Friday, November 4, Olaf Scholz will spend eleven hours in Beijing. The German chancellor is criticized for weaknesses towards China within his own coalition.
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Despite its brevity, the trip will have nothing of a formality. Friday, November 4, Olaf Scholz will only remain eleven o’clock in Beijing, but even before he takes place, this first visit to the German Chancellor in China promises to be more perilous than all these – Total – than Angela Merkel in this country during its sixteen years in power (2005-2021).
Outre-Rhin, there are many criticisms against this flash trip that is considered to be untimely. According to the leader of the German right, Friedrich Merz (Christian Democrat Union), Olaf Scholz “could not choose a worst time” to go to Beijing, less than two weeks after the 20
Twelve days after Mr. Xi’s renewal for a third term at the head of the Communist Party, the round trip of Mr. Scholz to Beijing also took place a week after the Chancellor gave the green light to a Participation of the Chinese Public Cosco group in a container terminal in the port of Hamburg. Even if it was noted that Cosco could only acquire 25 % of the shares, and not 35 % as he wished, this decision aroused strong resistance within the German government, no less than six ministers having spoken against An operation risking paving the way for taking control of a strategic infrastructure by a foreign group.
The fact that Mr. Scholz led Hamburg from 2011 to 2018 did not help anything. “A mayor of Hamburg can make foreign policy as a merchant. But thus acting when one is German Chancellor amounts to violating the interests of Germany and Europe”, writes Thorsten Benner, director of the Berlin Center for Reflection Public Policy Institute, in an article published Monday October 31 in the American journal Foreign Policy.
” No clear strategy “
A week before Mr. Scholz’s visit to Beijing, the green light given to Cosco is seen as a very disturbing signal by those who believe that Germany must be much firmer vis-à-vis China that it was not under M me merkel. “Scholz runs after a China that no longer exists. While China has changed deeply, Scholz makes” Merkel as usual “, deplores the German MEP Reinhard Bütikofer (Greens), president of the European Parliament delegation for relations with China. On the part of this former president of the German Greens (2002-2008), a member of the coalition of the social democrat Olaf Scholz, the accusation is severe. “The coalition contract that we signed at the end of 2021 clearly says that Germany must be much more demanding with regard to China. It must be believed that the Chancellor does not feel bound by this commitment,” regrets Mr. Bütikofer.
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