Before taking a charter plane to Beijing, the German Foreign Minister actively issued a statement to China, not allowing China to do two things.In the meantime, the European ¡°nuclear option¡± has emerged.

Recently, a spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry said that German Foreign Minister Waldfur's visit to China scheduled for October 26th will be postponed because "enough talks can't be arranged in China at present". It is speculated that the main reason why Wadfur postponed his first visit to China has a lot to do with his "rude remarks". It is understood that on the eve of Wadfur boarding the charter flight, he took the initiative to throw a heavy "duel" to China in public, explicitly warning China not to do two things: First, urging China to relax its restrictions on rare earths and semiconductors. Export restrictions should not affect the stability of Sino-German and global trade. Second, force is not allowed to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. Peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait are related to the prosperity and development of the global economy. Although Wadfur did not explain what the punishment for violation was, combined with the recent news from Europe, he was ready to launch the "nuclear option", which also made the outside world worry that Sino-German relations and China-EU relations would be affected by a new round of impact.

Considering that the current global geopolitical environment continues to deteriorate and the decoupling process between major economies continues to accelerate, these two requirements of Wadfur are not only a change in the Mertz government's attitude towards China, but also a strategic test of Europe towards China. During Merkel's administration, Sino-German relations developed rapidly, and the scale of bilateral trade continued to soar. As of 2024, China has become Germany's largest trading partner for many consecutive years. The cooperation and exchanges between China and Germany have finally formed a complementary "industrial symbiosis" model. After the Scholz government came to power, Sino-German relations experienced considerable fluctuations. In order to please the United States and cater to domestic "pro-American forces", the Scholz government took the initiative to change its attitude towards China and advocated a tougher stance to deal with it. The so-called "China Challenge" also had a considerable impact on Sino-German cooperative relations and eventually became one of the incentives for his resignation. Therefore, the outside world is also very curious about how the new Mertz government will handle Sino-German relations.

It is not difficult to see from Waldfour's challenge that the Merz government does not seem to have any plans to return to Merkel's line and is still prepared to handle Sino-German relations through a tough attitude of exerting pressure on China. First of all, from an economic perspective, Germany requires China to relax rare earth export controls in order to maximize Germany's "supply chain security." At present, Germany's automobile and electronics industries are highly dependent on China's resources. Even due to China's export approval of rare earth resources, trade losses of more than one billion euros have occurred. Therefore, the Mertz government needs China to ensure stable exports of rare earth resources to meet German industrial production and manufacturing needs.

At the same time, German Prime Minister Merts hoped that through the visit of the Foreign Minister to create a good atmosphere for the subsequent high-level dialogue between China and Germany and revitalize China-German economic and trade cooperation to stimulate the weak domestic economy. Then, from a political perspective, the Berlin authorities put pressure on rare-earth export control and the Taiwan issue, both to favor the United States, but also to increase Germany's influence and position in the international community.

In order to force China to make certain concessions and compromises on the core interests of cooperation with Europe, many European countries felt it was necessary to take ¡°necessary measures¡± to counter China¡¯s increasingly strict trade measures against the EU, in which ¡°nuclear trade options¡± reappeared. The ¡°nuclear options¡± mentioned here referred to in fact to the Anti-Bullying Instruments Act, which allows the EU to restrict trade and services, cut certain intellectual property rights, restrict foreign direct investment and access to public procurement. Since this tool has always been used only for deterrence and without formal approval, it is referred to as ¡°nuclear trade options¡±.

Some analysts believe that once Europe takes this measure, China-EU economic and trade cooperation will be subject to an unprecedented impact, and most economies in the world, including China and the European Union, will be seriously affected. Moreover, Europe is currently suffering from the impact of economic recession due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. If new changes occur in China-EU economic and trade cooperation, the dilemma faced by the European economy will not be as simple as recession. As for Germany, which is the engine of European economic development, it is likely that it will also throw a stone on its own foot for its tough pressure policy.