Hamartia Antidote
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Trains laden with containers of clothes and solar panels straight from China still trundle into the station here about five times a day, but other plans to forge links between this German city and Beijing have ground to a halt.
Duisburg’s aspirations of using Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies to modernise its administration, schools and traffic systems are on ice. Construction of a Chinese business hub on the Rhine River has been abandoned, and embarrassment hangs in the air.
Local officials who not long ago touted Duisburg as Germany’s “China City” say that’s not a tagline they want to use any more.
“Public opinion has changed, political opinion has changed,” says Markus Teuber, the China commissioner for Duisburg, the sole German city to have such a post.
The shift in this western German city of 500,000 mirrors a broader rethink in Europe on relations with Beijing.
Trade continues to flow – China remains the 27-nation European Union’s top trading partner. Yet the EU has inched closer to Washington’s sceptical view of Beijing, a trend the United States expects to continue despite a Chinese “charm offensive”, according to US military documents leaked on the group-chat platform Discord.
Hopes that China would help boost Europe’s economies have been clouded by concerns about competition, influence and exposure. Beijing’s authoritarian turn under President Xi Jinping, its belligerence toward self-ruled Taiwan and its failure to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have all set off alarms.
European policymakers are wary after seeing how dependence on Russian energy limited their leverage when President Vladimir Putin’s tanks rolled toward Kyiv.
“We are no longer this naive continent that thinks, ‘Wow, the wonderful China market, look at these opportunities!’” says Philippe Le Corre, a French analyst with the Asia Society Policy Institute. “I think everyone has got it.”
Many European leaders agree on the need for “smart de-risking”, as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz put it in a speech in Strasbourg in May. But Europe remains divided on what that should involve.
The splits are apparent in the rhetoric of different European leaders – and in the ongoing negotiation of a new strategic policy from Germany, which as the EU’s largest economy accounts for half of the bloc’s €223 billion (HK$1.91 trillion) in annual exports to China.
German Economy Minister Robert Habeck first mentioned in September last year that a new policy was in the works. A draft written by the German Foreign Ministry in early November provides insight into some of the guardrails under debate, but officials say internal wrangling is still under way.
Coalition partners are broadly in line but “nitty-gritty details” need to be worked out, according to one German official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal government policy.
He pushed back on the idea of a delay, yet acknowledged that it would be “optimistic” to expect the strategy before the end of the year.
As European policymakers have been hashing out their positions, China has embarked on a new effort to shape perceptions, advance defence objectives and counter US influence, according to two US joint chiefs of staff briefing documents leaked on Discord.
“Beijing is supplementing its ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy” – assertive, bombastic – “with a more measured approach,” one undated briefing document described, citing public statements by Chinese officials in March.
The effort “privately aims to divide the US from Europe by taking advantage of the EU’s economic challenges stemming from the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict,” according to a second document, which included an assessment by the joint chiefs’ intelligence arm, known as J2.
China’s push has been largely failing, the undated assessment determined, based on March conversations with European diplomats.
“Beijing likely does not fully recognise the extent to which European partners are wary of the PRC’s intentions, and believes its changing rhetoric is sufficient to frustrate transatlantic ties,” it concluded, using the acronym for the People’s Republic of China.
“European officials likely will aim to secure their economic interests while increasingly aligning with US views on the PRC.”
Indeed, the Italian government indicated in May that it intends to pull out of China’s Belt and Road Initiative while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is pushing for export controls on sensitive technologies.
