After years of being the second fiddle of China and going blind against Beijing’s malpractices just for the sake of economic greed, Germany has been very generously flushed down the toilet by China. Recently when Germany’s Ambassador to the United Nations Security Council delivered his last address at the meeting after Germany’s two-year tenure got over, China’s deputy envoy responded by calling Germany’s exit as “Good riddance”. The German ambassador in his address had called out China to release the two kidnapped Canadian citizens in the good spirit of Christmas.
This major split between China and its erstwhile European doormat Germany has been a great example of how China treats its so-called allies. It uses them and then dumps them when they can offer it nothing. Germany, which is an export-driven economy, depends deeply on the cash-rich markets of China. This dependence is stretched to the extent that Germany chose to ignore the brutally oppressive regime of Xi Jinping’s CCP which is involved in cases of heinous crimes domestically as well as globally. The issue of human rights violations in the occupied territory of East Turkestan and the suppression of people in the name of draconian security laws in Hong Kong were all ignored by the Berlin high command.
The economic needs of Germany led it to have a blind eye to the issues that are now discussed internationally, always supported by solid evidence against the CCP government. Germany of all the countries should have been vocal against China from the beginning after the reports of CCP operated concentration camps against Uighur people were unearthed. Berlin’s reluctance to be involved in any discussions on world forums against China’s human rights abuse was primarily due to the fear of losing the Chinese market for the German automobile industry which is the torchbearer of the German economy.
A painful example of German incompetence is the operation of a mass internment camp, holding more than a million ethnic minority people in East Turkestan’s capital Urumqi, in the same city where German auto giant Volkswagen operates a factory. Germany under Angela Merkel’s administration has been harshly criticized for its half-hearted approach towards China in recent years both domestically as well as globally. China’s evil security law for Hong Kong which was criticized sternly by the majority of western countries led by the US and the UK wasn’t even given a glance by the Merkel administration earlier.
This irresponsible and lack of spine type behaviour of Merkel regarding the Hong Kong issue has been grilled by her party, Christian Democrat (CDU) colleagues as well. Her rival and a contender for CDU’s leadership, was exactly opposite to what Merkel stood for and called Beijing’s illegal Law a “violation of international law”, further asking German and European leaderships to condemn it.
Next year Germany will get a new Chancellor and with the recent backlash faced by Merkel due to her sheepish China policy, it is anticipated that a stern and brave candidate might occupy the high chair who will be expected to go strict on China. For Germany, to look up from the petty economic greed and the domestic and international pressure for choosing the moral side in the ongoing global battle against China, though is difficult but there is a visible ray of sunlight.
In the recent tour of China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Europe’s five nations, he was bombarded with questions of China’s widespread human rights abuse, ethnic cleansing, and attacking the innocent freedom revolutionaries in Hongkong with illegal laws. This happened in Germany, France, as well as in Norway.
The German Foreign Minister, Heiko Mass grilled Wang by calling China’s threatening behaviour towards the Speaker of the Czech parliament inappropriate. He also asked China to ensure that the legislative elections in Hong Kong go “quickly and unhindered” and urged for the withdrawal of totalitarian security law that interferes with the International Laws.
Germany, following in the footsteps of France has also released an Indo-Pacific strategy that will boost its security ties with India and the rest of the Quad countries. The advent of Coronavirus on the global scale and China’s efforts to not contain it has also made the public opinion of Beijing move from bad to worse.
The citizens of Germany are no different, they, like all other people who are free of Chinese propaganda, believe that the spread of the virus was facilitated by the Chinese Communist Party. Since Germany is a democracy, unlike China where public opinions matter, Merkel had to bow down to German citizens and initiate speaking against the Chinese tyranny.
China has been observing this change in German stance, it is realizing that its road to the European Union which started from the easy passage of Germany would no longer be smooth. It is beginning to come to the senses that democracies work because of their citizens and not a bunch of oligarchs in identical suits determining the policies of a country.
The unfavourable public opinion of China in Germany forced Beijing to search for a new partner in Europe and publicly dump Germany. China sees its future Europe trip to start from Paris and hence the Chinese state propaganda machine wrote pieces praising France under Macron. But this buttering is sure expected to fail as France is already in the ‘Freedom from China grouping’ consisting of the US, India, and others.