No one country has betrayed its brethren as Germany has done under the long rule of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Now as she leaves office, new revelations are coming out showing how Berlin gave crucial submarines and destroyers technology to the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army, without letting the EU member nations get a hint of the same. German media outlets public broadcaster ARD and the Welt am Sonntag newspaper published results of an investigation on Saturday, which stated that several types of warships of China were using engines of German origin.
The engines were supplied by MTU and the French branch of MAN, a subsidiary of Volkswagen. Both companies are very well known in the sphere of suppliers of marine diesel engines. The investigation relied on publicly available information from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). In 1989, the European Union imposed a weapons embargo on China in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre. While the EU arms embargo stays in place, the Chinese navy has been able to gain equipment from Germany, while keeping the EU in dark.
Germany makes use of loopholes in the EU arms embargo to profit at the expense of the EU’s security
MTU engines used on Chinese warships were classified as dual-use technology, meaning they may be utilized for both civilian and military reasons. According to Alexander Lurz, a weapons expert with Greenpeace, Germany’s technology export regime is geared toward exports. Lurz claimed that the new administration should ban the “export of everything used to make weapons and wage wars.”
According to Deutsche Welle, Sebastian Rossner (a lawyer) said, “Because the EU’s arms embargo on China was not legally decided in accordance with European treaties, the Chinese navy may be able to import specific ship engines among other things. The EU must either alter the Dual-Use Regulation or explicitly impose an overarching arms embargo if it wants to change this.” Various EU nations, including Germany, have lobbied for the lifting of the arms embargo over the years.
They emphasized the immense opportunity of commerce with China as well as the advantages for domestic arms producers, who are up against intense competition from US manufacturers. While these suggestions were still under deliberation, Germany cheekily used the policy absence with regards to dual-use technology and sold naval tech as well as submarine and destroyer engine technology with China.
Hamburg port and overdependence on China
German overdependence on China is already pretty clear. No one will understand it more than Olaf Scholz (most likely successor of Angela Merkel) himself, who is a native of Hamburg and had served as its mayor from 2011 to 2018 and. The bilateral trade between Germany and China reached $258 billion in 2020, and China enjoys a massive trade surplus of $20.24 billion over Germany. In 2019, half of the Chinese trade into Germany passed through the Hamburg port, making it China’s gateway into Germany.
Read more: A huge crackdown on China is set to begin in Germany
China’s state-owned COSCO Shipping has also struck a deal to buy a stake in one container terminal at the Hamburg port. This is raising concerns of growing Chinese influence in German ports, which is already going out of control. In 2019, DW reported that Duisburg, which has the world’s biggest inland port, was strengthening its ties with China.
Germany in its high and mighty mindset underestimated the Chinese Communist Party. Blinded by possible profits from Chinese markets, Berlin has let itself get played by Beijing. And this has even made the whole of the EU vulnerable. The German engines are powering the Type 052D destroyer which can displace about 7,500 tonnes and has an advanced radar and command and control system, which observers have dubbed as China’s equivalent to the US Aegis battle management system.
The disclosures come at a time when China is constructing the world’s greatest fleet in terms of both ships and men. The People’s Liberation Army Navy possesses 355 ships, according to a recent Pentagon study on China’s military modernization, including “major surface combatants, submarines, aircraft carriers, ocean-going amphibious ships, mine warfare ships, and fleet auxiliaries.” According to a US assessment, the PLAN could increase to 460 ships by 2030. All in all, Germany has singlehandedly compromised western security architecture by providing highly strategic and highly complex tech with China.