By Cecil Butle
“We are living in a time of change. This means that the “world after” is no longer the same as the “world before”. The question is whether power can displace the law. ” His historical speech Chancellor Soltz in the Bundestag on February 27 is a revolution in its approach foreign policy from Germany. The Social Democrat chancellor overthrew the principles that governed his country after World War II, as it is now clear that law and economic interdependence between countries do not guarantee peace and stability.
It is also about rupture with the fourth economy engine in the world. For many years, the dogma “Wandel through Handel” (change through trade) was unquestionable. The country was convinced that developing close trade relations with non-democratic countries would lead the latter to the path of liberalism and democracy. The attack by Russia, Germany’s main supplier of natural gas, shattered this geopolitical naivety.
“Germany is now considering its dependence on Russian gas,” he said Noah Barkin, Rhodium Group’s expert on Europe-China relations. “The next step is to look at its economic dependence on China.” The exposure of the German economy to the Asian giant is greater and deeper than that of Russia. Germany’s economic trade with Russia in 2021 reached 60 billion euros, while trade with China was 245 billion euros. In the three most important sectors of made in Germany – cars, engines and chemicals – China has become the largest market for German companies.
The Covid-19 pandemic had already highlighted the problem of dependence on Chinese suppliers. “German manufacturers have provided Chinese companies with the necessary know-how to be able to replace them in the future,” he said. Rolf Langhammer from the Kiel Institute for International Economics. “In this way, they helped China gain a stronger bargaining chip.”
THE Association of German Industrialists had warned from 2019 that “China is no longer moving structurally towards a market economy and liberalism, but is implementing its own political, economic and social model.” And he had identified for the first time the risk of “systemic competition” for Europe from the hybrid mix of the Chinese economy between the market economy and the centralized economy.
German companies thus began to reorganize their production. But getting rid of China is difficult. “We need to understand that in 2030 China will represent 50% of the global chemistry market,” he said. Martin Brindermiller, President of BASF. The group is building a 9 billion-euro chemical plant in Guangdong Province, the largest in its history. At the same time, however, Brindermiller acknowledges that China’s “zero covid” strategy has had significant implications for Western companies. “Today’s China is different from the one I met two years ago,” he said. “But I do not believe in a strong disconnect between us. “The more networked the world economy is, the greater our security.”
But also the Herbert Dies, President of Volkswagen which sells four of its ten cars in China, believes the group should remain in China, although it acknowledges that it needs to increase its market share in the US.
“After the invasion of Ukraine, many Western industries stopped operating in Russia overnight,” said a source close to German industrial circles in Beijing. “The parallel that is being drawn now is with Taiwan. The Chinese government has stated that a military solution cannot be ruled out. “The maximum date is 2049. The strategic risk thus increases for all companies operating in China.”
Le Monde, –
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