German Chancellor Olaf Scholz came to Beijing on business. Like Angela Merkel before him. The column of business alphas that arrived with the head of government conveys a familiar picture. There is no better balance between economic interests and moral obligations. On the one hand, there are those who maintain large factories in the PRC, including in the genocide province of Xinjiang. On the other hand, the representative of a democratic country is committed to human dignity, democracy and the rule of law. On the one hand, quarterly results and own profits, on the other hand, liberal values with eternal claims.
These interests came into conflict when the People’s Republic invaded the port of Hamburg in the last few weeks. Gain and shortsightedness won. Olaf Scholz pushed for business interests against the advice of Hamburg’s leading sinologists, against the will of his FDP-Greens coalition partners and against the will of the EU. The fact that the chancellor says that he is also going to Beijing as a European can only be interpreted as impudence given this background.
The Chancellor learned nothing from the catastrophe of Russia’s energy dependency, which the SPD Chancellor brought upon the Germans in particular. You can’t negotiate with autocrats.
In political Berlin, people like to turn up their noses when they argue that there may be reasons other than rationality that move authorities like Xi or Putin. Because for a long time it was considered a policy requirement to say another SPD chancellor, according to which anyone who has visions should see a doctor.
That’s why people laughed when the French, the British and the Americans warned the Germans not to hand over the expansion of the communication network to the Chinese company Huawei. After all, the Chinese get paid for this, what other values should they be guided by? However, Beijing is driven not by rationality and greed, but by the vision of creating a new empire.
Of course, it always makes sense to talk to each other. About what? And when? The Scholz government has yet to present its new China strategy. In the best manner of his predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder “Basta”, Olaf Scholz advances his own plans. Gerhard Schroeder got it wrong with Putin, and now the same thing is threatening Xi and China.
* Dr. Alexander Görlach is Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Council on Ethics in New York.