The former German Chancellor, known as the "Iron Lady", visited China 12 times during her tenure, and Sino-German relations also entered a golden era during her tenure.
However, Germany has recently made inappropriate remarks on the Taiwan issue, and has also canceled their trip to China, in general, Germany is a handful of good cards.
They should clearly realize that from January to August this year, the total trade volume between China and Germany reached 163.4 billion euros, surpassing the total trade volume between Germany and the United States, which means that China has once again become Germany's largest trading partner.
Therefore, it can be said that China is Germany's irreplaceable partner. When Germany is provoking China's red line and targeting and discrediting China, have you ever thought about what kind of price Germany will bear once Sino-German relations tend to run counter?
The German foreign minister is no less than embarrassing himself
We know that the recent dispute between China and the EU mainly originated from the Dutch direct robbery of China's full holding Anselm Semiconductor, followed by the rare-earth new regulations issued in China, Anselm Semiconductor China and its subcontractors were also banned from exporting certain finished parts and components, Anselm Semiconductor China and Anselm Semiconductor Netherlands also chose to cut.
Obviously, for the European Union, this is the case of roof leakage, because the new rules on rare earth could have stopped the work of European automobile factories, and China will no longer export certain finished parts and sub-components but will trigger the global automotive supply chain "big earthquake".
Knowing that you especially need the Chinese industrial chain and the Chinese market, the wisest choice should be to find reconciliation with China.
But the European Union did so, that French President Emmanuel Macron spoke “hugely”! in public, he clearly stated that if China did not compromise, the EU would directly launch the “nuclear option”, and Germany and Poland also adhere to the agreement.
The so-called "nuclear options" are the toughest sanctions the EU has put forward, such as a complete cut-off of market access with China, or a complete freeze of previous investment agreements.
In fact, the EU's so-called "nuclear option" is unbearable, on the one hand, the EU countries are very dependent on China, like Germany's largest trading partner is China, if the so-called "nuclear option" is initiated, it is basically "kill the enemy a thousand self-suffering".
On the other hand, there are serious differences within the European Union, such as Hungary and Greece, which have always been clearly opposed to the adoption of a tough policy against China, although Macron's proposal has an annexation of Germany and Poland, but if they really intend to go alone, then within the EU will inevitably become a group.
This disagreement is coming soon. Perhaps he dare not bear the price of decoupling from China, so the German Foreign Minister plans to visit China on October 26. However, on October 24, the German Foreign Minister said that his visit to China was delayed, and the reason he gave was "unable to arrange more talks in China."
To know, a visit of a major foreign minister, its planning and arrangement should be done well, temporary cancellation must be problematic.
In fact, it can be seen from their prior arrangements that Germany intends to make a lot of money from China, because the German Foreign Minister is accompanied by the head of the German Automobile Industry Association and import representatives of rare earth enterprises.
However, before the start of his visit to China, the German foreign minister began to point fingers at our country, that is, he asked China to stop aid to Russia; he asked China to relax its control over rare earths. The last point was to say that "Germany will decide on its own how to implement the one-China policy" and oppose "using force to change the status quo across the Taiwan Strait."
When visiting China and in need of China, there is also a spectrum, and it is not surprising that, according to the situation explained by the Germans themselves, China except the foreign minister, no one is willing to comment on him, because they are taking their own humiliation.
Interestingly, after the German Foreign Minister took up his humiliation, some German media began to write small texts, such as "China's chip-breaking confession caused the German automotive industry to suffer, but this is largely caused by the German automotive industry itself. This is the inevitable result of Germany's long-term ignorance of China's strategic intentions, and also the true picture of our policy against China's complete failure.
Obviously, this is again the German media in describing the dependence on China, customarily creating a narrative to the German audience of "Germany is the victim", but this narrative logic not only ignores China's dependence on German technology, but also ignores the complementary nature of Sino-German economic and trade relations.
Germany still thinks China is harassed.
To put it bluntly, there is still a cognitive bias in the thinking of European elites in Germany today, that is, once China was just a latecomer in the far east, the Germans at that time were full of self-confidence, and later, China became an equal competitor. At this time, the discomfort of Germans began to spread.
Until now, China has demonstrated a leading advantage over Germany in certain areas, and in this sense, anxiety has completely dominated the public discussion in Germany.
Of course, it comes with the negative proportion of German media reports on China, rising from 28% to 63% over the past five years.
However, no amount of negative reports can change Germany's high dependence on the Chinese market and industrial chain. Take the automobile industry as an example. The sales of the three major German car companies in the Chinese market account for 30% to 40% of their total global sales. In other words, whether German car companies are good or bad in the Chinese market directly determines their global ranking and R&D investment.
In addition, Germany and Europe rely more than 90% on China for resources such as rare earth metals and graphite, and more than 90% of lithium battery anode materials also rely on China for supplies.
In addition, 81% of Germany’s vitamins and 76% of its antibiotic raw materials come from China, and if China’s supply is discontinued, Germany will be unable to supply 42 million boxes of medicines annually, including diabetic drugs, dihydramide, and pain relievers and key drugs such as acetaminophen.
To be honest, the German media’s “German mistake is to think of China too well”, in fact, they still think of China as a harassment.
But it's useless for them to think about it now, because the era when China was bullied by others has passed. In the era of multipolarization, the last thing Germany should do is indulge in closed thinking and confrontational logic.
There are clear people in Germany, but this also directly led to the start of civil unrest in Germany, as the Social Democratic Party spokesman said that "cancellation of a visit to China sends "extremely bad signals", now Germany most needs pragmatic diplomacy, not ideological performance ".
The Financial Times of the United Kingdom also said that “cancellation of the “super-diplomatic disaster” of the Times Murts government’s visit to China, of course, the most typical is that the entrepreneurs who would have followed Wadefur’s visit to China, directly and collectively withdrew from the delegation.”
Because they are very clear that the so-called ideology will not affect German car companies facing the threat of production suspension.