German chancellor hopes to “convince” Chinese leader from United Nations to act “responsibly” and help end a devastating war
What was an almost annual ritual under conservative Angela Merkel – the visit to Beijing led by a delegation of businessmen and investors – almost became a common thread for Social Democrat Olaf Scholz. The German chancellor has been showered with criticism from his coalition partners, Greens and Liberals, as well as from the two indisputable allies in his international relations – France and the United States. If Merkel was confronted with the violation of human rights under that authoritarian regime on every trip, Scholz was confronted with an atypical coalition. No longer just NGOs criticize travel with commercial interests; experts in the economic field also doubt its capabilities.
“Germany is already economically dependent on China, making it blackmailable,” the Institute for Studies of German Economics (IW) warned this Thursday, the day before his Scholz meeting with Xi Jingping. With the trip there is a “problematic signal”, added this reference institute. The German country has had to quickly reduce its energy dependence on Russia, due to the aggression against Ukraine and sky-high energy prices. Now, instead of renewing, it should contain the next mortgage, also with an authoritarian regime and also benefiting from the sanctions against Moscow.
Beijing acts as a “close ally” to Russia from its position as a member of the UN Security Council, Scholz government sources admitted these days. However, the foreign minister hopes to “convince” Xi to act “responsibly” from the United Nations and help end a devastating war.
The round trip to Beijing is long – about 24 hours. The stay there will be fleeting – eleven hours. Scholz will be the first leader of an EU country to visit China since the outbreak of the pandemic. And a joint performance by Scholz and the Chinese president in a question-and-answer format is not planned. However, Berlin defends that the journey is of great importance.
It’s not another visit. It comes at a time when the international community is alarmed at the possibility that Russian aggression against Ukraine will be followed by a Chinese escalation on Taiwan. But Berlin disputes that the Asian giant cannot be “disengaged” from globalization, although he admits it needs to be reoriented towards partners “with shared democratic values”. China, the world’s largest export power, was already a commercial affront to the United States. It is now seen as the big winner in Western attempts to isolate Russia.
Scholz’s partners, Greens and Liberals, with mostly differing opinions, have jointly expressed their criticism of the trip. In particular, the foreign minister, environmentalist Annalena Baerbock, has insisted on the need to take a “more critical” stance on Beijing. His finance colleague, the liberal Christian Lindner, has warned of the dangers of new dependencies with ‘certain countries’.
The controversy surrounding the trip started brewing weeks ago. The reason was the intention of the Chinese state company Cosco to acquire more than 35% of a terminal in the port of Hamburg. After much internal tension, Scholz’s coalition agreed to limit that stake to 24.9% to prevent it from exercising “strategic influence.” The presence of a Chinese company in a European port is nothing new – there are multiple precedents in those of Valencia, Barcelona and Bilbao, in Spain, along with Piraeus, in Greece, and other ports in France and the Netherlands.
But the world awoke to a new reality on February 24, the day Russia began its invasion of Ukraine. The term ‘business as usual’ has disappeared from political, economic and diplomatic terminology. The dangers to vital infrastructures are not abstract, but concrete. In Ukraine, they are reflected in massive attacks on energy installations that leave hundreds of cities without light or running water. On EU territory, with the sabotage that knocked out the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, keys to Russia’s energy dependency that Scholz and his partners are trying to bury against the clock.
Source: La Verdad
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