Commentary Germany’s most likely future chancellor is already saying what Beijing wants to hear. In an interview with the Financial Times published June 21, the leader of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union, the party of current Chancellor Angela Merkel, used phrases that could have been concocted by propagandists in Beijing. CDU leader Armin Laschet, according to the Times, called China a “partner,” and sought to straddle a low fence between Germany allying with other democracies, and ceding at least some power to Beijing. The two approaches are not actually contradictory if an alliance of democracies fails to hold the line, which is exactly what NATO has been doing. Laschet, according to the Times, “said the west should resist slipping into a cold war mentality when it came to its geopolitical contest with China,” telling the paper, “The 21st century is very different and the prism of how the world looked before …