If German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock were to write an email to French President Emmanuel Macron before her trip to China this Wednesday, it would have to end with the sentence: “Thank you for nothing”.
Because Macron reversed his own attempt to persuade Chinese ruler Xi Jinping to make concessions in the matter of Ukraine when, after returning home from the People’s Republic, he announced that Europe should not represent the interests of democratic Taiwan together with the USA. The unity of the free world is gone, the Beijing and Moscow dictatorships were strengthened by France.
Xi is determined to storm Taiwan because his failed economic policies are flying in his face
Beijing claims the island of Taiwan, which has never been ruled by the Communist Party, and calls Taipei’s democratically elected government “separatists”. The United States has had a legal obligation since 1979 to defend the island in the event of an attack from mainland China.
Germany and France also maintain lively relations with Taiwan, which are no different in substance from the relations that exist between nation states. A truce had existed between China and Taiwan for decades, which Xi Jinping has terminated.
Beijing’s dictator is all the more determined to storm the island because his misguided economic policy threatens to blow up in his face. As a result, he can no longer keep the agreement with the Chinese that economic prosperity is rewarded with obedience.
Baerbock arrives in Beijing at a critical moment for Europe
Last weekend, the Chinese army therefore already rehearsed the storming of the island and published animations of how they would destroy important targets on Taiwan with rockets. In this situation, Macron spoke of not making himself America’s “vassal” and presenting his own strategy for Taiwan. How might this strategy look in view of the Chinese naval blockade? Not specified.
The German Foreign Minister arrives in Beijing at this critical moment for Europe. Germany is anything but better positioned than its French neighbor when it comes to relations with China.
The Greens and the FDP have a clear view of Beijing’s dictatorship. But Chancellor Olaf Scholz, in the bad tradition of Schröder, is on good terms with dictator Xi Jinping.
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Xi knows that he has Macron and Scholz in the sack, Baerbock is a lame duck for him
In autumn he traveled to Beijing with a business delegation to win orders for German industry. He allowed a Chinese company to invest in a terminal in the port of Hamburg, even though all the experts had really advised him not to leave Beijing so close to critical infrastructure in Germany. The proximity of social democracy to “red dictatorships” must be examined elsewhere.
For the moment, however, the federal government has still not presented the long-awaited China strategy and Baerbock is therefore opening its own agenda, a values-led, feminist foreign policy in Beijing.
In the past, Baerbock has called on China to refrain from its warmongering and has been disciplined by Beijing for doing so. Beijing has also ignored its warnings and, with the current naval blockade of the island, has surpassed those last August, when US politician Nancy Pelosi visited democratic Taiwan.
Xi Jinping knows that he has the German Chancellor and the French President “in the bag”. In view of this fact, the foreign minister will appear to him like a lame duck. Baerbock’s interlocutors in Beijing will no doubt also try to convince her of her view of Taiwan.
In the end, however, nothing depends on whether the top German politician can be convinced or not.
