German-Chinese relations are under review by Germany’s federal government – Beijing is worried
I actually wanted to ignore the visit to Taiwan by “Free Democrat” (FDP) members of Germany’s federal parliament. The FDP would drop Taiwan like a hot potato if Xi Jinping put China’s state-owned enterprises up for international privatization. It is understandable that Taiwan welcomes foreign visits, this one included, but forget that talk about “friendship”.
That said, China’s ambassador to Germany, Wu Ken, makes sure that the German visit to Taiwan can’t be ignored – he’s making another fuss of it, in Germany’s business-friendly “Handelsblatt”, warning German politics “not to play with fire and not to test China’s red lines”. He is also worried that the German “traffic-light coalition”, consisting of Social Democrats, Greens, and the FDP (whose trademark color is yellow) would entirely follow America’s China policy.

Nils Schmid, the Social Democrat parliament group’s spokesman on foreign affairs, says that he is “somewhat surprised” by Wu’s criticism. “The SPD parliamentary group demanded an adjustment of China policy, and the coalition agreement contains unambigious statements.”
The Chinese embassy has certainly laid its hands on one or several drafts of Berlin’s strategy papers. However, Schmid suggests that it must be a version that is several months old, and says that there is no final version yet. He adds that “contrary to China, where the state-controlled media certainly wouldn’t publish a similar criticism by foreign ambassadors, the Chinese ambassador has the opportunity to do so without being censored, around here.” This showed that there was systemic competition between China and democratic states after all.
Gyde Jensen, deputy chair of the FDP’s parliament group, says that Wu Ken’s answers show how fundamentally differently China interprets guiding liberal principles (“liberale Leitprinzipien”) and “bereaves them of their core concept, such as free markets, entrepreneurial freedom, human rights and multilateralism”. That alone was enough to explain why Germany needed a comprehensive China strategy, “for the record for everyone, China not least, to show how we see these principles and concepts and which action or rules we derive from them.” This included Germany’s interpretation of the “One-China policy”, concerning Taiwan.
China’s ambassador to Germany probably chose the “Handelsblatt” as an interlocutor not least because of its business-friendly position. However, by far not all German business is as involved in business with China as he appears to believe.
If it was up to Beijing, the Communist Party of China would determine China’s policy on Western countries, and business would continue to determine the West’s China policies. That was, of course, an extremely profitable arrangement for China, and it’s not really surprising that Beijing would like to keep it in place.
But every relationship, economically and politically, has to be in its stakeholders’ mutual interest (to borrow a Chinese slogan). Germany’s China policy will still be partly business-driven: if German business had got the “access” to Chinese markets it has long dreamed of, a tougher German policy on China would be almost inconceivable.
In that light, there is no reason to sing the praise of either Germany’s, America’s or any country’s government and their sudden attention for human rights et al. But there is reason to welcome their “tougher” policies. Depending on the “last versions” and their implementation, they may be in the national interest of our countries – at last.
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