Scholz’ delicate trip to China

Et was a journey into another world when, in September 2019, at 6.50 a.m. the Chancellor’s Air Force Airbus touched down in the north-east of Beijing. China had not yet declared a “borderless partnership” with Russia, and Vladimir Putin had not yet threatened Europe with nuclear missiles. Beijing had not yet finally subjugated Hong Kong and had not yet stoked fears of a third world war with military maneuvers off Taiwan.

Above all, Beijing’s capital airport handled 100 million passengers a year – a world record. Anyone who wanted to go to China received a visa and did not have to be in quarantine or hospital for weeks after arrival. Because there were only ten seats in Angela Merkel’s government aircraft for representatives of industry, 15 CEOs followed the Chancellor in their own planes to the billion-euro market.

Three years later, another German chancellor sets out for China, taking an industrial delegation with him. But there can no longer be any talk of enthusiasm about the trip to Germany’s largest trading partner among the group bosses. “Taking the economy is a totally stupid idea,” says a Dax company.

In Beijing, the Chancellor must speak plainly about China’s support for Putin, the Taiwan conflict and Xi Jinping’s disastrous zero-Covid policy, which has completely sealed off the country and isolated it internationally since the outbreak of the pandemic. “What should the company bosses do with it?”

In fact, the timing of Scholz’ trip couldn’t have been more unfortunate. When the Chancellor is received by Xi Jinping in Beijing, the President has just had himself elected by the 20th Congress of his Communist Party for a third term as head of state. The bosses from Germany could do without the pictures of the dictator, who is widely described as dangerous, “kissing the ring”.

According to FAZ information, Siemens boss Roland Busch will be there in Beijing. Volkswagen’s new driver is also on board, whose weal and woe depends on its largest sales market, in which it makes an estimated 40 percent of its profits. “At the invitation of the Federal Chancellor, Oliver Blume will participate as a member of the business delegation,” said the Wolfsburg-based company on request. Due to the corona pandemic, there have been no direct encounters for almost three years, according to the group. “In view of the completely changed geopolitical and global economic situation, Beijing offers the opportunity for a personal exchange of views.”

There is no doubt that China has changed during the pandemic years. Six weeks ago, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, published a report in which she dismissed allegations that the Uyghur Muslim minority in China’s western region of Xinjiang were subjected to torture and sexual violence in detention camps as “credible” and possible “crimes against humanity”. ” designated.

VW boss Blume is even being urged by IG Metall chairman and deputy VW supervisory board chairman Jörg Hofmann to close the Volkswagen plant in Xinjiang – which Blume again rejected in a letter to the “Uyghur World Congress” just published by “Spiegel”. Has.

Hope for “business as usual”

Although China is now officially described by the EU Commission as a “rival” who wants to “change the world order”, the Germans are flying back to Beijing in the hope of “business as usual”: This impression is not only shared by French President Emmanuel Macron and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen upset. Scholz’s coalition partners, the Greens and the FDP, also see the trip to China as sending the wrong signal, as the federal government’s new “China strategy” actually wants to reduce, not increase, dependence on the country in view of the threat of a war in Taiwan and Beijing’s human rights violations.