandenburg and the City of Oranienburg on whether they would approve and promote the project.

But things are done a little differently in Germany, the mayor responded. Besides, he said, the state has become more wary after having subsidized many projects, after German reunification, that were ultimately botched. "In Germany we liken this experience to children being burned."

"Burned children," Mr. Ren mumbled. "In China we say: When someone has been bitten by a snake, he is afraid of it." But, he added, the fact that the Germans were bit once shouldn't prevent them from pursuing the project. He fidgeted in his chair. The pace of work was too slow, he said. Things would have to be speeded up.

"In China, a project worth €1.7 billion was recently approved in only three months," said Mr. Ren. "Our project has already taken three years."

This is the core of the conflict, this difference between a dictatorship in transition and a democracy. China's bureaucrats don't ask for things like central tolerability reports. Things may be more cumbersome in a democracy. They take longer, there are many people who have their say, and a wide range of concerns is taken into account, including those of local residents, retailers, skeptics like Mr. Seifert. Sometimes even the potential impact on frogs is a factor.

Democracy requires patience. Its results are rarely gigantic, but often solid. The fact that many are allowed to voice their opinions may be nerve-wracking, but it protects against the arbitrary behavior of a few people.

At some point Mr. Ren had one of his employees inquire at the town hall whether he would be permitted to build 13-story pagodas, or a real skyscraper, perhaps even the tallest building in Europe. The city officials managed to talk him out of his plan.

Laesicke seems at a loss. He still hasn't managed to explain Germany to his guest. Nothing is working, and so he reaches for a metaphor.

"Imagine that the two of us are both playing in an orchestra. Let's say you play the flute and I play the tuba." Mr. Ren looks intrigued. He mimics playing the flute with his fingers.

"We need a director so that we can make music together," Laesicke continues. "And the director, in our case, is a German. We have to play by German rules and laws. Otherwise there will be no music."

Laesicke is pleased with his metaphor, but realizes that it hasn't helped much. Mr. Ren smiles politely, and he keeps repeating that China and Germany are excellent partners, and that the future will be magnificent.

"Well, it doesn't look like we'll get much further today," Laesicke says. His powerful voice now seems drained. After the couple has left, he and his section head stay behind to discuss the meeting.

"They have a completely misguided notion about the power of a mayor," says Laesicke. "I'm not some Chinese Communist Party official." "Of course not," the section head says. "The tough thing about the Chinese is that you can't tell what they're thinking."

"Not at all," says Laesicke. "They always seem friendly when they talk, and everything is always copacetic. But then you stand there afterwards, the way we are now, and you're left asking yourself: What exactly did we resolve?"

"Nothing," says the section head. Exactly, says the mayor, "nothing."

Winter has come to Oranienburg, the euphoria from the previous summer has subsided, and the city is still waiting for the money and the development plan.

It will not happen as quickly as both sides had hoped in the beginning. They still want the project to succeed. But it has become far more cumbersome and complicated than both sides could have imagined.

Mr. Ren plans to fly to China soon to talk to investors. He hopes that everything can be settled by June, and that his bulldozers can finally show up.

Mayor Laesicke wants to believe the project will happen, and yet believing isn't as easy as it once was. But he is no longer convinced that Oranienburg will become a winner in the globalization game. He is periodically overcome by doubts. When that happens, the mayor says that perhaps the Chinese are a little different, after all.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

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