- Review on 16 years of Merkel China policy
- Universal amusement park in Beijing: inconsistent with cultural policy?
- Power throttling at iPhone makers
- Is Evergrande canceling the IPO of its EV division?
- Xiaomi defends security of its phones
- NATO chief calls for more transparency on armaments
- Biden wants to include South America in BRI alternative
- U-turn: Beijing regulates abortions
- Opinion on the German election: Joachim Koschnicke, former CDU election strategist
The German federal election is over, the final results are in – but everything else remains open. Who will become the new chancellor? With which coalition? Christiane Kühl takes the interim phase as an opportunity to look back at 16 years of Angela Merkel’s China policy. Her analysis covers a certain like-minded thinking, the early interest in an upcoming superpower, but also the wishes of the German economy.
Angela Merkel was also a topic of discussion in Beijing on Monday. She has always attributed great value to the advancement of Chinese-German relations, the Chinese foreign ministry’s press conference said. “China appreciates this greatly,” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying, adding hope and expectation that the new German government would continue this balanced China policy.
Meanwhile, Universal Studios, located on the outskirts of Beijing, has opened its world’s largest amusement park. From Harry Potter to the Minions to the Transformers, here, America’s soft power can be marveled at in its purest form. Within a minute, all tickets were sold out. Obviously, Beijing doesn’t mind Western influence as long as China makes good money from it, since the park is only one side of the medal. In his analysis, Frank Sieren shows how America’s film studios now have to dance to Beijing’s tune should they wish access to the huge market at all.
I hope our latest issue provides you with many new insights!
Michael Radunski
Feature
Merkel: Witness to the rise of a major power
In the summer of 2005, political China began to take an interest in the German chancellor candidate. At the time, Angela Merkel was an unknown quantity in Beijing. She had been to China once in 1997 as minister of the environment under then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl but had left no lasting impression. So the question in Beijing was: What would the CDU do differently from SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder? The latter was considered pro-business and pro-China; among other things, he had advocated lifting the EU arms embargo imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. Merkel, on the other hand, saw no indications for corresponding conditions in the Bundestag in April 2005.
The arms embargo remains in place even today. In all other respects, Angela Merkel did not meet Beijing’s fears of a huge shift. It is true that behind the scenes she promoted human rights and civil society in China somewhat more than Schroeder, who had largely passed these issues to his foreign minister Joschka Fischer. But Merkel, too, always had the interests of the German economy in mind. Like Schroeder, she traveled to China every year with many company representatives among her delegation. And she, too, paid respect to China for its rapid growth.
Angela Merkel – known in China as 默克尔 Mo Ke Er – also held a great curiosity in the country and its radically different way of handling things. That’s why she always traveled further afield to China’s provinces, such as Jiangsu, Hubei, Anhui, and Guangdong, during her state visits to Beijing. Merkel also showed some understanding of the administrative difficulties of governing such a large and diverse country. During background talks, she sometimes discussed with journalists how much democracy was possible in China. And shared astute observations that could not be quoted.
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