to talk more about this i am joined at the big table by thomas kleine-brockhoff, vice president of theerman marshall fund think tank here in berlin. he is one of the people who signed that letter. thomas, it is good to have you on the program. china's foreign ministry are accusing you and others who signed this letter of being disrespectful and meddling in china's judicial process. what do you say to that? thomas: i am a private citizen. i'm a policy researcher, i do not represent a country. how could i be meddling? if the chinese foreign ministry refers to a judicial process, i would like to know what the process is. so far, these two colleagues have been detained on no real charges for six weeks. no access to them, no clear information about their treatment. there is really nothing. therefore, we are calling on the chinese government to let these people free. brent: in the letter, you say that these arrests will discourage foreigners from building relationships with china and ultimately leave china worse off. why do you think that that argument is going to persuade president xi jinpi