German Chancellor Olaf Scholz attempted this week to spin his China policy as something other than the strategic prostration policy that it is. Which is to say, a replicant of the policy French President Emmanuel Macron adopts towards Beijing. As I noted on Wednesday, however, Scholz remains ensconced in the European Union's China appeasement bloc.
We've just received two further pieces of evidence to support that assessment.
SENATE LEADERS PLAY DEBT CEILING BLAME GAME WHILE AIDES NEGOTIATE BEHIND THE SCENES
First off, the announcement that Berlin has given final approval to the Chinese corporation, Cosco, to buy a significant minority stake in Germany's Hamburg port facility. Cosco's purchase was opposed by German security services over fears that Beijing would use its control over Cosco to introduce spyware into the port or leverage its ownership to extract political concessions from the German government. That Scholz has overruled these concerns shows how disingenuous he was when, this week, he offered support for the EU "de-risking" its China trade relationships. Also notable, Cosco has also maintained extensive shipping contracts with Russia even as other firms have suspended that activity over the war in Ukraine.
Next up, we have Politico's reporting on talks in Berlin between Scholz and Chinese Premier Li Qiang scheduled for June. The "German-Chinese high-level talks would come about a week ahead of a key EU leaders' summit on June 29-30." And that EU summit will have a significant focus on the political union's policy towards China. Politico adds that German "Finance Minister Christian Lindner is planning to travel to China in early May to discuss cooperation on financial matters, ahead of a G7 finance ministers' meeting in Japan on May 11-13."
See what's going on here?
Germany is trying to get ahead of its EU and G7 allies by securing lucrative arrangements with China in advance of any EU/G7 tightening on China policy. Scholz's obvious duplicity and greed-driven disdain for his allies bear similarity to former Chancellor Angela Merkel. After all, Merkel memorably sought to rush through a now-suspended EU-China trade agreement before the Biden Administration entered office.
Where does this leave us?
Well, from the perspective of those who care about strengthening democratic partnerships against China's aggressive excesses, the only ray of light in Germany is foreign minister Annalena Baerbock.