Waltzing in Beijing, Germany’s Olaf Scholz plays US for a fool

In a masterclass of spin, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel presented herself as leader of the free world. In reality, Merkel facilitated Russia’s energy blackmail of Europe and inspired Vladimir Putin’s expansive aggression. Towards Communist China, Merkel’s policy began and ended with trade. Beijing was grateful for its friend.
A new German Chancellor may now be in power, but very little has changed. Visiting Beijing on Friday, Olaf Scholz granted Xi Jinping a clear signal of Germany’s continued deference. Again, China will be grateful. Scholz’s visit offers Xi a priceless domestic propaganda triumph. After all, the good Chancellor leads Europe’s most powerful economy and is the first Western leader to pay homage to Xi since his formal accession to Mao Zedong-level political supremacy.
Scholz has at least some sense that the U.S. and other Western powers are concerned by his trip. Just before jetting off, Scholz opined on why he’s meeting Xi. The op-ed was supposed to calm Washington. In fact, Scholz only emphasized the security challenge he poses for the U.S..
CONGRATULATING BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, THE US MUST ISSUE A CLEAR CHINA WARNING
For a start, where Scholz criticizes China in his op-ed, it is only in the most cautious of terms. The Chancellor offers no condemnation of China’s military escalations around Taiwan, no condemnation of Xi Jinping’s genocide against the Uyghur people, nor even the most basic description of the “consequences” which he says will follow Beijing’s failure to reciprocate German access to Chinese businesses.
Absurdly, Scholz even goes so far as to claim that his recent sale to China of a stake in a Hamburg port shows he can differentiate between dangerous Chinese investments and beneficial ones. The Chancellor leaves out that his security agencies and coalition partners opposed the Hamburg port sale. It will be fun to revisit this issue when Beijing starts leveraging the port’s economics to boost Hamburg’s China-sympathetic AfD and The Left party interests, or to send drones to spy on NATO forces in the Baltic Sea (and then shares the collected intelligence with its “no limits” Russian friend). These threats are not addressed by the Biden administration’s absurd self-congratulation that it pressured Berlin into reducing the Chinese stake.
It’s clear why Scholz is going to China. It’s not, as his op-ed claims, in order to establish a harder headed dialogue. Evinced by his decision to travel without any European Union partners but with numerous German CEOs, this trip is all about Sino-German mercantilism. Beijing recognizes as much and is ready to reward Scholz. China’s Global Times state news outlet observed that Scholz’s “pragmatic approach will surely bring [German businesses] more dividends of China’s development, which will help them get a head start in competition with other foreign investors in China.”
Berlin’s trade gambit is shameless. Consider that the German president also led a trade delegation to Japan, this week. Such lucrative German trade with Japan is only possible due to the U.S. Pacific security umbrella that China now actively seeks to dismantle. As with its Japan waltz, Germany takes all the free trade benefits from that umbrella. It then plays the other side in Beijing. To be fair to Berlin, Washington allows this arrogant double dealing. Were the U.S. to make clear to Japan and South Korea that their privileged trade and security relationships with the U.S. required their more skeptical stance towards Beijing-appeasing governments such as Scholz’s, they would surely respond in kind.
Germany cannot continue to have its American cake and glut itself at the expense of American interests. The glut comes with gall. Forget Scholz’s trip and the Hamburg port for a moment. Handelsblatt reports that Scholz will approve the sale of a German chip manufacturer to a Chinese conglomerate. Beijing’s control of this most critical of critical infrastructure will allow to boost its military and intelligence capabilities against the U.S.. The UK ultimately rejected a similar chip plant sale after pressure from Washington. Other tech giant U.S. allies like Israel are also under U.S. pressure to avoid this kind of activity. For Scholz, however, this action, which should be unconscionable for any serious U.S. ally, isn’t even complicated. He adopts Nike’s slogan: “Just do it.”
Washington cannot afford to keep ignoring Germany’s betrayal. The stakes to U.S. interests and the post-Second World War democratic order are simply too great.
If President Biden won’t do it, the next Republican president should relocate U.S. forces from Germany to Poland or the Baltic states. Restrictions on German companies that provide China with access to privileged technologies should also follow. American consumers should also act. Among other executives, the CEOs of Volkswagen and BMW traveled to Beijing with Scholz. Considering the growing risk of a U.S.-China conflict and the threats that conflict poses to young American lives, it may be time for a silent German car boycott.
Let them eat Chinese cake.
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