blicly for democratic political changes or made gestures toward the formation of opposition political parties. The most notable political prisoner is Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 2009. However, conditions have grown far worse under President Xi Jinping, a

strongest critic of China’s human rights practices. It was Merkel’s government that won the release of Liu Xia, the widow of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo. Thus, it makes sense that the Chinese Communist Party has opted to plant a seed within the German business elite with the hope that in a post-Merkel