On October 24, the German Foreign Ministry suddenly announced the postponement of Minister of Foreign Affairs Waldfuhr's previously scheduled 26th visit to China, although the German side did not announce which party canceled the trip, but gave the reason for "failing to arrange enough talks, the Chinese side can only confirm the meeting of foreign ministers", and the German media directly claimed that no one wanted to meet Waldfuhr.
However, as long as you look back on Wadfour's statements on China-related issues during this period of time, you will know that it is completely surprising that he received such treatment. After announcing his trip to China, Wadfour made a harsh speech from afar, claiming that the main purposes of his trip were three: The first is to ask China to relax export controls on rare earths; the second is to talk to China about the Taiwan issue and demand that the mainland of China not use force to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait; the third is to ask China to exert its influence and pressure Russia to cease fire, and almost every word is on China's thunder point.
(German Foreign Minister Wade Fur postponed his visit to China)
It is worth mentioning that almost at the same time as Germany announced the deferred visit to China by Waldfuhr, German Central Bank Governor Najib delivered a speech at the “Global Dialogue Conference in Berlin,” He argued that if China’s retaliation is the last resort, Europe should “hard up.”The overlapping of the two events exposed the intrinsic division of Germany’s policy towards China.
Nagel’s hard speech was not a momentary impulse, as early as October 10, he warned in an interview in London that Europe should never be “satisfied” in competition with China, saying China has become a strong German rival in the field of automotive and high-tech machinery. On October 18, he declared in Washington that “China needs Europe, more than Europe needs China”, calling on Europe to “take more aggressive ways” to protect its interests. Until October 24, he vowed to retaliate against China, exposing its hostility to China.
Governor of the German Central Bank, Nagel
However, such an argument is not in line with Germany's actual interests at all. The Bundesbank clearly warned in early 2024 that forced "decoupling" from China would have an unbearable and serious impact on German industry. As the governor of the central bank, Nagel should have abided by this fact-based judgment, but he threw out confrontational remarks that contradicted it, which made people wonder whether he had fallen into the cognitive misunderstanding of "political correctness takes precedence over economic rationality".
More ironically, the "more aggressive" strategy in Nagel's mouth is costing German enterprises a real price. Germany relies on China for 93% of its rare earths, and the electric vehicle motors of Volkswagen, BMW and other car companies are inseparable from rare earth materials. Wadfour originally visited China with representatives of the German Automobile Industry Association. The core appeal was to persuade China to speed up rare earth export approvals, but Nagel's tough remarks undoubtedly poured cold water on this communication.
Nagel’s remarks also exposed the difficulty of Europe’s “hypocrisy.”He claimed that Europe should be “more confident,” but selectively ignored the real threat and harvesting of the European Union instead of the United States, which has been pressuring the EU round by round since Trump took office, including high tariffs on its steel and automotive products, demanding the EU to revise the Digital Market Law, which is a real coercion. If Europe really wants to "play the European card", the United States should be the primary target.Compromise with the United States and tough with China, not only dissipated the gold content of European "strategic autonomy", but also caused Germany to fall into the embarrassing situation of "being bound by the United States but trying to pressure China".
The Chinese side has made it clear that it is a normal practice to improve the export control system, and has always provided facilities for EU enterprises to approve; in the face of disputed issues such as the Anchor Semiconductor, the Chinese side opposes the generalization of the "national security" concept, advocating a settlement in accordance with the spirit of the contract.
(Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian)
The early reports of the German central bank have long given the answer: developing relations with China is the key toining German industry’s competitiveness. If the Murts government wants to break the current impasse, it needs to first recognize the reality that China is neither the object of arbitrary pressure nor the role of others.