Germany diplomacy towards China is unfriendly and relations go back to a shaky path

By China Watcher

The Germany government headed by its obnoxious Chancellor Angela Merkel has been adopting an anti-China stance since she took over the leadership in 2005. Though the Chancellor visited Beijing in 2007, she caused a controversy by meeting the exiled Tibetan leader officially for the first time in her office, offending the Chinese government and the many Chinese nationals and Chinese overseas.

Even though the relations appeared to have patched up by a meeting between the foreign ministers of both countries, I have commented in my article earlier that the relationship is fragile and could be broken not months but in weeks to come.

The announcement by the German government to freeze aid talks with the Chinese government in retaliation to the so called “brutal” crackdown by the Chinese paramilitary forces on the Tibetan criminals has confirmed my forecast of the ongoing unsteady relationship which is correct and appropriate. There are just too many political and social elements in the German government that dictates a condition that would promote a relationship based on mutual respect and understanding. The German’s cabinet is a coalition of political parties with different political ideas and style in handling the day-to-day running of the affairs of the government. A sign of this was the previous riff over the meeting of the Chancellor with the Dalai Lama between the Christian Democrat and Social Democrat members.

The suspension of the inter-government aid talk will continue until China stops the “bloody” clampdown on Tibetan protesters. If this is not a threat, then what is it?

The aid involves a total grant of 67.5 million euros (US$105 million) which will mainly be used to finance Chinese companies operating dirty electricity plants. Berlin said it offered the help because China had the world's second-largest emissions of carbon dioxide and was the world's worst sulphur-dioxide polluter.

On the same tone, an European Parliament President from Germany, Hans-Gert Poettering, was quoted as saying in another anti-China paper, Bild am Sonntag, that if the crackdown continues there is a possibility that a boycott of the Olympics is justified.

If we viewed the amount of aid in discussion, it is just a token sum given the magnitude of the pollution problem which of course is largely contributed by the many foreign companies which had moved to China in the past decade to escape the strict pollution laws in their own countries.

Personally, I think the Chinese government is not desperate for the aid and if there is financial assistance– fine and good – if not they will find other ways to do so, one of which could be to solicit the funds from the many rich Chinese overseas who are more than willing to help. Maybe, the government can re-look at the huge foreign reserves of about US$1.5 trillion to tap into as a temporary measure.

The announcement by the German government is just a publicity stunt.

The Chinese government has every right to issue its version of the protest but the West claimed that it is pure propaganda. Isn't the anti-China bashing articles I have come across not a propaganda of the West?

When the Chinese government moves its troop to restore law and order, the Westerner twisted it and called it a brutal crackdown but in its own country it will be known as "maintaining law and order". Why the double standards? Maybe, they would love to see the country in chaos with ethnic clashes between the Tibetans and other racial groups – the Han Chinese and Moslems. And of course, they hope, out of this turmoil, to see the rise of democratic societies and institutions in China.

Even if there is a boycott of the Olympics, as envisioned by the many so-called human rightists – the last stage of the planned move to push for it - a western centric society sulking to the West for direction will never happen in China. China is truly a sovereign nation and with the passage of time, a proud democratic state with Chinese characteristics.