- Baerbock: “Dialogue and toughness”
- Green light for Global Gateway
- High hurdles for EU companies in Chinese standardization
- EU supply chain law delayed until 2022
- Green hydrogen from Sinopec
- More diesel from China
- China demands extradition of Taiwanese
- Campaign against dialects
- Tools: lessons from Singles’ Day
Today’s features focus mainly on foreign and economic policy. Together with colleagues, Felix Lee had the opportunity to ask Foreign Minister-designate Annalena Baerbock about her future China policy. Baerbock announced that she does not want to “gloss over or hush up” critical issues in the exchange with China. She has long advocated a combination of “dialogue and toughness”. Amelie Richter and Finn Mayer-Kuckuk also asked a number of China experts about their opinion on a future Green-led foreign policy.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also presented the long-awaited Global Gateway investment program in Brussels on Wednesday. With it, the EU aims to promote projects in emerging countries, including green technology and digitization. The program is clearly positioned as a rival project to China’s New Silk Road (also known as the Belt and Road Initiative/BRI). Amelie Richter analyzes the project in detail.
A new study by the EU Chamber of Commerce also sheds light on the difficulties European companies face when trying to participate in standardization processes in China. Amelie Richter has taken a close look at the study. In it, companies criticize exclusion, insufficient transparency, or simply a lack of translations as hurdles to participation. But they often also lack the expertise to participate in complex standardization processes. An important issue, as China is also increasingly pushing into the global standardization of key technologies.
We hope you enjoy today’s issue!
Christiane Kühl
Feature
Baerbock strives for ‘dialogue and toughness’ towards China
Shortly before taking office, German Foreign Minister-Designate Annalena Baerbock (Greens) outlines her program for dealing with the challenge China poses in the future. According to the program, she wants to find much clearer words towards the People’s Republic than her predecessors. “Dialogue is the central building block of international politics. But that doesn’t mean you have to gloss things over or hush things up,” Baerbock said in an interview with China.Table editor Felix Lee and journalists from the daily newspaper (taz). “A foreign policy that puts differences first leads just as much to a dead end as one based on blocking out conflicts.” For her, “values-driven foreign policy is always an interplay of dialogue and toughness.”
To this end, Baerbock wants to anchor German foreign policy more firmly within Europe. Towards an important trading partner like China, the EU would best pull together, Baerbock said. “We need a common European China policy.” If Germany, “as the largest member state, formulates its own China policy,” as it has done in the past, it would weaken the position of all. The EU, in turn, has considerable weight as one of the world’s largest domestic markets.
In the “system competition with an authoritarian regime like China“, Baerbock, therefore, wants to specifically join forces with European democracies. She also sees Germany as “part of a transatlantic democratic alliance“. This makes it necessary to “seek strategic solidarity with democratic partners, to defend our values and interests together, and to continuously promote these values in our foreign policy.” During the interview, Baerbock also took the liberty of taking a jab at the outgoing government’s political style: “Eloquent silence is not a form of diplomacy in the long term, even if some people have seen it that way in recent years.”
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