Even in the run-up to Olaf Scholz' trip to China, there was criticism of Germany's course being too uncritical. Nevertheless, the Federal Chancellor is traveling with a twelve-strong business delegation. A departure from dangerous dependencies is not recognizable.
Chancellor Angela Merkel had only been in office for six months when she paid a three-day visit to the People's Republic of China in 2006. However, there was no time to visit the Great Wall of China. The stops on her trip were Beijing and Shanghai, whose skyline shines in colorful lights at night. A beacon of Chinese innovation rising from the dark mass of waters of the Huangpu River.
A meeting with the then President Hu Jintao in Beijing was also scheduled as part of the ceremony. Speaking to Hu, Merkel expressed the hope that close cooperation will emerge between China and Germany on important geopolitical issues such as energy security and more efficient use of energy. In her speech to the German Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, however, the Chancellor emphasized that the German side would take very tough action against the copying of high technologies, which was one of the key issues between Germany and China at the time. "Because it is of course perfectly clear that our technological know-how is also what ensures our prosperity," said Merkel.
The times have changed. For Germany, the relationship with China is no longer about technology transfer, but about too great a dangerous dependency. In 2012, Hu's successor Xi Jinping proclaimed the "Chinese dream of the great national renaissance". The extent to which Xi has since tailored power to himself was evident at the recent 20th Communist Party Congress, when he inflicted a public humiliation on Hu. Anyone who expected the changed situation to have consequences for the eleven-hour inaugural visit that Merkel's successor Olaf Scholz made in China this Friday sees himself taught better.
In a guest article in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" on Wednesday, Scholz spoke out against detaching from China as an economic and trading partner. At the same time, he advised avoiding one-sided dependencies, for example with "certain future technologies". But this dependency has existed for a long time: Germany was once the leader in the field of solar energy, now it is 95 percent dependent on China for solar cells. For cost reasons, important wind energy components such as turbines are now mainly sourced from Chinese manufacturers, because 10 of the 15 largest manufacturers of wind turbines are based in China. 65 percent of the raw materials for electric motors are imported from China.
Information technology, a critical infrastructure that requires special protection, is also one of the technologies of the future. In this context, Huawei is a red rag for many experts. US intelligence services warned Germany as early as 2019 that the technology group was working with Chinese security authorities. Incorporating network technology from Huawei when setting up a German 5G network would mean deliberately integrating a security gap for Chinese espionage. In Europe, Great Britain, Sweden, Estonia and Romania have therefore already ruled out Huawei participation in the 5G networks. Quite different from Merkel, who, despite resistance from the Foreign Office and in her own CDU ranks, spoke out against excluding Huawei from the 5G expansion.
More than 100 companies and their CEOs had applied for the chance to fly to Beijing with Scholz on the government plane. Among the twelve chosen ones who are now accompanying the Chancellor to China are German car manufacturers such as Volkswagen and BMW, chemical and pharmaceutical companies such as Wacker, BASF, Merck, Bayer AG and Biontech SE, but also Siemens, Deutsche Bank, Adidas, the Baby food manufacturer Hipp Holding and the heating technology company Geo Clima Design were represented.
Mr. Science and Mr. Democracy epitomize the Western ideals that Chinese students aspired to in the 1910s and 1920s. Already at the end of the old empire, the rulers in China had discovered the value of western science. But they could not or did not want to separate the political-cultural system from the Confucian orientation in time to bring technological progress to society based on the Western model.
Quite different now under Xi Jinping: science and tech companies must make their contribution to China's rise as a world power. From a global political point of view, a war for technological supremacy in the semiconductor industry has long since broken out. Here, the USA is trying to slow down its Chinese competitors with export restrictions. The ban on exporting US Nvidia AI chips to China is slowing down efforts by Chinese companies to build high-performance facial recognition systems and thus turn China into a total surveillance state.
Nevertheless, the representatives of the German business delegation do not want to do without business in China. Despite China's unchanged stance on the zero-Covid strategy with all its economic consequences and an increasing escalation of the Taiwan conflict, which could one day escalate into open warfare. Scholz obviously does not intend to restrict the companies in their expansion plans. In this context, the announcement of the chancellor's word of power to allow the Chinese state shipping company Cosco to enter a port terminal in Hamburg appears to point the way ahead. Here, too, it is about critical infrastructure, albeit only a small part in a large port, according to the Chancellor.
As a key ally, China is becoming increasingly unpredictable. This is particularly evident in high technology, when China, contrary to international practice, lets a rocket stage fall uncontrolled to earth on Saturday. The fact that debris could hit megacities is a risk that Beijing accepts in its fight for Chinese supremacy.
