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The relationship between Germany and China has cooled significantly recently. During Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Berlin, it was not only the conflicts over Hong Kong and the Uighurs that came to light. Host Heiko Maas also had to protect herself from threats towards the Czech Republic.
Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (left) receives his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Berlin on Tuesday.
External influences should be excluded as far as possible. That is why the Foreign Ministry moved the talks between Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi to the outskirts of Berlin. The two top diplomats met for a talk at Villa Borsig in Tegel, where German diplomats receive training. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the agenda included “dealing with Covid-19, strategies to reactivate bilateral trade, as well as the rule of law and human rights.”
The last point in particular contained great potential for conflict. Because at the same time as the diplomatic meeting, a rally took place in front of Maas’s official residence at Werderschen Markt in Berlin, which wanted to draw attention to the precarious human rights situation in the People’s Republic. The Chinese focus on Hong Kong and the security law passed by Beijing for the Special Administrative Region were criticized, as well as the situation of Uighurs in Xinjiang.
Meddling in Chinese affairs
In fact, political noises in Villa Borsig could not be avoided either. Maas found that German concerns about Hong Kong were not received with open ears. His call for the security law to be withdrawn, allowing Hong Kong authorities to transfer suspects to the mainland, went unheeded, as was the call for swift elections. Wang banned any outside interference with respect to Hong Kong and the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, where the Uyghur Muslim minority is ruthlessly suppressed: “Both fall into the category of China’s internal affairs.”
When asked about Beijing’s Covid-19 information policy, which is often considered inappropriate, the Chinese Foreign Minister said that it was not yet clear whether “patient 0” came from China. In addition, with the closure in Wuhan, his country reacted quickly and in an exemplary way to the pandemic.
Threats are not a sign of respect
Wang reacted confrontationally when the Czech Republic was discussed. This “crossed a red line” because a prominent Czech politician visited Taiwan. Immediately after Czech Senate Speaker Milos Vystrcil’s trip to Taipei, Wang declared that he would have to pay a heavy price for his shortsighted behavior. Czech Foreign Minister Tomas Petricek called the Chinese ambassador in Prague for a talk on Monday.
Completely contrary to the usual German caution in China affairs, Heiko Maas countered the attacks on the EU partner country with relatively clear words: just as one respects other countries, one expects the opposite in Germany: “threats do not go with that”.
206 billion euros in trading volume in 2019
Berlin’s caution is based primarily on economic reasons. China has regularly been Germany’s most important economic partner since 2015. Last year’s trade volume was 206 billion euros (German exports 2019: 96 billion euros). Two thousand German companies operate branches in China; the value of its direct investments in 2018 was 86 billion euros. Chinese companies invested more than 36 billion euros in shares of companies in Germany between 2016 and 2018.
Strong opposition to a supposedly too lax policy in China from the federal government came from the Bundestag even before the meeting of foreign ministers. The three MPs Michael Brand of the CDU, Margarete Bause of the Greens and Gyde Jensen of the FDP are fighting with 150 other MPs from 17 countries in the inter-parliamentary alliance on China against the growing influence of Beijing around the world. Together with the Society for Threatened Peoples, the Uyghur World Congress and Hong Kong politician and democracy activist Nathan Law, who fled to London, organized the demonstration in front of the Foreign Office.
The law calls on the federal government to “sanction officials of the Beijing and Hong Kong governments.” “Measures are needed to keep the authoritarian and expansionist Chinese system in check,” the activist told AFP news agency. The three aforementioned members of the Bundestag asked Maas in a letter to “speak clearly”. Since “Chinese aggression through flagrant violation of the norms of international law” in Hong Kong, it has been necessary to use “a language other than the constantly reserved language.
Five countries in seven days
Germany was Wang’s fifth and final stop on his first overseas trip after the global outbreak of the corona pandemic in February. The Chinese foreign minister has been on a European tour since the beginning of last week. And at each of its stations thus far, the reception has been at least dim and at times extremely critical.
It all started with the Chinese chief diplomat in Italy, which was the only G-7 country to sign a declaration of support for the Chinese initiative for a new silk road (“One Belt, One Road”). In Rome last Tuesday, he urged Europeans not to be swept up in “a new cold war.” This serves to “take all the countries of the world hostage” and only serves the interests of one nation, clearly referring to the United States, which Wang did not explicitly mention.
However, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio warned that Hong Kong’s autonomy and freedom must be preserved. As in Berlin, a group of protesters around Nathan Law protested in front of the Foreign Ministry in Rome. Regarding the conflict with Huawei, the largest Italian telecom provider TIM does not want to use any component of the Chinese provider, both sides silently fired.
There were also protests in the Netherlands, Norway and France on the occasion of the visit. French President Emmanuel Macron, for example, let the visitor know that he was very concerned about the events in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
On his journey, Wang sails after the Americans. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has already been to Europe twice this summer. President Donald Trump’s security adviser Robert O’Brien also recently visited European partners to stir an anti-Beijing mood. The Americans are reportedly said to be very open in presenting intelligence on China’s People’s Liberation Army’s rearmament projects.
You can contact the Berlin political correspondent Christoph Prantner Twitter Consequences.
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