Commentary
Berlin has revised its approach to Beijing, replacing its once accommodating and sympathetic posture with something more wary and hostile.
Washington, no doubt, will claim that Germany has followed America’s lead in making a similar change. But given Berlin’s comprehensive approach, the product of considerable compromise, the Germans seem to have taken the lead, much as Japan did on this matter at the recent G7 meetings in Hiroshima.
Translations of the 64-page strategy document from Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition government claim that Germany must change because China has. The document describes Beijing as trying to destroy the “rules-based international order” that, Germany claims, has governed international trade and finance for decades. Berlin’s strategy document adds that Beijing aims to make China independent of the rest of the world while at the same time making other economies dependent on China….